(FILES) Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong applauds during the closing session of the 2013 US-China High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange at the Department of State in Washington DC on November 21, 2013. President Xi Jinping mourned Liu Yandong on November 3, 2026, one of only a handful of women to have sat on the Chinese Communist Party's elite Politburo, attending a "solemn" ceremony in Beijing, state media reported. (Photo by Paul J. RICHARDS / AFP via Getty Images)