The sudden death of China’s most influential “dove” has shaken China’s close-knit circle of international policy advisers and removed the most public voice for international engagement during a period of tension along China’s maritime borders.

Retired ambassador Wu Jianmin, 77, died in a car crash before dawn on Saturday morning in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. An interpreter for Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, he served as China’s ambassador to France, the Netherlands and the United Nations in Geneva before heading the influential Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.

In retirement Mr Wu became the public voice defending China’s choice to engage with the existing world order, and was derided as a “dove” by a growing chorus of more assertive nationalists.