Ouyang Ch’in

1907

Hunan, China

After his arrival in Yenan, Ouyang was apparently assigned to political work. In any event, he was not known to have held any military post during the Sino-Japanese War, and one report asserts that in 1938 he was serving as a member of the North China Bureau of the Party. Many of the members of this bureau were working underground behind Japanese lines. If he did work in this bureau, it is likely that he was associated with such senior Party leaders as Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen. Toward the close of the war with Japan, a number of top men were dispatched to Manchuria in a bold attempt to gain a foothold for the Communists in this strategic area. Ouyang, apparently, was among these men who, under the direction of the veteran military leader Lin Piao, developed a highly effective fighting force in Manchuria in the late 1940’s. He was known to be serving in Lin's army in the fall of 1948 as a deputy political commissar of a column that participated in the last great battle with the Nationalists for Manchuria, known in Communist annals as the Liaohsi-Shenyang campaign. The forces led by Lin Piao went on to capture Tientsin and Peking in early 1949 and then pushed southward in a sustained drive that consumed the remainder of the year and continued into the spring of 1950 with the capture of Hainan Island in southernmost China. It is not clear when Ouyang broke away from Lin’s armies, but by September 1949 he had assumed the ranking secretaryship of the Party Committee for Port Arthur-Dairen, an area then jointly administered with Russian occupation forces (see under Han Kuang). Not long after assuming this post, Ouyang was named to a top-level delegation, led by Premier Chou En-lai, that went to Moscow in January 1950 to join Mao Tse-tung, who had been negotiating with the Russians from the previous month. In retrospect, Ouyang’s presence in Moscow is easily understood. In addition to the historic treaty of alliance and mutual defense (signed on February 14, 1950), several other subordinate agreements were signed on the same day or soon thereafter. Ouyang returned to Port Arthur-Dairen in the spring of 1950 and remained there for the next four years. During this time he assumed three new posts. In June 1951 he was made a member of the Port Arthur-Dairen People's Government, and when Mayor Han Kuang was transferred in February 1953 he assumed Han's job. He also served as a deputy from Port Arthur-Dairen to the First NPC (1954-1959). However, at almost exactly the same moment that he was elected to the NPC from the Port Arthur-Dairen constituency, he was transferred to Manchuria's northernmost province, Heilungkiang. On August 1, 1954, he was the principal speaker at a meeting in Harbin marking the merger of the Heilungkiang and Sungkiang provinces into a “new” Heilungkiang. The reason for the sudden transfer was almost certainly due to the fact that the previous ranking secretary in Heilungkiang, Chao Te-tsun had become implicated in the famous Kao Kang “plot” against the top elite in China. Although this cabal was not formally disclosed until early 1955, it is clear that the activities of Kao Kang and his accomplices were known to the Party center by at least mid-1954, thus necessitating the changes in the Heilungkiang Party personnel. From that time onward Ouyang has been the ranking Party secretary in Heilungkiang, assuming the new title of first secretary by March 1956. Apart from his Party post in Heilungkiang, Ouyang assumed other positions within the Heilungkiang hierarchy soon after his arrival there. In February 1955 he was elected a member of the Heilungkiang Provincial People's Government. He was elevated to the governorship in September 1956, replacing his long-time colleague Han Kuang. Ouyang was in turn replaced in September 1958 by Li Fan-wu. Ouyang received still another post in 1955 when in April of that year he became chairman of the First Heilungkiang CPPCC; he was re-elected to the Second CPPCC in August 1959 and presumably still holds the position. In the other remaining channel of authority, the military establishment, he was serving as the political commissar of the provincial military district by December 1956, but was apparently replaced in the spring of 1958.

Ouyang Ch’in

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politician

Background

Ouyang is a native of Hunan where he was born about 1907.

Education

Ouyang was in the engineering section of the fourth class (October 1925-October 1926) at the Whampoa Academy in Canton. Lin Piao was among his classmates in the fourth class. Nothing is known of his career during the next few years, but by the early thirties he was serving in the Kiangsi area as head of the political department of a Red Army school and also as director of the Organization Department of the First Army Corps, the force led by Chu Te and Mao Tse-tung. He continued with this unit (then known as the First Front Army) during the Long March from Kiangsi to northern Shensi in 1934-35.

Career

After his arrival in Yenan, Ouyang was apparently assigned to political work. In any event, he was not known to have held any military post during the Sino-Japanese War, and one report asserts that in 1938 he was serving as a member of the North China Bureau of the Party. Many of the members of this bureau were working underground behind Japanese lines. If he did work in this bureau, it is likely that he was associated with such senior Party leaders as Liu Shao-ch’i and P’eng Chen. Toward the close of the war with Japan, a number of top men were dispatched to Manchuria in a bold attempt to gain a foothold for the Communists in this strategic area. Ouyang, apparently, was among these men who, under the direction of the veteran military leader Lin Piao, developed a highly effective fighting force in Manchuria in the late 1940’s. He was known to be serving in Lin's army in the fall of 1948 as a deputy political commissar of a column that participated in the last great battle with the Nationalists for Manchuria, known in Communist annals as the Liaohsi-Shenyang campaign.

