Sun Yat-sen's granddaughter dies in Taiwan

 

Nora Sun, a former U.S. trade consul and granddaughter of the founder of Asia's first republic in China, has died in Taipei from injuries sustained in a car accident. She was 72.
Taiwan's government-owned Central News Agency reported that Sun died Saturday, quoting Shin Kong Memorial Hospital Superintendent Hou Sheng-mou. Hou could not be reached for comment Sunday, but another hospital official confirmed Sun's death.
That official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press.
Sun is the granddaughter of Sun Yat-sen, who led a revolution to topple China's Qing dynasty and establish the Republic of China.
Sun Yat-sen's efforts were followed decades later by a bloody civil war between his follower Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong's communist forces. Chiang's Nationalists resettled in Taiwan in 1949 following their defeat.
Nora Sun was born in Shanghai in 1938, spent her youth in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and moved to the U.S. in 1962.
She began a career in the U.S. diplomatic service in the late 1980s, serving as a U.S. trade consul at different times in Ghougzhou, Shanghai and Paris. She quit her diplomatic career in 1994 to start her own trade company in Hong Kong, helping U.S. and European companies invest in China.
In recent years, she split her time between Shanghai, Hong Kong and the U.S.
She was in Taiwan for the centennial celebrations of the 1911 Chinese revolution led by her grandfather when she was involved in the Jan. 1 car accident.
She is survived by three sons.