Chen Xiaolu

On 28 February 2018, Chen died in Hainan following a heart attack, at the age of 71.

Chen went into business after leaving the government, and his princeling status and military background helped his businesses expand to "staggering" sizes. He was an early director of Anbang, founded by Wu Xiaohui, which grew from a small car dealer and insurance company into an insurance giant and bought the iconic Waldorf Astoria New York Hotel in 2014. However, Chen said he was merely an advisor and not a shareholder.

In 2013, before the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, Chen issued a public apology to the teachers he and his classmates tortured. As president of the alumni association of Beijing No. 8 High School, he posted the following message on the alumni website:

He explained that he was worried about the recent trend in China to reverse the repudiation of the Cultural Revolution, and concluded: "My official apology comes too late, but for the purification of the soul, the progress of society, the future of the nation, one must make this kind of apology." In October 2013, he apologized to his old teachers again in person when he visited the No. 8 School for an alumni reunion.

After the Cultural Revolution, Chen worked for a few years as an assistant defence attaché in the Chinese embassy in London, before returning to China in 1985. He subsequently worked for the liberal Central Office for Political Structure Reform under Bao Tong, assistant to the reformist leader Zhao Ziyang, and called for the establishment of independent workers' unions. The proposed political reforms were aborted after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the subsequent crackdown. Chen, then with the rank of colonel, left the government and the military in 1992.

In 1975, Chen married Su Huining (粟惠宁), the daughter of General Su Yu, Marshal Chen Yi's second in command.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Chen joined the Red Guards and tortured and persecuted his teachers. He later confessed that he participated in organizing public struggle sessions against the teachers which often turned violent. He told Jane Perlez of The New York Times that the school's party chief, Hua Jia, committed suicide after being imprisoned in a storeroom and beaten for two weeks. She had been a party member for 30 years.

Chen Xiaolu (simplified Chinese: 陈小鲁; traditional Chinese: 陳小魯; pinyin: Chén Xiǎolǔ; 30 July 1946 – 28 February 2018) was a Chinese military officer and businessman. As a son of Marshal Chen Yi, he was one of China's most prominent princelings, or children of high officials. He held the rank of colonel when he quit his military and government posts in 1992 and entered business. His military background and princeling status helped his businesses expand to great sizes. He was an early director of privately held Anbang, which grew into an insurance giant. In 2013, he made national headlines when he publicly confessed and apologized for torturing and persecuting his teachers during the Cultural Revolution. He has been called the "conscience" of princelings.

Chen was born on 30 July 1946 in the Yi-Meng Mountains in Linyi, Shandong, where his father Chen Yi was the commander of the Shandong Field Army during the Chinese Civil War. He was the youngest of Chen Yi's three sons and his name Xiaolu was from the Confucian classic text Mencius.