Luo Guibo

Luo Guibo (Chinese: 罗贵波; Vietnamese: Lã Quý Ba) (1907–1995) was a Chinese diplomat and People's Republic of China politician. He was born in Nankang County, Jiangxi (modern Nankang District, Ganzhou). He joined the Communist Party of China in 1927. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he was a general officer in the Eighth Route Army. Luo served as director of the Administrative Office of the CCP Military Affairs committee, and in January 1950 was sent to Vietnam as liaison to Ho Chi Minh. He was the first Ambassador of China to North Vietnam (1954–1957).

From October 1957 to October 1970, he was China's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs. During Hong Kong's 1967 riots, he denounced the British colonial government's "atrocities", "sanguinary oppression" and "collusion with American imperialism against China" in a formal protest presented to the British chargé d'affaires in Beijing.

Luo was governor of Shanxi.

The Presence of Luo Guibo and Chinese Advisors in Vietnam

On 1 October 1949, People Republic of China (PRC) was founded under the administration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after eight-year-long anti-Japanese war and four-year-long Civil War. Having faced an extremely difficult situation in the fourth year of the French-Indochina War, in December 1949, Hồ Chí Minh dispatched two representatives, Lý Bích Sơn and Nguyễn Đức Thủy, to Beijing with a request for Chinese assistance and for diplomatic recognition for his government. Upon receiving Hồ Chí Minh's request, acting chairman of the Central Committee of the CCP Liu Shaoqi— known in Vietnamese as Lưu Thiếu Kỳ — convened a 24 December meeting of the CCP Politburo to determine the situation in Indochina. Four days later, Liu cabled Hồ Chí Minh on behalf of the CCP Central Committee to specify that the PRC would meet Hồ's request.

First, China agreed to enter into diplomatic relations with the DRV, and that the PRC government would send a team to Vietnam to assess the DRV's needs. In fact, China's assistance based on some complicated considerations. From a geopolitical point of view, it seemed to make sense to Chinese leaders that China could secure its southwestern border, earn Soviet aid and technology, and modernize its armed forces by helping the DRV fight the French forces. Besides, the worldwide expectation and international reputation could be another rationale. Such revolutionary internationalism was widely expected by all Asian Communist parties after the CCP's founding of the People's Republic. Helping Vietnam in this sense could achieve more international reputation for China. The PRC announced its recognition of the DRV on 18 January 1950, followed by the Soviet Union's recognition on 30 January, marking that the DRC's isolation for four years and three months after the establishment of the DRV was over.

As for Chinese assistance requested by Hồ Chí Minh, Liu Shaoqi, with authorization given by Mao while the latter was visiting Moscow, selected Luo Guibo as the liaison representative of the CCP Central Committee. Chosen because his experience as a guerrilla leader gave him the grounding to manage a Chinese advisory mission in Vietnam, Luo and his team were dispatched on a secret mission to Vietnam on 16 January 1950 and arrived in Vietnam on 26 February 1950. Accompanying Lup on the trip to Vietnam was a staff of eight, including a telegraph operator, secretaries and guards. The initial plan for Luo was to stay in Vietnam for three months, but he stayed for seven years, until 1957. His first assignment was as the head of the Chinese Political Advisory Group (CPAG) in the DRV from 1951 to 1954, and the following three years until 1957 he served as China’s ambassador to the DRV.