Li Yuqin, wife of 'last emperor' of China, dies at 73

Asian Political News, April 30, 2001

BEIJING, April 27 Kyodo

Li Yuqin, a former wife of Pu Yi -- the ''last emperor'' of China -- died recently in her native town Changchun, Jilin Province, Xinhua News Agency said Thursday. She was 73.

The reason given for her death was cirrhosis of the liver.

Li was married at age 15 to Pu Yi as his fourth wife. At the time, Pu Yi, the last emperor (1908-1912) of the Qing dynasty, was emperor in the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo, or Manchuria.

Li and Pu Yi fled to Tonghua, Jilin after Japan's defeat in World War II. After Pu Yi was captured by Soviet troops in 1945 and kept as their prisoner, Li went to live in Beijing.

After the Communists took over the Chinese government in 1949, Li received a communist education and from 1956 worked at the municipal library in Changchun.

In 1958 she was officially divorced from Pu Yi and married a technician from Changchun.

During the 1980s, Li served as a member of people's advisory councils to the municipal government of Changchun and Jilin Province.