Education
Chang Chin-Fu was educated locally.
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Chang Chin-Fu
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Chang Chin-fu first came into prominence when Communist troops in east-central China were reorganized immediately after the New Fourth Army Incident in January 1941 (see under Yeh T’ing) Under the reorganization, Ch’en I became the acting commander of the New Fourth Army and veteran military leader Chang Yun-i was named as the deputy commander.
Career
Hangchow, the capital of Chang’s native Chekiang, was captured by the Communists in May 1949. After its capture, he served briefly as a vice-mayor of the city, but by the latter part of the year he had transferred to work under the Chekiang Provincial People’s Government. By late 1949 he was heading this government’s Staff Office as well as its Industry Office, and early in 1950 he also became a vice-chairman of the Finance and Economics Committee for the province. He relinquished the first two positions in 1951, but in February of that year he was promoted to the chairmanship of the Chekiang Finance and Economics Committee. In the same month he was also elevated to membership on the Chekiang Provincial People’s Government Council and appointed as a member of the Finance and Economics Committee of the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC), the larger regional government for east China. He was promoted to a vice-chairmanship of the regional financial committee in October 1952, after which he relinquished his posts in the Chekiang Government. The vice-chairmanship of the Finance and Economics Committee of the East China Administrative Committee (as the ECMAC was known after December 1952) was apparently Chang’s only position from late 1952 until mid-1954 when the ECAC was abolished.
In 1954 Chang was transferred to Peking, where he assumed two new posts. In the national legislative branch, he was elected as a deputy from Anhwei to the First NPC, which brought the constitutional government into existence at its first session in September 1954. Under the reorganized central government, Chang was assigned to a vice-ministership under the new Ministry of Local Industry. Inasmuch as Minister Sha Ch’ien-li is a non-Communist, it is likely that Chang was head of Party affairs during his term with the Ministry. He remained with the Ministry until May 1956, when it was abolished, with part of its activities taken over by the Ministry of Food Industry. Although he relinquished the ministerial portfolio in 1956, he has continued to serve in the NPC. He was re-elected from Anhwei to the Second NPC (1959-1964) and again to the Third NPC, which opened its initial session in December 1964.
Chang’s entrance upon a new career as a science administrator in early 1956 was coinci-dental with the announcement of an ambitious 12-Year Scientific Plan in March 1956. At the same time, the Scientific Planning Commission was established as an organ of the State Council, with Chang as a member and secretary-general. When the Commission was reorganized in May 1957, he relinquished his post as secretary-general to Fan Ch’ang-chiang, another science administrator, but retained his membership in the Commission. In November 1958, during still another reorganization, the Commission was merged with the State Technological Commission to form the Scientific and Technological Commission, headed by veteran Communist Nieh Jung-chen. Temporarily, Chang was dropped from membership on the new organization. Early in 1956, approximately at the same time that he had assumed his new position with the Scientific Planning Commission, he was also made one of the vice-presidents of the Academy of Sciences. Two years later (February 1958), he was further identified as the secretary of the Party Committee within the Academy. He continues to hold the vice-presidency of the Academy and probably also the secretaryship. Two other Party science administrators in the Academy, P’ei Li-sheng and Tu Jun-sheng, probably share the burdens of Party work within the Academy, although as an alternate member of the Party Central Committee, Chang clearly outranks both P’ei and Tu. Chang Chin-fu gained his seat on the Central Committee in May 1958, when the second session of the Eighth National Party Congress was held in Peking.
Since 1958 Chang has been carrying many responsibilities both in the Academy and in the Party-directed program for scientific development throughout China. He was among a group of government leaders who, in June 1958, presided over and spoke before meetings held in Wuhan to discuss technical problems involved in launching a multi-purpose engineering project on the Yangtze River. Early in June 1958, at a meeting of the second congress of the CCP organization within the Academy of Sciences, principles were approved that had been raised by Chang on the role of the Party in a further “leap forward” in scientific work. Early in September he spoke at meetings of technical institutes in Changchun, Kirin, which were sponsored by the Academy, and on September 27, 1958, he presided over a ceremony in the suburbs of Peking to inaugurate China’s first research atomic reactor and cyclotron. In the spring of 1959 he sat on the preparatory committee for a national conference of “advanced workers” to carry out the policy of the Great Leap Forward in the fields of industry, communications, finance, and trade. When the conference was held in October 1959, Chang was among the large group serving on its presidium.
Since April 1959, Chang has represented the China Scientific and Technical Association in the CPPCC. He served as a member of the Third National Committee (1959-1964), as well as on the more influential Standing Committee, and was named to the Fourth National Committee, which held its first session in December 1964- January 1965. At the close of this session, he was once again named to the Standing Committee. In January 1960 he was appointed to the State Council’s newly formed Spare-Time Education Committee, and in June of that year served on the presidium (steering committee) of a national conference of “advanced workers” in culture and education. In October 1962 Chang returned to the State Council’s Scientific and Technological Commission as a vice-chairman under Chairman Nieh Jung-chen. His position stands out because he is the only one of several vice-chairmen (as of 1965) who is also a senior official in the Academy of Sciences. Prior to 1963, Chang had not played a significant role in international scientific liaison. However, in May-June 1963 he led an Academy of Sciences delegation to North Korea where he signed a plan for the implementation of the Sino-Korean Scientific Cooperation Agreement during the year 1963. He was again involved with foreign scientists in August 1964 when the Chinese Communists staged the large Peking Scientific Symposium, meetings attended by 367 delegates from 44 countries, the overwhelming majority from Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Chang was the only one of the six deputy heads of the Chinese delegation who is of Party Central Committee stature. (The nominal head of the Chinese delegation, American-trained Chou P’ei-yuan, is not a Communist.) Subsequently, the task of delivering an official report on the symposium before the NPC Standing Committee (September 19, 1964) fell to Chang.
The evidence available on Chang’s career as a science administrator suggests that his role centers largely on the management of Party affairs within scientific organizations. There is no evidence that he has any specialized scientific knowledge nor that he participates in any scientific work. These assertions seem to be borne out by the fact that his available writings are almost completely polemical in nature. A revealing example is found in the June 7, 1958, issue of the JMJP under the title “Liberate Yourself in Thinking and Implement with Firmness the Party’s General Line for Socialist Construction in the Field of Science.”
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party