BEIJING:

Zhang Hanzhi, an elegant Chinese diplomat who was Mao Zedong’s English tutor and US President Richard Nixon’s interpreter during his historic 1972 trip to China, has died. She was 72. Zhang died January 26 in Beijing from a lung-related illness, state media reported. Her funeral will be held on Friday in the capital’s Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, an honour given to the Communist Party’s elite.