Yao Chung-ming

1914

China

Yao was reportedly arrested in 1937 for his anti-Japanese activities and imprisoned in Tsinan, Shantung. However, he was released when the Sino-Japanese War began that year. He took part in organizing a band of peasants and students in Shantung, and late in 1937 this group made its way to the Communist capital at Yenan where he doubtless met many of his former Peking University classmates, who had reached Yenan by similarly circuitous paths. Little is known of his life in Yenan during the war except for the fact that he joined the CCP there and attended a Party school, probably the Central Party School. It may have been during his study at the Party school that he co-authored a play, published in 1945, entitled Comrades, You've Taken the Wrong Path!” This play, according to an official Communist description, tells of the struggle against rightist opportunism in the revolutionary ranks” during the Sino-Japanese War, and 19 years after it was written it was still being staged by a repertory company in Peking. A New China News Agency report of December 1962 also mentioned a play by Yao entitled “Fresh in the Memory of the Chinese People,” but aside from the comment that it dealt with “revolutionary history,” there was no specific indication of its date or place of publication. In the latter part of the Sino-Japanese War, Yao was serving as Chief-of-Staff of the 359th Brigade in the Shansi-Suiyuan-Shensi-Kansu- Ninghsia Command under Ho Lung. At the close of the war and into 1946 he was leading Communist guerrilla forces in his native Shantung, operating mainly around the city of Lin-i, not far from the Kiangsu border. In 1946, Yao was named as a Communist liaison official with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Office in Tsingtao, an important coastal city in Shantung. During this same period, the Nationalists, Communists, and Americans established the Peking Executive Headquarters in an attempt to halt the civil war. Yao served as a representative on the Field Truce Team at Tsingtao and so was in regular contact with both Chinese Nationalists and Americans. When the truce talks collapsed and the civil war was renewed in early 1947, Yao left Tsingtao for Communist-controlled Chefoo (Yen- fai), the important port city in northeastern Shantung, where he became mayor. At this stage in the war, the Communists controlled very few coastal and industrial cities and were therefore anxious not to alienate the local businessmen and industrialists. The Communist policy was illustrated by Yao when he spoke before a conference of industrialists and merchants in 1947, after surveying general improvements, he conceded that many of these businessmen had been worried about “revisions” in the enforcement of Communist land reform policies in the rural areas near Chefoo. However, he promised them that no such “revisions” would apply to industry and trade. In 1948 Yao was transferred to Wei-fang (also known as Wei-hsien) in northern Shantung, where he became the mayor, a post he held until 1949. In September 1948 the Shantung capital, Tsinan, was captured by the Communists, and in the following year Yao was transferred to this city to assume the concurrent positions of deputy commander of the garrison and vice-mayor. Later in 1949 he was promoted to mayor of Tsinan, a post he held until his appointment abroad in mid-1950. During this same period he was also a member of the Shantung Provincial People’s Government. In January 1960 Yao became director of the Treaty and Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he held until assigned to Indonesia in mid-1961. Because he held this position and because of his long stay in Burma, it was natural that he be appointed as chief Chinese representative for the Sino-Burmese Boundary Joint Committee, which held its first meeting in June 1960. Between that date and May 1961, Yao led the Chinese negotiators in six meetings, with the sites alternating between Burma and China. Because of his role in these talks he was in Burma in early January 1961 when Chou En-lai visited there to exchange the instruments of ratification for the boundary treaty which Yao had worked out. It was during this same visit that the Burmese president decorated Yao with the heroic honor's medal for his work in the negotiations. In the meantime, in April 1960, he was named to the Standing Committee of the newly formed Chi na-Africa People's Friendship Association. Yao was appointed as ambassador to Indonesia in July 1961, replacing Huang Chen. He arrived in Jakarta with his wife in early August and presented his credentials to President Sukarno on August 14. Judged from his first four years there, Yao's work in Indonesia must be described as successful from the Chinese Communist viewpoint. During his tour Sino-Indo- nesian relations grew increasingly close, and American-Indonesian relations cooled noticeably. Because several top Indonesian leaders visited Peking in the early 1960,s, Yao was often back in China. The most important Chinese visitor to Indonesia during Yao's tour was obviously Liu Shao-ch’i, who came in April 1963.

Yao Chung-ming

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Diplomat leader CCP member

Background

Little is known about his background.

Education

Yao Chung-ming graduated from National Peking University (Peita) in the mid-1930’s where he participated in student strikes in 1935-36, presumably those strikes carried out in protest to Japanese incursions into north China and usually known under the name of the December Ninth movement (see under Li Ch’ang). Perhaps it was at Peking University that he learned a bit of Japanese and English. Yao’s later career suggests that he may have studied law or international relations.

