13 Facts About Wang Bingnan

Wang Bingnan was a diplomat and foreign affairs official of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China.

Wang Bingnan was Secretary General of the Chinese Delegation during the Geneva Conference of 1954.

In 1966, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Wang Bingnan was attacked and imprisoned by the Red Guards.

Wang Bingnan graduated from the Luoyang Military Academy in 1929 and then left for a year of study in Japan.

Wang Bingnan was especially active in rallying Overseas Chinese in Europe to support resistance to Japan's encroachment in China.

Wang Bingnan encouraged General Yang to join the active resistance to Japan rather than press the fight against the Communists.

Wang Bingnan was in the group of Zhou Enlai's protegees from the 1930s who filled most of the positions when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was formed in 1949.

Wang Bingnan was Director General of the General Office, the largest office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1949 to 1955.

Wang Bingnan then served briefly as Assistant Foreign Minister in January and February 1955 before becoming Chinese Ambassador to Poland from March 1955 to April 1964.

In 1967, as the Cultural Revolution gained momentum, Wang Bingnan was suspended from his job at the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Red Guard factions confined him in the basement of an old hotel.

Wang Bingnan was shown the scarred and mutilated body of Zhang Yuyun, his second wife, and was told that she had killed herself.

Wang Bingnan did not have a job or official residence there and lived with his family in cramped conditions.

Deng Xiaoping gave him a position in the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in 1975, but when Deng himself was again purged the following year, Wang Bingnan had a heart attack.