Xi mourns Liu Yandong, rare woman official among China's Communist elite
BEIJING: President Xi Jinping attended a “solemn” ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday to mourn Liu Yandong, one of only a handful of women to have sat on the Chinese Communist Party’s elite Politburo, state media reported.
President Xi Jinping attended a somber ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday to mourn the passing of Liu Yandong, a notable woman who served in the Chinese Communist Party's elite Politburo, according to state media. The former vice premier passed away on October 28 due to illness at the age of 80, reported Xinhua, the state news agency.
Liu was elected to the 25-member Politburo in 2007 during the 17th Party Congress, but was one of only six women to have ever held a full membership in the top policymaking body, which is currently composed entirely of men. She served in this position until 2017 before retiring, although she continued as vice premier until 2018.
Liu graduated from Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, where she was connected to former Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Throughout her career, she managed health, education, science, culture, sports, and women's and children's issues. Liu had multiple meetings with the then-US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with the two famously embracing at a Washington meeting in 2011.
Clinton playfully referred to a proposal to increase exchanges between the two nations by joking, "We are the two mothers." Liu was cremated on the same day at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing.
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