Zhou Enlai and His Times

A Talk with Dr. Chen Jian

Dr. Chen Jian is Distinguished Global Network Professor of History, New York University and NYU-Shanghai. He also holds Hu Shih Professor of History Emeritus at Cornell University and Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His most recent book is Zhou Enlai: A Life (Harvard University Press, 2024).

Zhou Enlai was China’s premier for twenty-seven years. Although overshadowed by Chairman Mao, his influence in his own time and since has been vast. Supported by extensive and critical multilingual and multiarchival research, Chen Jian reconstructs how Zhou used his administrative/bureaucratic skill and wisdom of political centrism not only to mitigate the
damage caused by Mao’s utopian visions and continuous-revolution programs but also to create conditions for the coming of the “reform and opening-up” era after Mao’s passing that have made China a superpower into the 21st century.