Bo Yibo

Who was Bo Yibo?

Bo Yibo was a Chinese political and military leader. He was one of the most senior politicians in China during the 1980s and 1990s.

After joining the Chinese Communist Party when he was only 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 served as an alternate member and then member of the Chinese Politburo, deputy prime minister, chairman of State Economic Commission, and vice-chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Chinese Communist Party. Bo was purged in 1966 by the Mao Zedong-backed Gang of Four, but he was returned to power by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, after Mao's death.