Wang Guangmei was born in 1921, and grew up in a distinguished and prominent Chinese family. Her father was a government minister and a diplomat; her mother was an educator. She studied French, Russian and English, learning to speak all three, and earned a degree in physics from the Catholic University of Peking in Beijing. She also studied at an American missionary university, and was described as a sophisticated woman. In the mid-1940s, Wang Guangmei traveled to the Communist Party headquarters in Yan'an and served as an interpreter during efforts by the American statesman George Marshall to negotiate a truce between the Nationalist government and the Communist rebels. At this occasion, she gained the admiration of many Americans, which would later play a role in charges that she was an American spy. There, at the age of 24, she met Liu Shaoqi, who was nearly twice her age and had previously been married on five occasions. For years she served as his secretary, and he was named a key deputy to Chairman Mao Zedong after the Communists took power in 1949. In 1959, Liu was named Chinese President, making him the second-most powerful man in the country.
First lady
After Liu became president in 1959, Wang became a very visible diplomatic companion to him. Wang Guangmei became once widely known in China as its beautiful, articulate, sophisticated first lady. In the early 1960s, the couple traveled abroad on state visits to Afghanistan, Burma, Pakistan and Indonesia. In 1963, she joined a work team investigating corruption in the countryside, a mounting problem after the Great Leap Forward, Mao's development programme of 1958–61.
Liu and his wife became targets of the Cultural Revolution, instigated by Chairman Mao. In mid-1966, when Red Guards erupted into prominence — and Liu and other leaders tried to fathom what Mao had in mind — Wang headed a work team to restore order among the students at Tsinghua University. The effort backfired when she came under attack by a militant opponent who accused her of being a counterrevolutionary. Her husband was also under fire by Mao and his deputies for being the leading "capitalist roader". Wang Guangmei's public role had antagonized Mao's wife Jiang Qing, who was growing politically ambitious. In April 1967, at Jiang's instigation, the Red Guards forced Wang to put on a tight-fitting qipao dress she had worn at a banquet in Indonesia, with silk stockings, high heels and a mocking necklace made out of ping-pong balls, as proof of her bourgeoise, counterrevolutionary attitude. Wang was put under house arrest, then imprisoned. Her four children were also punished. Imprisoned in Qincheng Prison during the cultural revolution, Wang was kept in ignorance of her family's fate. After four years, her children plucked up the courage to ask Mao for permission to see their parents. It was through Mao's terse consent, "their father is dead but they may see the mother", that Wang learned of her husband's death. Wang spent about 12 years in prison, and was released in 1979 — just before Mao's widow Jiang Qing and her Gang of Four, who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, were put on trial.
Later years
Soon, Liu's reputation was rehabilitated, and Wang received compensation for her suffering during the Cultural Revolution. In 1980, she appeared in court during the trial of the Gang of Four as a victim of Jiang Qing's prosecution. Later, Wang was elected a permanent member of the National People's Political Consultative Conference. She founded the "Hope Project", a program aimed at aiding the poor throughout China. She even donated her family's valuable antiques, a few dating back to the Qing and Song dynasties, to charity. Wang died on October 13, 2006, at the No. 305 Military Hospital in Beijing. Her funeral was held at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery in Beijing on October 21, 2006.
