在过去十年，当中国领导人面对重要的国家任务，他们会把它交给一名女性。
吴仪在九十年代主持中国加入世贸的谈判工作，赢得了强硬而漂亮的声誉。她在2003年指挥非典防治工作，并曾代表北京与华盛顿进行缓和贸易摩擦的对话。今年8月，政府让她负责产品安全整治，重塑中国受损的国际形象。
但如今，下月就年满69岁的吴仪要退休了，北京要找一位新的问题解决能手，来应对从改善药品安全到稳定金融市场等各种挑战。
美国官方表示，吴仪将在12月再参加一轮与美国财政部长鲍尔森之间的经济对话。但他们后来表示，中国没有表明谁将接替她的职务。
在《福布斯》今年的最具影响力女性百强名单中，吴仪位列第二，仅次于德国总理默克尔，排在美国国务卿赖斯之前。在一个关键决策由更高层的党领导人作决定的系统里，她的离开不大可能影响政策。但是，她是几位即将离职的主要经济官员之一。党领导层鲜有这样富于魅力、智力和谈判技巧（这些让吴仪在世界政治和商界领袖中赢得广泛的尊重）的候选人。
欧盟商会会长伍德克（Joerg Wuttke）表示，吴仪个人是自由贸易的伟大推行者之一。全球透视（Global Insight）首席中国分析师赫斯（William Hess）认为，她将难以被取代。
不曾结婚也不曾育有子女的吴仪在公开场合为中国刻板的正式官方系统展现不同寻常的友好。在北京12月的会谈后，她和鲍尔森在和记者会晤时握手。（作者 JOE McDONALD）
China's Master Problem-Solver Retires
By JOE McDONALD – 1 day ago
BEIJING (AP) — For the past decade, when Chinese leaders had a mission of national importance, they gave it to one woman.
Wu Yi oversaw negotiations in the 1990s on China's entry to the World Trade Organization, winning a reputation as tough but personable. She directed the fight against the SARS pneumonia outbreak in 2003 and has represented Beijing in a dialogue to ease trade friction with Washington. In August, the government put her in charge of whipping product-safety enforcement into shape and restoring China's battered international image.
But now Wu, who turns 69 next month, is retiring, leaving Beijing to find a new top problem-solver for challenges ranging from improving drug safety to stabilizing unruly financial markets.
On Sunday, Wu, a vice premier and the only woman in the senior leadership, left the Communist Party's Central Committee along with many other retiring leaders as the party installed a new lineup to guide the country for the next five years. With that, Wu will have to relinquish her vice premiership, at the latest when a new government is announced in March.
U.S. officials say Wu is due to take part in one more round of economic talks with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in December. But they say after that, China has given no sign who will take over her duties.
A petrochemical engineer by training, Wu rose through the oil ministry and then government hierarchies to become China's highest-ranking female leader. Forbes magazine this year listed her as the world's second-most powerful woman, behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Her departure is unlikely to affect policy in a system where key decisions are made by more senior party leaders.
Still, she is one of several leading officials with economic portfolios stepping down. The party leadership has few candidates to turn to with the charm, intelligence and negotiating skills that won Wu wide respect among world political and business leaders.
"One of the great defenders, one of the great openers-up of this economy is Vice Premier Wu Yi," Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce, said in September. "She personally is one of the great advocators of free trade."
"She will be difficult to replace," said William Hess, chief China analyst for the consulting firm Global Insight.
Wu, who never married and has no children, shows an unusual degree of personal warmth in public for China's stiffly formal official system. After talks in December in Beijing, she and Paulson held hands as they met reporters.
Domestically, Wu has tackled some of the government's most critical problems, stepping in to restore public faith after Chinese leaders initially sluggish response to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. In 2006, she supervised an investigation into China's drug-licensing system after a former regulator was charged with taking bribes to approve untested medicines, some of which killed patients.
In August, Wu was put in charge of overhauling China's product-safety enforcement after a string of recalls and warnings abroad over drug-laced seafood, toxic toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.
Wu joined the ruling party in her early 20s. She spent 15 years at the Beijing East is Red Refinery before becoming a chemical company executive and in 1988 a deputy mayor of Beijing. She became a deputy trade minister in 1991 and a member of the party Politburo in 2002.
Wu has given no indication what she might do in retirement.
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