Fu was born in 1895 of a poor laboring family in Ch’ang-t’ing (T’ing-chou), located in western Fukien not far from the Kiangsi border, an area that served as a major Communist base in the late twenties and early thirties. His father was a stevedore by trade and the family were practicing Christians, being communicants of a local English Protestant mission.
Fu was reared in an orphanage sponsored by the mission and was also given medical training at a school attached to the Gospel Hospital in Ch’ang-t’ing, which was run by the mission. He remained with the hospital after graduation and became superin-tendent of the medical school in 1925 when the British missionaries evacuated the area following the May 30th Movement and the ensuing labor unrest, which broke out in Shanghai and quickly took on nationwide anti-foreign overtones. In his early years Fu was known as Nelson Fu, a name he had probably been given by the missionaries in Ch’ang-t’ing. He was a charter mem-ber of the Chinese Medical Club (Po-i-hui) organized by the famous surgeon, Sir William Osier.
After the failure of the Communists’ Nan-chang Uprising in August 1927, the date celebrated as the birth of the Red Army, retreating Communist forces led by Yeh T’ing and Ho Lung made their way to Fu’s native area in western Fukien and passed through Ch’ang- t’ing on their way to Swatow. This was presumably his first direct contact with Communism. He has stated that about this time he was also influenced by the writings of Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai, one of the earliest CCP leaders, who later became a good friend. The Yeh-Ho forces left the Ch’ang-t’ing area, but Fu remained behind to care for wounded and ill Red Army soldiers, and at this same time secretly joined the CCP. Shortly afterwards, in 1928, he made his way to the Communists’ stronghold at Ching-kangshan, Kiangsi, and remained with them when they moved to Juichin, Kiangsi, only a few miles west of his native Ch’ang-t’ing, which was also under Communist control. Although Fu himself was already suffering from tuberculosis, an illness that has since remained with him, he was instrumental in setting up the first organized Communist medical establishment. In late 1931 he founded a Red Army school for nurses, and a year later he founded and became director of the Central Hospital and Medical School, located in Ch’ang-t’ing. Among Fu’s earliest patients were Communist military leader Ch’en Keng and political leader Hsu T’e-li. He is also credited with saving Mao Tse-tung’s life in 1929 when Mao contracted a serious case of malaria.
Fu made the Long March, which began in October 1934, and because of his tubercular condition, he had to be carried part of the way. He arrived in north Shensi via Sikang and Kansu with the forces led by Chu Te in the fall of 1936, a year after the Long Marchers led by Mao had arrived there (see under Chu Te). By 1936 Fu was head of the Red Army Medical Corps, and from the following year until the end of the Sino-Japanese War he concurrently directed the work of the Central Medical Bureau in Yenan. He was interviewed by both American author Edgar Snow and his wife, Nym Wales, in 1936-37, and it is largely from Miss Wales’ account that the details of Fu’s early life arc drawn.
Although nothing is known of Fu’s activities after the Sino-Japanese War, to judge from the fact that he was awarded the Order of Liberation in 1955 (see below), it is evident that he was with Communist military forces in north China during the civil war with the Nationalists in the late forties. When the PRC was established in 1949 Fu became deputy surgeon general of the People’s Revolutionary Military Council, the highest military organ of the government from its formation until it was abolished in 1954. In August 1950, when the Communists reorganized the Chinese Medical',Association (CMA), Fu was named president, a position he still retains. He has also been associated with two bodies subordinate to the CMA, the International Medical Exchange and Cooperation Committee and the Committee for the Exchange of Medical Knowledge between Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Practitioners. He has been chairman of the former since about 1953 and vice-chairman of the latter since November 1953. The Communists also reorganized the National Red Cross Society in August 1950, and since that time Fu has been a member of its Board of Directors (known as the Executive Committee since 1961). In 1951-52 he was a member of the Planning Committee of the All-China Federation of Scientific Societies, and since November 1951 he has been a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Committee in Defense of Children, a child-care organization headed by Sung Ch’ing- ling. He has also been honorary president of two other organizations: The China Pharmacy Association (since 1952) and the China Federation of Tuberculosis Prevention Societies (from 1953).
Nominally, Fu’s most important position since the formation of the national government was with the Ministry of Public Health where he served as a vice-minister under Miss Li Te-ch iian from April 1952 to September 1959. However, a former employee of the ministry has stated that Fu seldom came to work owing to his protracted illness.3 There is further testimony to his bad state of health, an official of the International Planned Parenthood Federation who spoke with Fu in 1964 found him to be “thin and feeble.” As a consequence, Fu makes relatively few public appearances, even though he holds a large number of honorary and quasi-official positions. Perhaps his most active period was in the mid-fifties when he spoke on several occasions in connection with birth control problems. He has been one of the relatively few prominent officials to advocate birth control openly, and on one occasion in 1956 he endorsed induced miscarriages. At a March 1957 CMA meeting he announced the establishment of a “birth control technical guidance committee,” and writing for the February 2, 1963, issue of Chung-kuo ch’ing-nien pao (China youth newspaper) he strongly advocated “late marriages,” a favorite and oblique means the Communists have attempted to use to curb population increases.
Although Fu is clearly not a figure of political significance, he has been honored by the Communists for his long services to them, particularly in the early and difficult days of the Kiangsi Soviet and the Yenan period. As the first physician to join the Communist guerrillas, he might well be regarded as the father of the Chinese Communist medical world. Little is known of his personal life aside from the fact that he is married and has had at least four children. According to Fu’s claim, one of his daughters (as well as her husband) was executed by the KMT when she was 21. Fu has a limited knowledge of English (presumably learned from his days in mission schools) and as late as 1944 he still described himself as a Christian, but it is likely that he made this claim to ingratiate himself with Western journalists who visited Yenan.
Although it is evident that Fu has not been particularly active since 1949, the prestige of his name has been lent to a number of organizations. These are summarized below:
1954 to date: member, Board of Directors, Chinese People’s Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
1954 to date: member, Second National Committee, CPPCC, as a representative of medical and public health circles. He also served on the Third and Fourth National Committees (as well as their Standing Committees) that opened, respectively, in April 1959 and December 1964. In addition, he has chaired the CPPCC’s Medical and Health Section since 1959.
1956 to date: member, Asian Solidarity Committee of China (known since 1958 as the Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee).
1956: member, Standing Committee, Chinese People’s Committee to Support Egypt Against Aggression (an ad hoc body established at the time of the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt).
1964 to date: vice-chairman of a committee to promote the circulation of popular scientific materials.
Fu was also the recipient of the Order of Liberation in 1955, an award given for military service between 1945 and 1950.