The forces led by Lin Piao went on to capture Tientsin and Peking in early 1949 and then pushed southward in a sustained drive that consumed the remainder of the year and continued into the spring of 1950 with the capture of Hainan Island in southernmost China. It is not clear when Ouyang broke away from Lin’s armies, but by September 1949 he had assumed the ranking secretaryship of the Party Committee for Port Arthur-Dairen, an area then jointly administered with Russian occupation forces (see under Han Kuang). Not long after assuming this post, Ouyang was named to a top-level delegation, led by Premier Chou En-lai, that went to Moscow in January 1950 to join Mao Tse-tung, who had been negotiating with the Russians from the previous month. In retrospect, Ouyang’s presence in Moscow is easily understood. In addition to the historic treaty of alliance and mutual defense (signed on February 14, 1950), several other subordinate agreements were signed on the same day or soon thereafter.

Ouyang returned to Port Arthur-Dairen in the spring of 1950 and remained there for the next four years. During this time he assumed three new posts. In June 1951 he was made a member of the Port Arthur-Dairen People's Government, and when Mayor Han Kuang was transferred in February 1953 he assumed Han's job. He also served as a deputy from Port Arthur-Dairen to the First NPC (1954-1959). However, at almost exactly the same moment that he was elected to the NPC from the Port Arthur-Dairen constituency, he was transferred to Manchuria's northernmost province, Heilungkiang. On August 1, 1954, he was the principal speaker at a meeting in Harbin marking the merger of the Heilungkiang and Sungkiang provinces into a “new” Heilungkiang. The reason for the sudden transfer was almost certainly due to the fact that the previous ranking secretary in Heilungkiang, Chao Te-tsun had become implicated in the famous Kao Kang “plot” against the top elite in China. Although this cabal was not formally disclosed until early 1955, it is clear that the activities of Kao Kang and his accomplices were known to the Party center by at least mid-1954, thus necessitating the changes in the Heilungkiang Party personnel. From that time onward Ouyang has been the ranking Party secretary in Heilungkiang, assuming the new title of first secretary by March 1956.

Apart from his Party post in Heilungkiang, Ouyang assumed other positions within the Heilungkiang hierarchy soon after his arrival there. In February 1955 he was elected a member of the Heilungkiang Provincial People's Government. He was elevated to the governorship in September 1956, replacing his long-time colleague Han Kuang. Ouyang was in turn replaced in September 1958 by Li Fan-wu. Ouyang received still another post in 1955 when in April of that year he became chairman of the First Heilungkiang CPPCC; he was re-elected to the Second CPPCC in August 1959 and presumably still holds the position. In the other remaining channel of authority, the military establishment, he was serving as the political commissar of the provincial military district by December 1956, but was apparently replaced in the spring of 1958.

Politics

In the first decade of Ouyang’s tenure in Heilungkiang he has been exceedingly active in a wide array of activities, including inspections of industrial and agricultural enterprises, meetings of both provincial government and Party organizations, anniversaries of important Communist holidays (such as May Day), and entertainment for the rather large number of foreign visitors who go to Harbin, the Heilungkiang capital. In addition, he has served on various ad hoc organizations. For example, when the provincial Party Committee established a “rectification” committee in May 1957 (during the nationwide “rectification” campaign), he was named as chairman. In the following January he was appointed chairman of the Sungari River Basin Planning Committee. Ouyang received a new assignment in 1961 following the decision by the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee (January 1961) to re-create the regional Party bureaus. By March 1961 he had become second secretary of the Northeast Bureau, the organization with jurisdiction over the three Manchurian provinces. Here he serves under a fellow Hunanese, Sung Jen-ch’iung, a man about the same age as Ouyang but with greater seniority in the CCP. In this capacity he accompanied Sung on a visit to North Korea in October-November 1963. The purpose of the trip was never revealed, but it may have been related to Chinese efforts to gain support for their ideological dispute with the Soviet Union.

Membership

Ouyang’s career reached a new peak at the Eighth National Party Congress in September 1956. The role he played at the Congress gave evidence of his growing importance in the Party. First, a 63-member presidium (steering committee) was chosen from among the 1,100-odd delegates. Ouyang was one of only 16 persons on the presidium who had not been a member of the Seventh Central Committee (elected in 1945), the then ruling elite of China. Further, he served on the rather exclusive Credentials Committee, acted as one of the executive chairmen for three of the sessions of the Congress, and gave one of the speeches (on conditions in Heilungkiang). At the close of the congress he was elected a full member of the 97-member Central Committee. He was one of only 33 men who had not been a member of the Seventh Central Committee.

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Ouyang Ch’in

Background

Education

Career

Politics

Membership

Born

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Political Party

Education

1925 - 1926

Career

1948

1949

June, 1951

1955