Two years after that, she made a keynote speech on China's realities and tried to change the stance of the U.S. government in backing the Chinese nationalists. Strong lived in the old Italian Legation in Beijing which had been converted into flats for the leading "foreign friends". They were allocated on the "bleak basis" of seniority; New Zealand civil servant Gerald Hensley recalled that when he visited Rewi Alley in 1973, Alley was living in the best downstairs front apartment which had been allocated to Strong until she died, at which time Alley moved into it and everyone else moved on one place. Through all of this, she became "disaffected with political systems and people" but did not lose her zeal for justice, continuing to write, with Chinese publishers republishing "much of her writing as a Works set." She was not stopped, even by her old age, in her dedication to "Marxist doctrine," especially in China and across the world, writing emotional and colorful accounts that were very popular.