Background
P’ing Chieh-san is a native of Hopeh.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
P'ing Chieh-san
Edit ProfileEducation
He is reportedly a graduate of both Peking University and Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, but no dates are available to indicate when he was at either institution.
Career
P’ing is first mentioned in Chinese Communist sources in April 1951 when he was identified as director of the United Front Work Department of the North China Bureau of the CCP. United front work has been his main activity since at least this date. P’ing assumed another post in the same bureau, that of executive officer, by April 1952, he held both positions until the Bureau was abolished in August 1954.
Parallel to the Party Bureau for North China was the government organ known as the North China Administrative Committee, which existed from December 1951 until 1954 when the regional administrations were dissolved. P’ing served as a member of this committee as well as chairman of its Nationalities Affairs Committee. The major emphasis of united front work under the CCP has been the Party’s relations with non-Communist intellectuals, but a closely related aspect of this work has been the management of the Party’s relations with the tens of millions of the minority peoples, most of whom are not Communist Party members. For example, the regime's most senior official in united front work, Li Wei-han, has also been deeply involved in national minority affairs. Thus it was not surprising for P'ing to be the senior Party united front official in North China and to work in the minorities field. His work among the minority groups has stretched over a number of years. In April 1953, for example, he led a delegation to visit minority areas in north China, and in 1959 and 1962 he was a host for Tibetan leaders then visiting Peking.
In October-December 1953, P'ing accompanied Politburo member Ho Lung to North Korea as a deputy-leader of a delegation sent to “comfort” Chinese troops remaining in Korea after the war there ended in July 1953. In the following year he was elected to the First NPC and served as a member of the NPC Credentials Committee. P’ing was not, however, returned to the Second NPC, which first met in 1959. In retrospect, it appears that he was given rather major responsibilities in the CPPCC by 1959 and was therefore relieved of somewhat parallel tasks in the NPC.
P’ing’s contributions to united front work were rewarded by November 1955 when he was identified as a deputy director of the Party’s United Front Work Department, a post he continues to hold. Since the formation of the NPC in 1954, the CPPCC has increasingly come to be an adjunct of the United Front Department. Thus it was natural that P’ing should have attended as an observer the second session of the second CPPCC in January-February 1956. From mere observer P’ing rose to prominence in the CPPCC within the next decade. As a CCP representative he served on the Standing Committee of the Third CPPCC (1959-1964), and when the Fourth CPPCC was formed at a December 1964-January 1965 meeting, P'ing was the secretary-general of the Presidium, charged with conducting the proceedings. At the end of this session, he was not renamed a member of the Standing Committee, but instead received an even more important assignment as the permanent secretary-general of the Standing Committee, replacing CCP Central Committee alternate member Hsu Ping.
Politics
In the interim, P’ing was becoming more deeply involved in united front work. Although details of his work are limited, his frequent appearances at high-level meetings or campaigns suggest a role of considerable importance. He was especially active during the 1957-58 “rectification” movement when China’s intellectuals came under vigorous attacks. In carrying out similar activities he also reported on united front work at the Third National Youth Congress, April 13, 1958, he spoke on February 3, 1960, before a large gathering of businessmen, he held talks on November 9, 1961, with senior members of the Chinese Taoist Association following a national conference of the Association, he received officials of the Chinese Buddhist Association on February 28, 1962, following a national Buddhist conference; and he was present on January 14, 1963, when Liu Shao-ch’i received members of “democratic” parties and “non-Party democrats.”
-
Born
-
Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
-
Political Party
Chinese Communist Party