China: Statue of Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai, 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976), Zhou Enlai Residence, Shanghai

Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the development of the Chinese economy and restructuring of Chinese society.

Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a ‘concession’ in Shanghai where drug dealers and other traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town and an international byword for dissipation. When the Communists won power in 1949, they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia