Chen Muhua

Chen Muhua (; 1921 – 12 May 2011) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and politician who served as Vice Premier, State Councilor, Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, Commissioner of the National Family Planning Commission, Governor of the People's Bank of China, and Chairwoman of the All-China Women's Federation. She was an alternate member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, one of the few women to have entered China's top decision-making body.

Early life Chen Muhua was born in 1921 in Qingtian County, Zhejiang Province, during the Republic of China period. Her uncle was a Kuomintang air force official who helped her complete high school education, but she was sympathetic to the Communist cause and went to Yan'an, the wartime base of the Communists, in 1938, after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. She told her mother that she would return in six months, but was unable to go home until the end of the war in 1945, when her mother had already died.

Chen studied military science at the Counter-Japanese Military and Political University in Yan'an, and joined the Chinese Communist Party. Her teachers included Zhu De, Chen Yun, and Otto Braun (known in China as "Li De"). During the Yan'an Rectification Movement, she was subject to constant investigation because of her Kuomintang uncle, despite being pregnant. She was forced to give away her daughter when she was born in 1943.

During the Cultural Revolution, Chen was labeled a "capitalist roader", partly because she had suggested that cadres dealing with foreign countries should learn foreign languages. There was also rumour that Chen Cheng, the Kuomintang Vice-president of the Republic of China on Taiwan, was her uncle. Chen Muhua's brother was persecuted to death in Heilongjiang Province.

When China initiated its family planning policy in the early 1980s, she was put in charge of the National Family Planning Commission.

Family In 1940, Chen married Zhong Yi , a graduate of Harbin Institute of Technology, in Yan'an. Zhong served as a military commander in the 1960s, but retired early due to poor health. They had four daughters. She was forced to give away her newborn second daughter in 1943, when she was under investigation during the Rectification Movement. After 1949, Chen spent decades searching for the daughter, until they were finally reunited in 1975. She was buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.