Chang Ping-hua

1903

Hunan, China

During the Sino-Japanese War Chang was a political officer under Ho Lung who commanded the 120th Division of the Communist Eighth Route Army that was stationed in the Shansi-Suiyuan Border Region for most of the war years. To judge from an article that Chang wrote for the Chung-kuo ch’ing-nien pao (China youth newspaper) on July 2, 1963, he apparently spent a part of the war years in Yenan. Nothing else is known of his career before the Communist conquest in 1949. When Communist forces captured Wuhan, the important Yangtze River industrial city, in May 1949, Chang became the ranking secretary of the Wuhan Party Committee. As a major Party and government official in Wuhan, Chang was in a vulnerable position in the fall of 1951 when a major case of corruption was exposed in the Party press. Known as the “Sung Ying case” (named after the deputy director of the Wuhan Government Public Health Bureau), it involved several persons including Party veterans who had been accused of mal-feasance and corruption in a letter written under an assumed name to Mao Tse-tung by a local Party member. The letter exposed irregularities that occurred in 1950, but as the case developed, other charges were brought against the alleged offenders, including accusations that they had allowed an innocent person to be jailed for eight months for stealing funds from a hospital. Stimulated by authorities in Peking, an investigation was begun by the Central-South Party Bureau under whose jurisdiction Wuhan fell. When the Bureau pressured the Wuhan Party Committee to look into the matter, Chang P’ing-hua, as the Committee’s chief secretary, became involved in the case. The Wuhan Committee conducted its first investigation as early as May 1951, with Chang in charge. But his Committee failed to assign the blame for the theft upon the culprit (although the latter had already been brought under suspicion), chiefly because the Committee could not bring itself to consider a veteran Party member guilty of stealing. Not satisfied with the results, the Central-South Bureau again pressured Chang for further investigations. Five times, it was claimed, he had received but ignored Bureau directives. In December 1951 he presided over a meeting called to conduct wider investigations; now troubled by the censure from the regional Bureau, Chang criticized his handling of the case and promised to do better. However, his self-criticisms were not severe enough to satisfy the regional authorities, who subsequently called a meeting of the CSMAC in February 1952. The meeting was attended by 137 “high-level cadres” and 52 members of the CSMAC, many of them Party members. Teng Tzu-hui, vice-chairman of the CSMAC and second to Lin Piao in charge of political affairs in central-south China, conducted the meeting. Criticisms and self-criticisms were the order of the day. Chang was again forced to censure himself. But the results were still not entirely successful, for the meeting found that “though directly responsible for the mistaken handling of the case,” Chang “had carried out examinations and discussions in a strict manner.” Accordingly, he was punished “with leniency,” and given a “verbal censure.” He was, however, demoted to deputy secretary of the Wuhan Party Committee, being replaced by Li Hsien-nien, a high-ranking Party official. Other important figures implicated in the case included Wuhan Mayor Wu Te-feng, Vice-mayor Chou Chi-fang (the husband of Sung Ying), and Hsieh Pang-chih, a member of the Wuhan Party Committee. Still others were dismissed from their jobs, expelled from the Party, or, in several cases, imprisoned. Notwithstanding the apparent severity of the case, a number of the higher-ranking Party officials made political comebacks most notably Wu Te-feng, Hsieh Pang-chih (who became ambassador to Bulgaria in 1962), and Chang P’ing-hua himself. The Sung Ying case coincided with the famous “three-anti” movement directed against the three “evils” of corruption, waste, and bureaucratism. The fact that some of the more important Party members involved ultimately moved on to higher positions in the hierarchy suggests that the Party used the case as a “model” to revitalize the sagging revolutionary fervor of Party members who had grown lethargic in the performance of their duties. In any event, Chang P’ing-hua was active again in his capacity as a Wuhan deputy secretary within three months of the February 1952 meeting when the Sung Ying case was settled. Although he was not re-elected to membership on the CSMAC when it was reorganized in early 1953, he continued to serve as the second-ranking Party official in Wuhan and, finally, in November 1954 he was promoted to the first secretaryship, replacing Wang Jen-chung. At the same time that Chang became Wuhan first secretary, he was also identified as third secretary of the Hupeh Provincial Party Committee; he advanced to second secretary by March 1956 and then in October 1956 he was identified simply as secretary (although this was still the second-ranking post under First Secretary Wang Jen-chung). In March 1955 Chang had also become chairman of the Wuhan CPPCC Committee, but by this time he had assumed more important posts at the provincial level, and it appears that by the end of 1955 he was largely removed from Wuhan municipal affairs. He was reported in the press regularly in the mid-fifties, often in the company of the CCP’s top leaders, as when Li Fu-ch’un visited Wuhan in October 1957 and when Mao was there in April 1958. In May 1958 Chang received his first national Party post when he was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee at the second session of the Eighth National Congress. A month later he was made a deputy leader of a group appointed to inspect production in Hupeh at the beginning of the period of the Great Leap Forward. In September 1959, after spending a decade in Hupeh, Chang was assigned to his native Hunan, where he succeeded Chou Hsiao- cou as first secretary of the Hunan Party Committee. Chou, probably a victim of the Great Leap, was removed front all his Hunan posts. Thus, Chang P’ing-hua succeeded Chou in December 1959 when the former was elected chairman of the Second Hunan Committee of the CPPCC, and by April 1960 he had also replaced Chou as political commissar of the Hunan Military District. Chang continued to make numerous appearances in Hunan as he had previously in Hupeh, speaking before provincial Party meetings, conducting inspections throughout the province, and engaging in similar duties that normally occupy the time of top provincial leaders. In September 1964 he became chairman of the Third Hunan Committee of the CPPCC and in the same month he was also elected as a member of the Hunan Provincial People’s Government Council. Chang spent most of his time in Hunan, but he made one important trip abroad in January 1963 when he went to East Germany to attend the Sixth Congress of the German Socialist Unity (Communist) Party. The Congress served as a platform for mutual denunciations between the Chinese and the Russians as part of the continuing Sino-Soviet ideological dispute (see under Wu Hsiu-ch’iian, the delegation leader).

