Ji Pengfei was born in
Linyi,
Yuncheng,
Shanxi in 1910. He joined the
Chinese Red Army in 1931, and the
Chinese Communist Party in 1933. After the establishment of the
People's Republic of China, Ji Pengfei worked with the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and led diplomatic missions to
East Germany before being appointed as China's first
ambassador to the GDR in 1953, being the youngest Chinese ambassador at 43. He was recalled to serve as vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in 1955. When the
Cultural Revolution broke out, he was initially targeted as member of the counter-revolutionary clique ruling the Foreign Ministry, along with
Chen Yi and
Qiao Guanhua. Nevertheless, he was relatively untouched as he remained at his post. After Chen Yi died in 1972, Ji Pengfei succeeded him as Foreign Minister until 1974, and was elected
CCP Central Committee member. He was appointed secretary-general of the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1975, and confirmed in 1978. In 1972, he signed
Japan-China Joint Communiqué with Prime Minister
Kakuei Tanaka and Foreign Minister
Masayoshi Ohira of Japan. In the post-Cultural Revolution period, Ji Pengfei held several posts. In 1979 he was appointed head of the
International Liaison Department of the CCP Central Committee, then
vice premier and secretary-general of the
State Council from 1980 to 1982, and finally head of the
Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. He also served as Standing Committee member of the
Central Advisory Commission, a Party body aimed at helping the retirement of elder officials. In 1999, his son,
Ji Shengde, a senior member of the
People's Liberation Army intelligence, was arrested and tried for corruption, selling classified information and diverting public funds, and was sentenced to death penalty. The penalty was commuted to 20 years in prison, when he returned stolen money and denounce other abuses. Ji Pengfei was praised by the
Xinhua News Agency as an outstanding communist fighter, and greatly lauded again in 2010 at a ceremony in the
Great Hall of the People to celebrate his 100th birth anniversary. == References ==