Li Min (daughter of Mao Zedong)

The Names of Li Min and her sister Li Na come from Book 4 of the Analects of Confucius: "ne yu yan er min yu xing" (讷于言而敏于行, meaning slow in speech and earnest in conduct).[1][2]

Li Min (left) and her father Mao Zedong in 1954

Li Min was born on the winter of 1936 in Zhidan, Yan'an. She was initially named Mao Jiaojiao, after Deng Yingchao, wife of Zhou Enlai, who came to congratulate Mao, saw Li and said affectionately: "What a little Jiao Jiao!". In 1937, He Zizhen traveled to the Soviet Union to treat a wound sustained earlier in battle and left Li Min in Yan'an.[3]

In January 1941 after the New Fourth Army incident, Li Min at the age of 4, was sent to the Soviet Union to live with He Zizhen. In 1947, He Zizhen finally returned to China with Li Min and lived in Harbin. Later, Mao Zedong requested someone to bring Li Min back to Beijing. In the early summer of 1949, Li Min returned to Mao Zedong.

After the founding of People's Republic of China, Li Min entered Beijing Bayi School, and after graduation, entered the Girls' Middle School affiliated to Beijing Normal University. After graduating from high school, Li Min was admitted to the Chemistry Department of Beijing Normal University in 1958. [4]

Li Min and her father Mao Zedong

In 1964, Li Min and her husband Kong Linghua moved into an ordinary residence at Bingmasi Hutong in Beijing to begin a real civilian life.

In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began, Li Min and her husband was also criticized by the Red Guards. They were ordered to confess and included in the list of May Sixteenth elements. Later when criticizing the "bourgeois reactionary line", they were criticized at the same time. In early 1968, Li Min and her comrades went to the Wangsiying Commune in the suburbs of Beijing to participate in agricultural labor, and returned to the National Defense Science and Technology Commission.[5]

On the evening of October 25, 1969, Li Min was taken to the "May 7th" labor farm in Lianhua Lake, Suiping County in Henan Province along with officials of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission. In early 1971, Li Min went to the cadre school of the Science and Technology Commission. On September 13, after Marshal Lin Biao's death in a plane crash, Li Min returned to Beijing from the cadre school.[6]

In December 1973, the Party Committee of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission officially made a redress decision for Li Min.

Li Min (left) with her mother He Zizhen and son Kong Jining

Li Min was a member of the 10th National Congress of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.[7]

On 2006, on the eve of the 40th anniversary on the start of Cultural Revolution, Li Min and other Mao Zedong's family members went to North Korea to pay homage to her brother Mao Anying, who died during the Korean War.[8]

On April 15, 2015, on behalf of President of Russia Vladimir Putin, Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov presented Li Min with the Jubilee Medal "70 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".

On 2018, rumors regarding Lin Min's death in a presumed car accident in North Korea on April 22, went viral in Chinese social networking site Sina Weibo. But on May 24, Li Min attended the press conference of the new book "My Uncle Zhou Enlai" held by Zhou Bingde, Zhou Enlai's niece, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Presumably, someone confused Li Min and other person named Mao Jiaojiao, the vice chairman of the Heilongjiang Provincial Political Consultative Conference, who had died on July 21, 2018.[9]

Li Min and Kong Linghua

In 1959, while studying at Beijing Normal University, Li Min met Kong Linghua (simplified Chinese: 孔令华; traditional Chinese: 孔令華; pinyin: Kǒng Lìnghuá). A top student of Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a classmate of Li Min, they were married in the same year.

They had one son, Kong Jining (simplified Chinese: 孔继宁; traditional Chinese: 孔繼寧; pinyin: Kǒng Jìníng) and one daughter, Kong Dongmei (simplified Chinese: 孔东梅; traditional Chinese: 孔東梅; pinyin: Kǒng Dōngméi). Kong Dongmei herself has 3 children and is said to be worth an estimated €620 million.[10]

In 1999, while returning from an event commemorating Mao Zedong in Guangzhou, Kong Linghua was involved in a car accident. He later died of heart attack in a hospital, during an operation.[11]