The life and legacy of Zhou Enlai: an interview with Professor Ken Hammond

To mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of Zhou Enlai - one of the top leaders of the Chinese Revolution, and Premier of People's China from 1949 until his death in 1976 - we conducted an extensive interview with Professor Ken Hammond about Zhou's life and legacy. The interview covers Zhou Enlai's formation as a revolutionary; his role in the early years of the Chinese Revolution in the 1920s; his working relationship with Mao Zedong; his contribution to Marxist understanding of socialist foreign policy; his role in establishing links of solidarity between China and Africa; his role in the negotiations with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon that brought about the start of a rapprochement between the US and China; his experiences in the Cultural Revolution; and his lasting legacy, both in China and globally. Ken Hammond is a professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University, founding director of the Confucius Institute at New Mexico State University, and an activist with Pivot to Peace. He’s also a member of the Friends of Socialist China advisory group, and is working on a biography of Zhou Enlai. He is interviewed by our co-editor Carlos Martinez. 00:00 Introduction 00:36 Zhou's early life and political formation 07:50 Shanghai Massacre and the collapse of the First United Front 16:24 The working relationship of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai 26:05 Zhou's contribution to Marxist understanding of foreign policy 33:05 The Bandung Conference of 1955 38:28 The early links of solidarity between China and Africa 43:45 Negotiations with Kissinger and Nixon 56:00 Zhou Enlai in the Cultural Revolution 01:04:55 The Four Modernizations 01:11:39 The April 1976 Tiananmen Incident 01:16:55 Zhou's relations with the DPRK 01:19:45 The enduring legacy of Zhou Enlai 01:23:46 Summing up, further reading