Chang Ching-wu, also known as Zhang Jingwu, was a Chinese Communist military officer and politician. A veteran of the Red Army, the Long March, and the wars against Japan and the Nationalists, he served from 1951 to 1965 as the Central People's Government's representative in Tibet and as a senior Communist Party official there.
Background
Chang Ching-wu was born in 1906 in Ling County, Hunan, now Yanling County, in a rural part of south-central China. His birth name was Zhang Renshan. He attended local schools and later studied at Hunan Provincial Third Normal School before entering military training in the 1920s.
The political and military environment of Republican-era China was marked by warlord conflicts, revolutionary movements, and the expansion of competing armies. Chang entered military service before joining the Chinese Communist Party in 1930 and became associated with the Communist armed movement during the civil wars that preceded the nationwide war against Japan.
Education
Chang attended Hunan Provincial Third Normal School and later studied at the Jianguo Military Academy, an officer-training institution established in the politically fragmented military environment of Republican China. After joining the Communist movement, he received further military and political instruction in the Red Army's schools, including the Central Military and Political School and the Red Army School.
These institutions combined military training with political education, reflecting the Communist movement's practice of preparing officers for both battlefield command and party-directed administration. His education was followed by increasingly senior command and staff appointments during the Chinese Civil War and the anti-Japanese war.
Career
Chang began his military career in the armies of Republican China, serving in junior command and training positions before joining the Communist Party of China in 1930. In 1931 he entered the Central Soviet area and joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He held successive posts in the Central Military and Political School, Red Army units, and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, including command of the Third Division of the First Red Army and the Fourteenth Division of the Fifth Red Army. He participated in the Communist campaigns against Nationalist encirclement and in the Long March beginning in October 1934.
During the mid-1930s Chang also performed political and military liaison work. In 1936 he represented the Red Army in contacts with officials in North China, and after the outbreak of full-scale war with Japan in 1937 he worked in Communist liaison offices in Jinan and Wuhan. In late 1938 he became commander of the Eighth Route Army's Shandong Column. The column organized and expanded Communist resistance in Shandong while operating in the wider setting of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Chang returned to the Communist headquarters at Yan'an during the early 1940s and from approximately 1943 to 1946 served as chief of staff of the Joint Defense Headquarters and in related senior positions. He was also associated with the forces commanded by He Long. In 1946 he served in the military mediation machinery established after the Nationalist-Communist agreement arranged by George C. Marshall, first with a mobile truce team in Manchuria and later at the Peking Executive Headquarters as chief of staff to Communist representative Ye Jianying.
In 1949 Chang participated in the Communist capture of Xi'an and became a member of the Xi'an Military Control Commission and commander of the Xi'an Garrison Headquarters. He later served as deputy chief of staff of the Southwest Military Region and then at People's Liberation Army headquarters in Beijing. In 1950 he directed the People's Armed Forces Department, which was responsible for militia affairs, and in 1951 he was director of the Staff Office of the People's Revolutionary Military Council.
Chang's central post-war assignment began in 1951, when he joined the Central People's Government delegation negotiating with representatives of the Tibetan local government. The Seventeen Point Agreement was signed in Beijing on May 23, 1951. Chang was then appointed the Central Government's representative in Tibet and traveled through India to southern Tibet before reaching Lhasa on August 8, 1951.
From 1951 to 1965 Chang was one of the principal representatives of the Chinese Communist state in Tibet. He worked with Tibetan officials during the implementation of the agreement, participated in the establishment of new government institutions, and represented the central government at political, military, and public ceremonies. His responsibilities included relations with Tibetan elites and religious leaders during a period in which the People's Republic was extending its administrative and military control over the region.
Chang served as secretary of the Chinese Communist Party's Tibet Work Committee from 1952 and became its first secretary in 1965. He was also first political commissar of the Tibet Military District and head of the General Office of the Chairman of the People's Republic of China. After leaving Tibet in 1965, he became deputy head of the Central United Front Work Department, drawing on his long experience with Tibetan political and religious affairs. He died in Beijing on October 27, 1971, during the Cultural Revolution and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1979.
Achievements
Participated in the Long March beginning in October 1934 and held senior command and staff posts in the Red Army during the Chinese Civil War.
Commanded the Eighth Route Army's Shandong Column during the war against Japan and helped organize Communist military operations in Shandong.
Served as a Central People's Government delegate in the negotiations that produced the Seventeen Point Agreement on Tibet, signed on May 23, 1951.
Directed major political and administrative work in Tibet from 1951 to 1965 as the Central Government's representative and as a senior Communist Party official.
Politics
Chang Ching-wu was a senior member of the Communist Party of China and a lieutenant general of the People's Liberation Army. His political career developed within the party-state established after the Chinese Communist victory in 1949, in which military commanders frequently combined administrative, political, and united-front responsibilities.
His principal political role was in Tibet, where he represented the Central People's Government, served as secretary and later first secretary of the Chinese Communist Party's Tibet Work Committee, and worked with Tibetan officials during the implementation of the 1951 agreement. He later served as a deputy head of the Central United Front Work Department, whose responsibilities included relations with non-Communist groups and China's ethnic and religious minorities.
Personality
Chang was described in Chinese biographical accounts as combining military competence with experience in united-front and minority-affairs work.
Connections
Chang was married to Yang Gang. His family included a daughter, Zhang Huagang, and an adopted son, Zhang Huachuan.
Wife:
Yang Gang
Daughter:
Zhang Huagang
Son:
Zhang Huachuan
He was adopted by Chang Ching-wu and Yang Gang.
References
Zhang Jingwu — Data Center, Communist Party of China News Network
Biographical reference covering Chang Ching-wu's military career, participation in the Long March, service in the People's Liberation Army, and work as the Central People's Government's representative in Tibet.
Chang Ching-wu and Tibet
Reference describing Chang Ching-wu's participation in the negotiations with the Tibetan delegation and his subsequent responsibilities as the Central Government's representative in Tibet.
