http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2396036.ece
Mao Anqing Son of Mao Tse-tung Published: 27 March 2007 Mao Anqing, translator: born 2 November 1923; married 1960 Shao Hua (one son); died Beijing 23 March 2007. The last-known surviving son of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Mao Anqing, lived quietly as a translator during the most tumultuous period in China's history. The shadow cast by the Great Helmsman over modern Chinese politics is so huge that it is hardly surprising that none of his children followed him into public life. Born in 1923 in central China's Hunan Province, Mao Anqing was Mao Tse-tung's second son by Yang Kaihui, his first wife according to official records (although some have suggested there was an earlier marriage). Yang Kaihui was executed by the nationalists in 1930 to punish Mao, who was then leading a guerrilla band of Communists laying siege to the city of Changsha where the family lived. For the rest of his life Mao, although he married twice more, would say Kaihui was the true love of his life. The young Mao Anqing was smuggled to Shanghai by the Communists with his older brother Anying, but the two boys were forced to live the life of street urchins, stealing from rubbish bins and eating scraps. In 1930, he was beaten up by a policeman, an incident which was often blamed for the mental illness which plagued him throughout his life. In 1936, Anqing and Anying were sent to Paris, and then the Russian ruler Joseph Stalin had them brought to Moscow, where they lived until 1947, two years before their father led the Communists to victory over Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist KMT in the 1949 civil war. The boys were brought to Russia ostensibly to ensure they had a decent upbringing, but as Jung Chang and Jon Halliday point out in their recent biography, Mao: the unknown story (2005), Stalin was also aware that they would function as hostages, a fact which would help the Russian leader keep his unruly, independent-minded ally in check. Mao Anying was later killed in a US bombing raid during the Korean War, an event which many believe contributed to Mao Anqing's worsening mental state. Mao Tse-tung had planned to name his eldest son as his successor before he died in 1976 in Korea, but any hopes of a dynasty were dashed by Anqing's mental problems. He was believed to have suffered from schizophrenia, and spent much of his adult life in mental hospitals. He also worked at the Academy of Military Sciences as a researcher, which gave him military rank and ensured his status and livelihood. As a legacy of spending his formative years studying in the Soviet Union, Mao Anqing was more comfortable reading Russian than Chinese and he worked in the publicity department of the Central Party Committee translating Marxist-Leninist texts and books on political science. In 1960 Mao Anqing married Shao Hua, now a major-general in the People's Liberation Army and a committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Clifford Coonan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
