Background
Japanese sources assert that Tuan is a native of Shantung.
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Tuan Chiin-i
Edit ProfileEducation
He graduated from the school of technology of Tsinan University (Shantung).
Career
Assuming that Tuan remained in Hupeh during the Sino-Japanese War it is likely that he had contact with such senior Communists as T’ao Chu and Ch’ien Ying who were active in guerrilla areas in Hupeh by the late 1930’s. In any event, when Tuan received an appointment in mid-1950, he was identified as the former secretary of the Hupeh-Honan District Committee of the CCP, a district in which he may have been active during the late 1930’s or 1940’s.
As Communist armies were sweeping southward in 1949, functionaries of every description were needed to staff the many new posts. Tuan’s history at this juncture is typical of many present- day Communist leaders. Probably owing to his technical education, he received appointments utilizing this background. When Nanking was captured in April 1949, Tuan was named as head of the “Finance and Economics Takeover Committee” under the Nanking Military Control Commission, the commission was then headed by Liu Po-ch'eng, commander of the Communist armies in this area. Liu marched with his forces toward the southwest early in the fall of 1949, and apparently Tuan was among those who accompanied him or followed shortly thereafter. When the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC) was established in July 1950 under Chairman Liu Po-ch’eng, Tuan received three important appointments. He was named a member of the SWMAC, director of its Industry Department, and a vice-chairman of the SWMAC Finance and Economics Committee. Although not formally relieved of one of these positions until 1954, Tuan left the southwest for Peking in 1952 when departments of the Ministry of Heavy Industry were split off from the ministry and placed under two new ministries, the First and Second Ministries of Machine Building. Tuan joined the First Ministry and has remained there to the present. He initially served as a vice-minister under Huang Ching, another participant in the student demonstrations of the mid-1930's in Peking. After Huang died in February 1958, Chao Erh-lu succeeded him, but then in September 1960 Tuan replaced Chao as the minister.
The activities of the machine building ministries have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy, so the details of Tuar's work are not well known. It is virtually certain, however, that the First Ministry has (or has had) some role in the manufacture of munitions. Apart from munitions, a clue to other products manufactured by the ministry was provided in December 1959 when Tuan attended the inauguration of a new hydraulic press at the Canton Heavy Machine Tools Plant, and still another clue was given in October 1960 when Tuan was present at the signing in Peking of loan and technical aid agreements with North Korea, accords which called for assistance in the manufacture of rubber tires and radio communications equipment.
In 1954 Tuan was named a deputy from his native Shantung to the First NPC, but he was not re-elected to the Second NPC, which first met in 1959. In August 1955 he was elected to the national committee of the “First Machine Building Trade Union but his union connections have not been mentioned since that time. Tuan was not often in the news in the late 1950's or early 1960’s. Among the few notices of his appearances were in December 1956 when he made an inspection tour of Shantung, in October 1959 when he accompanied Chou En-lai on an inspection of a reservoir near Peking, and in July 1960 when he was in Shenyang for celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the CCP.
Politics
Tuan was a college student in 1935 when the “December Ninth” student demonstrations took place, first in Peking, and then soon after in many major Chinese cities in protest to Japanese incursions into North China (see under Li Ch’ang). The role that Tuan may have played in the initial demonstrations is unknown, but by mid-1937 he was deeply involved in the movement. Communist sources describe him as of mid-1937 as a responsible person of the National Federation of Students and a delegate of the Peiping (Peking) Federation of Students (suggesting that in addition to training in Tsinan, Tuan also studied at a university in Peking).
In the period immediately before and after war broke out with Japan (July 1937) a number of students from Peking and Tientsin went to Nanking (then the national capital and the Kuomintang headquarters) to stimulate the work of the youth movement. Some of these students were Communists or Communist Youth League members. If Tuan was not already a Party member, he probably became one within the next year or two. His whereabouts after mid-1937 when he was in Nanking are unknown. Many of these youths went to Sian and then to Yenan, but still others worked with the National Liberation Vanguard of China (NLVC) in Hankow, temporarily the capital after the fall of Nanking in late 1937. (By this time the NLVC was under the control of the CCP.) Chiang Nan-hsiang, with whom Tuan had been working in Nanking in mid-1937, was known to be in the Hankow area, and the later career of Tuan suggests that he may also have been there.
Although not a member of the first three national committees of the CPPCC (1949 Tuan was named as a delegate of the CCP to the Fourth National Committee, which first met in December 1964-January 1965. At the same time that the CPPCC was in session, the Third NPC was holding its first session; Tuan spoke January 2, 1965 in his capacity as the minister of the First Ministry of Building, but details of his speech was not made public. At this same congress session, he was reappointed to his ministerial post.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party