Background
Ch’ien was born in 1911 in Wu-sung (Woosung), Kiangsu, immediately north of Shanghai.
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Ch’ien Hsin-chung
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He was educated in Wu-sung schools and then entered T’ing-chi University, also in Wu-sung, in 1925 where he studied engineering. After a year there the lack of funds forced him to drop out, whereupon he worked in a hospital in Shanghai as a nurse, holding the job for five years. Ch’ien left the hospital in 1931 to join the Nationalist Army, motivated by the Japanese attack on Shanghai in that year. He became dissatisfied with the Nationalists and deserted.
Career
After Ch’ien left the Nationalist Army he sought out the Communists. The latter, however, thought him to be a spy and imprisoned him. He was released in 1933 and began to work in the “Red Army General Hospital” (the locale of which is not mentioned in Snow’s account). He was then assigned as director of hospital work in the 25th Red Army led by Hsu Hai-tung, a force that remained in the Oyiiwan Soviet base until late 1933 or early 1934 when it marched to Shensi. After the 25th Red Army reached Shensi it was merged with other Communist units and was designated the 15th Army Corps. When Snow interviewed Ch’ien in Kansu in the late summer of 1936 he identified him as director of the 15th Army Corps’ Public Health Bureau. He also described Ch’ien as being “angry over the non-resistance policy in Manchuria” and as a “convinced Marxist.” Nothing further was heard of him until September 1949 when he attended the first session of the CPPCC in Peking as a delegate from the Second Field Army, the force led by Liu Po-ch’eng, which was at that time poised for its final thrust into southwest China. During the course of the CPPCC meetings Ch’ien served on the ad hoc committee headed by Chou En-lai to draft the Common Program, the document that served as the constitution until a formal constitution was adopted five years later.
After the CPPCC meetings Ch’ien proceeded to the southwest where he became director of the Health Department of the Southwest Military Region. However, by mid-1950 he was switched from military to civil work with the establishment of the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC), the body headed by Liu Po-ch’eng, which was responsible for administering the provinces of Szechwan, Sikang, Kweichow, and Yunnan. When the SWMAC was formally established in July 1950, Ch’ien was named as a SWMAC member, as well as director of the subordinate Public Health Department and as a member of the Culture and Education Committee. In August 1950 he was named to the Standing Committee of the AllChina Federation of Scientific Societies when the federation was inaugurated. Eight years later (September 1958), this organization was merged with another scientific body to form the China Scientific and Technical Association, with Ch’ien as one of the National Committee members, a position he still holds.
In May 1957 he received his first Peking post, membership on the State Council’s Scientific Planning Commission when the Commission was reorganized and expanded. He retained the post until the Commission was again reorganized in November 1958. At about this same time he also assumed the position of a deputy director of the Health Department under the PLA’s General Rear Services Department. However, with the press of additional assignments in the government structure, Ch’ien apparently did not. hold this military post for along period. In October 1957, he was named as a vice-minister of Public Health under Miss Li Te-ch’iian. In the next month he returned to Moscow, this time in the scientific delegation led by Kuo Mo-jo to the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Russian Revolution (although it is clear that Kuo’s large scientific group engaged in lengthy scientific discussions quite apart from the anniversary celebrations).
Politics
Apparently to take advantage of his familiarity with the Soviet scientific world, Ch’ien was assigned by the early fall of 1961 to work on the Sino-Soviet Commission on Scientific and Technical Cooperation, meetings of which are held approximately semi-annually. He took part in the 11th session of this commission in Peking under the direction of science administrator Wu Heng (q.v.). Less than two years later, in June 1963, he took part in negotiations, again in Peking, leading to the signing of a protocol to the 13th session. In 1961 Ch’ien received two further assignments related to the medical field. He was named to a vice-presidency in the China Medical Society, one of the many learned organizations subordinate to the above-mentioned China Scientific and Technical Association in which he serves. Also, in October 1961, he was named to the Standing Committee of the Red Cross Society of China, an organization chaired by Li Te-ch’iian, then his superior in the Ministry of Public Health.
Between 1962 and 1964, Ch’ien was abroad on three occasions. Back in the Soviet Union in July 1962, he led a delegation of cancer specialists to the Eighth International Cancer Conference in Moscow. From November 1963 to January 1964 he was in North Korea heading a public health delegation visiting the country in accordance with a Sino-Korean cultural cooperation agreement. He was abroad once again in October 1964 as the head of a medical delegation to Cairo for the First Afro-Asian Medical Conference, and en route home stopped for a week’s visit in Pakistan (November). During this same period he was elected from his native Kiangsu to the Third NPC. At the first session of the Third NPC, held in December 1964-January 1965, Ch’ien served as a member of the presidium (steering committee), and on the closing day was named to succeed Li Te-ch’iian as minister of Public Health. Four months later (April 1965) he succeeded Li in another post when he became chairman of the Red Cross Society. Thus by 1965 Ch’ien could be considered the senior PRC official in the field of public health and related activities.
Membership
For about three years he was in the Soviet Union studying public health administration at an institute subordinate to the Ministry of Public Health. While still in Moscow, Ch’ien was appointed in February 1955 as a standing committee member of a “medical science research committee” under the Chinese Ministry of Public Health. This was an indication that following his return to China (1956) he was scheduled for assignments in Peking in the field of science and public health.
As with many present-day leaders, Ch’ien holds a number of pro forma positions of apparently little significance. He is a member of the Council of the China-Africa People’s Friendship Association (from April 1960) and a vice-president of the China-Ceylon Friendship Association from its establishment in September 1962. He makes rather frequent appearances to entertain foreign visitors who have interests in the field of medicine, and he also appears often at scientific meetings. In late 1961, for example, he spoke in Shanghai at a national conference on schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease which has plagued China for centuries, and in September 1963 he made the closing speech before a congress of surgeons.
Personality
Ch’ien is said to be a man with an easy-going character and a sense of humor. His only known writing of significance is an article that appeared in Peking Review (February 28, 1964) under the title “Chinese Medicine: Progress and Achievements.”
Connections
Ch’ien has been married at least twice. When he was working in the southwest in the early 1950’s, his wife died, leaving him with four children. Then, while in Moscow, he married a doctor surnamed Shen (in about 1956), a woman some 15 years younger than he. She is the mother of two children by Ch’ien, and following their return to China in 1956 she worked in a mental hospital in Peking.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Education
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1925