Sep 26, 2025
Zhou Enlai poses for the italian photojournalist Giorgio Lotti during a conference in Beijing, 1973.
According to the photographer's testimony, he was waiting with other reporters to take a picture after a press meeting. Lotti took the last place in line hoping to get some more time with the Prime Minister: after shooting his photo he was about to ask for a second one, contrary to the usual praxis, but in that moment Zhou was called by an assistant and turned his head. Lotti, in that second of distraction, took his famous photo. Zhou himself was so fond of it that it became his official portrait, printed in hundreds of milions of copies and present in milions of chinese homes.