Chang Ping-hua

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politician

Background

A native of Hunan, where he was born in 1903.

Education

Chang was active at the Communist base on the borders of Hunan, Hupeh, and Kiangsi in the early 1930’s and was in this area in 1933 when Jen Pi-shih was sent there to take charge of political affairs (see under Wang Shou- tao).

Career

During the Sino-Japanese War Chang was a political officer under Ho Lung who commanded the 120th Division of the Communist Eighth Route Army that was stationed in the Shansi-Suiyuan Border Region for most of the war years. To judge from an article that Chang wrote for the Chung-kuo ch’ing-nien pao (China youth newspaper) on July 2, 1963, he apparently spent a part of the war years in Yenan. Nothing else is known of his career before the Communist conquest in 1949. When Communist forces captured Wuhan, the important Yangtze River industrial city, in May 1949, Chang became the ranking secretary of the Wuhan Party Committee.

As a major Party and government official in Wuhan, Chang was in a vulnerable position in the fall of 1951 when a major case of corruption was exposed in the Party press. Known as the “Sung Ying case” (named after the deputy director of the Wuhan Government Public Health Bureau), it involved several persons including Party veterans who had been accused of mal-feasance and corruption in a letter written under an assumed name to Mao Tse-tung by a local Party member. The letter exposed irregularities that occurred in 1950, but as the case developed, other charges were brought against the alleged offenders, including accusations that they had allowed an innocent person to be jailed for eight months for stealing funds from a hospital. Stimulated by authorities in Peking, an investigation was begun by the Central-South Party Bureau under whose jurisdiction Wuhan fell. When the Bureau pressured the Wuhan Party Committee to look into the matter, Chang P’ing-hua, as the Committee’s chief secretary, became involved in the case. The Wuhan Committee conducted its first investigation as early as May 1951, with Chang in charge. But his Committee failed to assign the blame for the theft upon the culprit (although the latter had already been brought under suspicion), chiefly because the Committee could not bring itself to consider a veteran Party member guilty of stealing. Not satisfied with the results, the Central-South Bureau again pressured Chang for further investigations. Five times, it was claimed, he had received but ignored Bureau directives. In December 1951 he presided over a meeting called to conduct wider investigations; now troubled by the censure from the regional Bureau, Chang criticized his handling of the case and promised to do better. However, his self-criticisms were not severe enough to satisfy the regional authorities, who subsequently called a meeting of the CSMAC in February 1952. The meeting was attended by 137 “high-level cadres” and 52 members of the CSMAC, many of them Party members. Teng Tzu-hui, vice-chairman of the CSMAC and second to Lin Piao in charge of political affairs in central-south China, conducted the meeting. Criticisms and self-criticisms were the order of the day.

