Background
Nothing is known about his background.
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Li Chii-k’uei
Edit ProfileEducation
Japanese sources credit Li Chii-k’uei with having graduated from Moscow University, but the other known facts of his career suggest that this may be in error. Li participated in the P’ing-chiang (Pingkiang) Uprising of July 1928 led by P’eng Te-huai, who was to become one of the most senior Red Army leaders.
Career
The activities of Li from the 1928 uprising until 1935 are unknown, but in the latter year he was heading the First Division of the First Red Army Corps during the Long March, which ended in Shensi in 1935. This corps was the main force which began the Long March in October 1934 from the Kiangsi Soviet under the command of Mao Tse-tung and Chu Te.
Immediately after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in mid-1937, the Communists organized their forces in northwest China into three units under the Eighth Route Army: the 115th, the 120th, and the 129th Divisions. Li was assigned to the last-mentioned division and by January 1939 was leading an “advanced” or “vanguard” column in northwestern Shantung, an area under the jurisdiction of the Communists’ Shansi-Hopeh-Shantung-Honan Border Region. The thrust into Shantung was made in response to a request from guerrilla units operating there, most notably those which had been under the command of Fan Chu-hsien, a guerrilla leader killed in action in 1938. In March 1939, Hopeh and Shantung units which had originally served under Liu Po-ch’eng’s 129th Division were transferred to Lin Piao’s 115th Division.
After Li’s work in 1939 in Shantung, there is no further information about his career until a decade later when he was named to the Tientsin (Hopeh) Military Control Commission following the capture of Tientsin on January 15, 1949 by the armies moving south from Manchuria under the leadership of Lin Piao. These armies, known as the Fourth Field Army by early 1949, thrust southward from Tientsin and eventually occupied the central-south portions of the mainland. Li’s position in Tientsin was obviously of brief duration, because later in 1949 he was serving as a deputy chief-of-staff of the Fourth Field Army and the Central-South Military Region, both under the command of Lin Piao. He held these posts until at least the spring of 1950 and probably throughout that year. By no later than February 1951 Li was transferred to Manchuria, because by that date he was identified as director of the Rear Services (logistics) Department of the Northeast Military Region of the PLA, a position in which he was identified in February 1951 when appointed a member of the Northeast People’s Government, the civil administration in charge of the Manchurian provinces.
Apparently Li was transferred out of Manchuria by 1953, because he was not named in early 1953 to the Northeast Administrative Committee, the successor organization to the North-east People’s Government. He was next mentioned in the press (but without title) in early 1954 at a Peking rally in support of the PLA. Then in July 1955, when the Ministry of Fuel Industry was split into three ministries, Li was given one of the three, the Ministry of Petroleum. He headed this ministry for the next two and a half years.
In 1964 he was elected to the Third NPC (which first met in December 1964-January 1965). Although Li appeared regularly in Peking up to this election in October 1964, the New China News Agency dispatch reporting this election grouped Li among those elected from PLA units in Nanking, Inner Mongolia, Sinkiang, or Tibet. Though not necessarily an indication that Li has been transferred away from Peking permanently, this suggests that he may be spending time in Nanking, the center for several important PLA training academies.
Politics
On several occasions in 1956, Li’s activity in the Petroleum Industry Ministry was reported in the press. For example, he reported on oil prospecting work during 1955 at an oil exploration conference in January 1956; in the next month he spoke before the first national congress of the newly formed China Petroleum Workers’ Trade Union; and in May 1956 he delivered an address at a conference of “outstanding” petroleum workers. In that same year, at the Eighth National Party Congress in September, Li submitted a written speech on the responsibilities of the petroleum industry. He continued to head this important ministry until a governmental reorganization in February 1958, at which time he was replaced by Yii Ch’iu-li. Then, less than a month later, Li in turn replaced Yii Ch’iu-li as Political Commissar of the PLA General Rear Services. By the early fall of 1958 Li was identified with the rank of colonel general, equivalent to a three-star general in the U.S. Army.
Membership
On several occasions in 1956, Li’s activity in the Petroleum Industry Ministry was reported in the press. For example, he reported on oil prospecting work during 1955 at an oil exploration conference in January 1956, in the next month he spoke before the first national congress of the newly formed China Petroleum Workers’ Trade Union and in May 1956 he delivered an address at a conference of “outstanding” petroleum workers. In that same year, at the Eighth National Party Congress in September, Li submitted a written speech on the responsibilities of the petroleum industry. He continued to head this important ministry until a governmental reorganization in February 1958, at which time he was replaced by Yii Ch’iu-li. Then, less than a month later, Li in turn replaced Yii Ch’iu-li as Political Commissar of the PLA General Rear Services. By the early fall of 1958 Li was identified with the rank of colonel general, equivalent to a three-star general in the U.S. Army.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Career
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1928 - 1935
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1949
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1953