Chu is said to have been born on the Korean side, in Hoeryong, a town on the Tumen River that forms part of the boundary between Kirin and Korea. Although this birthplace cannot be verified and he may have been born of Korean parents in Kirin (as some accounts assert), it is certain that he has spent most of his career in Manchuria.
Chu had his first contact with the Communist movement through the Korean Communist Party (KCP), which had been active from the early 1920’s in eastern Kirin.
In 1939 Chu returned to the Communist capital at Yenan, where he spent the remaining years of the Sino-Japanese War. During this period he was attached to the Communist Eighth Route Army and also studied at an educational institution in Yenan, possibly the Nationalities Institute, which opened in September 1941. In that same year the Korean Communists in China established the Yenan branch of the North China Korean Independence League under Kim Tu-bong (then known as Kim Pack-yon). Kim was one of the most important Koreans during the war and postwar years until his purge in North Korea in 1958. Japanese intelligence documents indicate that Chu Te-hai was serving as an assistant to Kim in 1944 in the Yenan branch. Also in 1944 Chu was head of the administrative section of a small academy run by the Koreans in Yenan.
At the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Communists began to infiltrate elements of their wartime armies into Manchuria where they joined forces with local resistance groups like those led by Chou Pao-chung. They soon formed an army known as the Northeast Democratic Allied Army (NEDAA) under the command of Lin Piao. Chu served as a political commissar with a detachment of the NEDAA between 1945 and 1948 and concurrently as director of the Bureau of Nationality Affairs, probably a bureau under the regional government that the Communists established in Manchuria (the Northeast Administrative Committee). However, on his return to Manchuria, Chu’s main activity was with the Kirin Korean minority. The Communists point with pride to the regime they have established for the Koreans in Manchuria, a model for similar governments created for other non-Han ethnic groups living within China. The area of Chu’s activity, Yenpien, includes the city of Yen-chi (Yenki) and six hsien in eastern Kirin. It is south of Ning-an (now in Heilungkiang) where Chu and Chou Pao-chung had carried on guerrilla operations during the war. Koreans had inhabited this part of Manchuria, formerly called Chien-tao, for many years. After the Japanese defeat of the Korean “Righteous Army” about 1912, parts of the army retreated to Chien-tao and established military centers from which Korean guerrilla forces continued to cross the border to harass the Japanese. In the spring of 1920 Korean translations of the Communist Manifesto were distributed to Korean communities in this area.2 Yenpien, with a population (in 1964) of about one million, of whom over half are Korean, contains the largest part of China’s Korean minority, 75 per cent of whom live in Kirin Province. Largely a rice-growing area before the war, the Communists have developed its industry and opened mines.
In 1948 Chu was the CCP secretary of the Yen-chi District. (Yen-chi is a hsien as well as the principal city of Yenpien.) In 1949 he was director of the Special Administrative District Office for Yenpien, a part of the Kirin Provincial Government; this was redesignated the Korean Autonomous District People’s Government in September 1952. In December 1955 the name was changed to the Yenpien-Korean Autonomous Chou. Since 1952 Chu has been the chairman of the governmental organization as well as the ranking Party secretary.
Beyond Yenpien, Chu has carried his specialization in nationality affairs into other branches of the provincial, regional, and national governments. In June 1949, in preparation for the opening of the CPPCC, which inaugurated the central government, the Communists established a Preparatory Committee to organize the CPPCC. Chu was named to this Committee as a representative of the national minorities and also attended the first meeting of the CPPCC in September. Speaking at the session, he stressed the need for the Korean minority groups to “unite” with the Han Chinese. At the close of the meetings, he was elected to membership on the First National Committee. He was re-elected to the Second National Committee, which opened in December 1954 and served on its governing Standing Committee. However, he was not re-elected to the Third CPPCC, which opened in April 1959.
Chu joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in Manchuria in 1930, becoming a secretary of a local league branch in Kirin that same year. After 1931 he was for a time secretary of a larger regional committee of the League but it is not clear whether this position had any relation to the Youth League unit to which Kim Il-sung belonged. In 1931, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, a number of Korean Communists working there joined the Manchurian branch of the CCP, as Chu was said to have done in 1931.
In 1948 Chu was the CCP secretary of the Yen-chi District. (Yen-chi is a hsien as well as the principal city of Yenpien.) In 1949 he was director of the Special Administrative District Office for Yenpien, a part of the Kirin Provincial Government; this was redesignated the Korean Autonomous District People’s Government in September 1952. In December 1955 the name was changed to the Yenpien-Korean Autonomous Chou. Since 1952 Chu has been the chairman of the governmental organization as well as the ranking Party secretary.
Beyond Yenpien, Chu has carried his specialization in nationality affairs into other branches of the provincial, regional, and national governments. In June 1949, in preparation for the opening of the CPPCC, which inaugurated the central government, the Communists established a Preparatory Committee to organize the CPPCC. Chu was named to this Committee as a representative of the national minorities and also attended the first meeting of the CPPCC in September. Speaking at the session, he stressed the need for the Korean minority groups to “unite” with the Han Chinese. At the close of the meetings, he was elected to membership on the First National Committee. He was re-elected to the Second National Committee, which opened in December 1954 and served on its governing Standing Committee. However, he was not re-elected to the Third CPPCC, which opened in April 1959.
Chu has been a fairly active member of the NPC and at the April 1959 session he delivered a speech entitled “The Indian Aggressors Cannot Save the Tibetan Rebels,” an address that came in the wake of the March 1959 rebellion in Tibet against Han Chinese rule. His familiarity with Tibet may have been gained from his membership on the PRC delegation led by Vice-premier Ch’en I, which attended the ceremonies marking the establishment of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region in April 1956. Several months earlier Chu had attended the inauguration of another national minority government - the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region government, which was formally established in Urumchi in October 1955.
Besides his work for the national government, Chu has represented Yenpien in the larger provincial and regional administrations under whose jurisdiction it falls. From 1949 to 1953 he was a member of the Northeast People’s Government, which had been established in August 1949. In January 1953 he became a member of the successor to this government, the Northeast Ad¬ministrative Committee (NEAC) in which he was also a vice-chairman of its Nationalities Affairs Committee; he held these positions until the dissolution of the NEAC in 1954. In May 1950 he was named as a member of the Kirin Provincial People’s Government; he was promoted to a vice-governorship in August 1954, a position he continues to hold, having been re-elected in February 1955, July 1958, and December 1963.