Chang was again forced to censure himself. But the results were still not entirely successful, for the meeting found that “though directly responsible for the mistaken handling of the case,” Chang “had carried out examinations and discussions in a strict manner.” Accordingly, he was punished “with leniency,” and given a “verbal censure.” He was, however, demoted to deputy secretary of the Wuhan Party Committee, being replaced by Li Hsien-nien, a high-ranking Party official. Other important figures implicated in the case included Wuhan Mayor Wu Te-feng, Vice-mayor Chou Chi-fang (the husband of Sung Ying), and Hsieh Pang-chih, a member of the Wuhan Party Committee. Still others were dismissed from their jobs, expelled from the Party, or, in several cases, imprisoned.

Notwithstanding the apparent severity of the case, a number of the higher-ranking Party officials made political comebacks most notably Wu Te-feng, Hsieh Pang-chih (who became ambassador to Bulgaria in 1962), and Chang P’ing-hua himself. The Sung Ying case coincided with the famous “three-anti” movement directed against the three “evils” of corruption, waste, and bureaucratism. The fact that some of the more important Party members involved ultimately moved on to higher positions in the hierarchy suggests that the Party used the case as a “model” to revitalize the sagging revolutionary fervor of Party members who had grown lethargic in the performance of their duties. In any event, Chang P’ing-hua was active again in his capacity as a Wuhan deputy secretary within three months of the February 1952 meeting when the Sung Ying case was settled. Although he was not re-elected to membership on the CSMAC when it was reorganized in early 1953, he continued to serve as the second-ranking Party official in Wuhan and, finally, in November 1954 he was promoted to the first secretaryship, replacing Wang Jen-chung.

At the same time that Chang became Wuhan first secretary, he was also identified as third secretary of the Hupeh Provincial Party Committee; he advanced to second secretary by March 1956 and then in October 1956 he was identified simply as secretary (although this was still the second-ranking post under First Secretary Wang Jen-chung). In March 1955 Chang had also become chairman of the Wuhan CPPCC Committee, but by this time he had assumed more important posts at the provincial level, and it appears that by the end of 1955 he was largely removed from Wuhan municipal affairs. He was reported in the press regularly in the mid-fifties, often in the company of the CCP’s top leaders, as when Li Fu-ch’un visited Wuhan in October 1957 and when Mao was there in April 1958.

In May 1958 Chang received his first national Party post when he was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee at the second session of the Eighth National Congress. A month later he was made a deputy leader of a group appointed to inspect production in Hupeh at the beginning of the period of the Great Leap Forward. In September 1959, after spending a decade in Hupeh, Chang was assigned to his native Hunan, where he succeeded Chou Hsiao- cou as first secretary of the Hunan Party Committee. Chou, probably a victim of the Great Leap, was removed front all his Hunan posts. Thus, Chang P’ing-hua succeeded Chou in December 1959 when the former was elected chairman of the Second Hunan Committee of the CPPCC, and by April 1960 he had also replaced Chou as political commissar of the Hunan Military District. Chang continued to make numerous appearances in Hunan as he had previously in Hupeh, speaking before provincial Party meetings, conducting inspections throughout the province, and engaging in similar duties that normally occupy the time of top provincial leaders. In September 1964 he became chairman of the Third Hunan Committee of the CPPCC and in the same month he was also elected as a member of the Hunan Provincial People’s Government Council. Chang spent most of his time in Hunan, but he made one important trip abroad in January 1963 when he went to East Germany to attend the Sixth Congress of the German Socialist Unity (Communist) Party. The Congress served as a platform for mutual denunciations between the Chinese and the Russians as part of the continuing Sino-Soviet ideological dispute (see under Wu Hsiu-ch’iian, the delegation leader).

Membership

In February 1950 the Communists established the Central-South Military and Administrative Committee (CSMAC), the body that administered Honan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung from 1950 to 1954. Although Chang was not named as one of the original members of the CSMAC, he was added to membership in March 1950, and at the same time he was also appointed as a member of the CSMAC’s Finance and Economics Committee. Four months later he was named to membership on the Wuhan Government’s Finance and Economics Committee, and then in September of the same year he succeeded Wu Te-feng as the chairman.

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Chang Ping-hua

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1950

1958

1959