President Joe Biden on Thursday lauded the "fierce intellect" of legendary late US diplomat Henry Kissinger, but highlighted in a brief statement that they often "strongly" disagreed with each other.
"Throughout our careers, we often disagreed. And often strongly," Biden said in a statement that recalled Kissinger's "fierce intellect and profound strategic focus." Kissinger, a former secretary of state and White House advisor, died on Wednesday, aged 100.
Henry Kissinger, the relentlessly ambitious US diplomat whose unapologetic promotion of raw American power helped shape the post-World War II world, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100.
Kissinger, arguably the most identifiable secretary of state of modern times, died at his home in Connecticut, announced Kissinger Associates, through which the late diplomat grew wealthy helping businesses for decades after his government career.
It said that Kissinger's family would hold a private funeral, with a memorial service to take place later in New York, where Kissinger grew up after his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany.
The statement did not provide a cause of death. Kissinger had remained active even as a centenarian, traveling to China in July to meet President Xi Jinping.
China was one of Kissinger's most lasting legacies. Hoping to shake up the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, Kissinger secretly reached out to Beijing, culminating in a historic 1972 visit by president Richard Nixon and later the US establishment of relations with the isolated country, which has soared to become the world's second-largest economy and a growing competitor with Washington.
While Kissinger was despised in much of the world, China's foreign ministry on Thursday hailed the late US diplomat as an "old and good friend of the Chinese people."
Kissinger "had long been concerned about and supported the development of China-US relations, visiting China more than a hundred times and making historic contributions to promote the normalization of China-US relations," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Fumio Kishida, prime minister of US ally Japan, credited Kissinger for his "significant contributions" to peace and stability in Asia, "including the normalization of diplomatic ties between the US and China."
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