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[Great obit, including this wonderful vignette: "For most of his time in
China, from 1945 to 1980, he was an intimate of the Communist Party’s top
leaders, whom he sought out in their mountain sanctuary, a guerrilla camp
in Yan’an, by trekking 45 days on foot. He played gin rummy and argued
dogma with Mao, talked for days about the United States and philosophy with
Zhou, danced with Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and got to know Mao’s inner
circle, including Liu Shaoqi, the third-ranking leader. They all watched
Laurel and Hardy movies together."
By Robert D. McFadden
August 24, 2019
Sidney Rittenberg, an American soldier-linguist who stayed in China for 35
years after World War II as an adviser and political prisoner of the
Communist Revolution, and later made millions as a counselor of Western
capitalists exploiting booming Chinese markets, died on Saturday in
Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 98.
The family confirmed the death in a statement.
In a saga of Kafkaesque twists, Mr. Rittenberg was a dedicated aide to
Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai as a party propagandist known
across China by his Mandarin name, Li Dunbai — the mysterious foreigner in
Mao’s government. But he ran afoul of Mao’s suspicions, offended Mao’s wife
and spent 16 years in prison, falsely accused of espionage and
counterrevolutionary plotting.
n the United States after his release, he used his extensive knowledge and
contacts in China to build his own capitalist empire, advising corporate
leaders, including Bill Gates of Microsoft and the computer magnate Michael
S. Dell, on how to cash in on China’s vast growing economy. Still welcome
in China, he took entrepreneurs on guided tours, introducing them to the
country’s movers and shakers.
“His compelling tale can perhaps best be understood as a story, writ small,
of modern-day China itself,” the author Gary Rivlin wrote in The New York
Times in 2004. “His metamorphosis from isolated expatriate to high-priced
global go-between mirrors the country’s own shift — from a closed-door
Communist state to a freewheeling moneymaking society, with a new class of
entrepreneurs who dream the same dreams that dance in the heads of people
in places like Silicon Valley.”
The rebel scion of a prominent Charleston, S.C., family, Mr. Rittenberg,
who joined and quit the American Communist Party, arrived in China as an
Army private just as World War II ended.
He was fluent in Chinese, was committed to Marxist-Leninist ideals, was
aware of the rampant corruption in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government
and was determined to take part in momentous historical changes.
For most of his time in China, from 1945 to 1980, he was an intimate of the
Communist Party’s top leaders, whom he sought out in their mountain
sanctuary, a guerrilla camp in Yan’an, by trekking 45 days on foot. He
played gin rummy and argued dogma with Mao, talked for days about the
United States and philosophy with Zhou, danced with Mao’s wife Jiang Qing,
and got to know Mao’s inner circle, including Liu Shaoqi, the third-ranking
leader. They all watched Laurel and Hardy movies together.
Mr. Rittenberg joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1946. He became an
English-language translator of news dispatches for the party’s propaganda
arm and an interpreter of Chinese for communiqués and contacts with
international leaders. He traveled with Mao and the Red Army and witnessed
events of the civil war that led to the Communist victory in 1949, and to
the formation of Mao’s Beijing government, the People’s Republic of China.
Despite his growing status, Mr. Rittenberg was incarcerated twice on
trumped-up charges. After the Communists took power in China, the Soviet
leader Josef Stalin charged in a communiqué to Mao that Mr. Rittenberg was
a secret American agent sent to undermine the revolution. Without trial, he
was held for six years in solitary confinement.
Cleared of the bogus spy charges and released in 1955, he resumed his
status in privileged upper echelons of the party. He was named to a high
post in China’s Broadcast Administration, and later became a director of
Radio Beijing, which regularly denounced the United States. He also wrote
for the controlled New China News Agency, and was a liaison to foreign
journalists and dignitaries. He sometimes broadcast propaganda himself,
anonymously in English with a soft South Carolina drawl.
He was well paid and lived with his third wife, Wang Yulin, and their three
daughters and son in a Beijing suite luxurious even by Western standards,
filled with priceless Ming dynasty antiques. (He had previously been
married to an American who divorced him when he left for China, and to W
