Rong Yiren

Rong Yiren was a Chinese businessman and politician, who served as the Vice President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 1998. He was born into a wealthy family in Wuxi, Jiangsu, and received a Western education. He inherited his father's textile business, Rong's Enterprises, which was one of the largest private enterprises in China before 1949. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1938, and participated in the resistance against the Japanese invasion. He was also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he chose to stay in mainland China, while most of his family members fled to Hong Kong. He was one of the few private entrepreneurs who cooperated with the Communist government, and was praised by Mao Zedong as a "patriotic capitalist". He was appointed as the Minister of Textile Industry in 1956, and later became the Vice Mayor of Shanghai. During the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted and imprisoned for four years. He was rehabilitated in 1978, and became the founder and chairman of China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), a state-owned conglomerate that played a key role in China's economic reform and opening-up. He was also elected as the Vice President of the People's Republic of China in 1993, and served until 1998. He was one of the richest and most influential people in China, and was nicknamed the "Red Capitalist". He died of natural causes in Beijing on 26 October 2005, at the age of 89. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Republic, the highest state honor in China .