Bo Yibo

Bo Yibo
薄一波
Bo Yibo, aged 38, c. 1946
Executive Vice Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission
In office
12 September 1982 – 18 October 1992
Serving with
Director of the National Machinery Industry Commission
In office
February 1980 – May 1982
Preceded byNew title
Succeeded byZou Jiahua
Vice Premier of China
In office
16 November 1956 – 16 March 1966
PremierZhou Enlai
In office
1 July 1979 – 20 June 1983
Premier
Director of the National Economic Commission
In office
May 1956 – September 1968
Preceded byNew title
Succeeded bySu Jing [zh]
Director of the National Basic Construction Commission
In office
November 1954 – August 1956
Preceded byNew title
Succeeded byWang Heshou [zh]
Director of the National Organization Committee
In office
March 1950 – 1954
Preceded byNew title
Succeeded byPosition revoked
1st Minister of Finance
In office
19 October 1949 – 18 September 1953
Preceded byNew title
Succeeded byDeng Xiaoping
First Secretary of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
In office
1949–1954
Preceded byLiu Shaoqi
Succeeded byLi Xuefeng
Personal details
Born
Bo Shucun (薄書存)

(1908-02-17)17 February 1908
Dingxiang County, Shanxi, Qing Empire
Died15 January 2007(2007-01-15) (aged 98)
Beijing, China
Political partyChinese Communist Party
RelationsBo Guagua (grandson)
Children7, including Bo Xilai
Alma materCentral Party School of the Chinese Communist Party
Chinese name
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinBó Yībō
Bo Shucun
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinBóShūcún
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Bo Yibo (Chinese: 薄一波; pinyin: Bó Yībō; Wade–Giles: Po2 I1-po1; 17 February 1908 – 15 January 2007) was a Chinese politician. He was one of the most senior political figures in China during the 1980s and 1990s.

After joining the Chinese Communist Party when he was 17, he worked as a Communist Party organizer in his native city of Taiyuan, Shanxi. He was promoted to organize Communist guerrilla movements in northern China from a headquarters in Tianjin in 1928, but he was arrested and imprisoned by Kuomintang police in 1931. In 1936, with the tacit support of the Communist Party, Bo signed an anti-communist confession to secure his release. After his release Bo returned to Shanxi, rejoined the communists, and fought both the Kuomintang and the Japanese Empire in northern China until the Communists completed their unification of mainland China in 1949.

During Bo's career he held successive posts as Communist China's inaugural Minister of Finance, a member of the Communist Party's Politburo, Vice-Premier, chairman of State Economic Commission, and vice-chairman of the party's Central Advisory Commission. Bo was purged in 1966 by the Mao-backed Gang of Four, but he was brought back to power by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, after Mao's death.

Bo was one of a select group of powerful veterans centred on Deng who were informally known as the "Eight Immortals" for their political longevity and for the vast influence they commanded during the 1980s and 1990s. After returning to power Bo supported economic liberalization, but was a moderate conservative politically. He initially supported both Hu Yaobang and the 1989 Tiananmen protesters, but he was eventually persuaded by hardliners to support both Hu's dismissal in 1987 and the use of violence against protesters in 1989. Bo's political involvement declined in the 1990s, but he used his influence to support both Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, and to promote the career of his son, Bo Xilai. He was the last remaining, and longest-lived, of the Eight Elders at the time of his death on 15 January 2007, just a little over a month short of his 99th birthday.