Career

Yao was reportedly arrested in 1937 for his anti-Japanese activities and imprisoned in Tsinan, Shantung. However, he was released when the Sino-Japanese War began that year. He took part in organizing a band of peasants and students in Shantung, and late in 1937 this group made its way to the Communist capital at Yenan where he doubtless met many of his former Peking University classmates, who had reached Yenan by similarly circuitous paths. Little is known of his life in Yenan during the war except for the fact that he joined the CCP there and attended a Party school, probably the Central Party School.

It may have been during his study at the Party school that he co-authored a play, published in 1945, entitled Comrades, You've Taken the Wrong Path!” This play, according to an official Communist description, tells of the struggle against rightist opportunism in the revolutionary ranks” during the Sino-Japanese War, and 19 years after it was written it was still being staged by a repertory company in Peking. A New China News Agency report of December 1962 also mentioned a play by Yao entitled “Fresh in the Memory of the Chinese People,” but aside from the comment that it dealt with “revolutionary history,” there was no specific indication of its date or place of publication.

In the latter part of the Sino-Japanese War, Yao was serving as Chief-of-Staff of the 359th Brigade in the Shansi-Suiyuan-Shensi-Kansu- Ninghsia Command under Ho Lung. At the close of the war and into 1946 he was leading Communist guerrilla forces in his native Shantung, operating mainly around the city of Lin-i, not far from the Kiangsu border. In 1946, Yao was named as a Communist liaison official with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Office in Tsingtao, an important coastal city in Shantung. During this same period, the Nationalists, Communists, and Americans established the Peking Executive Headquarters in an attempt to halt the civil war. Yao served as a representative on the Field Truce Team at Tsingtao and so was in regular contact with both Chinese Nationalists and Americans.

When the truce talks collapsed and the civil war was renewed in early 1947, Yao left Tsingtao for Communist-controlled Chefoo (Yen- fai), the important port city in northeastern Shantung, where he became mayor. At this stage in the war, the Communists controlled very few coastal and industrial cities and were therefore anxious not to alienate the local businessmen and industrialists. The Communist policy was illustrated by Yao when he spoke before a conference of industrialists and merchants in 1947, after surveying general improvements, he conceded that many of these businessmen had been worried about “revisions” in the enforcement of Communist land reform policies in the rural areas near Chefoo. However, he promised them that no such “revisions” would apply to industry and trade.

In 1948 Yao was transferred to Wei-fang (also known as Wei-hsien) in northern Shantung, where he became the mayor, a post he held until 1949. In September 1948 the Shantung capital, Tsinan, was captured by the Communists, and in the following year Yao was transferred to this city to assume the concurrent positions of deputy commander of the garrison and vice-mayor. Later in 1949 he was promoted to mayor of Tsinan, a post he held until his appointment abroad in mid-1950. During this same period he was also a member of the Shantung Provincial People’s Government.

In January 1960 Yao became director of the Treaty and Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a post he held until assigned to Indonesia in mid-1961. Because he held this position and because of his long stay in Burma, it was natural that he be appointed as chief Chinese representative for the Sino-Burmese Boundary Joint Committee, which held its first meeting in June 1960. Between that date and May 1961, Yao led the Chinese negotiators in six meetings, with the sites alternating between Burma and China. Because of his role in these talks he was in Burma in early January 1961 when Chou En-lai visited there to exchange the instruments of ratification for the boundary treaty which Yao had worked out. It was during this same visit that the Burmese president decorated Yao with the heroic honor's medal for his work in the negotiations. In the meantime, in April 1960, he was named to the Standing Committee of the newly formed Chi na-Africa People's Friendship Association.

Yao was appointed as ambassador to Indonesia in July 1961, replacing Huang Chen. He arrived in Jakarta with his wife in early August and presented his credentials to President Sukarno on August 14. Judged from his first four years there, Yao's work in Indonesia must be described as successful from the Chinese Communist viewpoint. During his tour Sino-Indo- nesian relations grew increasingly close, and American-Indonesian relations cooled noticeably. Because several top Indonesian leaders visited Peking in the early 1960,s, Yao was often back in China. The most important Chinese visitor to Indonesia during Yao's tour was obviously Liu Shao-ch’i, who came in April 1963.

Politics

In December 1949, Burma became the first non-Communist nation to recognize Communist China. Formal diplomatic relations were agreed upon in June 1950, at which time Yao was appointed as ambassador. When he presented his credentials in Rangoon on September 5, 1950, he was the second Chinese ambassador accredited to a non-Communist nation, being preceded abroad only by Wang Jen-shu in Indonesia. Inasmuch as Sino-Burmese relations were quite active during Yao's seven and a half-year tour, he was often reported in the press holding receptions for the many Burmese going to or returning from China, or for the large number of Chinese missions that visited Burma in those years. Yao also signed several agreements with the Burmese, including a three-year trade agreement signed on April 22, 1954, the first govern- ment-to-government pact concluded between Communist China and Burma.

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Yao Chung-ming

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Education

1936

Career

1946

1946

1960