In recent years, amid deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington, she called for reconciliation and greater understanding. “We have to work together,” she told the Xinhua News Agency in 2018. “Given the intertwined relationship and globalization, it’s ridiculous to think we cannot work together.”
The second of three daughters, Young Xuelan, later known as Shirley, was born May 25, 1935, in Shanghai. Her father, Clarence Kuangson Young, was a diplomat. Her mother, the former Juliana Yen, the daughter of a businessman, was born in Tianjin, China, and educated in a school run by Methodist missionaries.