Background
Nothing is known about his background.
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Yeh Chi-chuang
Edit ProfileEducation
Yeh Chi-chuang was educated locally.
Career
By late 1929 Yeh was operating in west Kwangsi as chief of supplies in the Seventh Red Army commanded by Chang Yun-i. The origins of the Seventh Red Army and of the small soviet it supported on the Yu River near Pai-se are described in the biography of Chang Yun-i, who had been sent to Kwangsi after the Communists’ defeats at Nanchang and Swatow in 1927. Evidently Yeh, like Chang, was one of the Party activists sent to infiltrate the army of Li Ming-jui, the local warlord who held west Kwangsi. The Seventh Army was created in December 1929 from some of Li’s forces, but several months later it was ordered to move out of the province by Li Li-san, leader of the Party headquarters in Shanghai (see under Teng Hsiao-p’ing). Li Li-san needed the Seventh Army to reinforce his armies, which were being sent to the Yangtze valley to attack the leading industrial cities. Yeh, director of the Seventh Army's Political Department in 1931, was probably connected with these moves, although the part he played in them has not been recorded. Possibly he followed his chief, Chang Yun-i, to Juichin, the headquarters of Mao Tse-tung in southeast Kiangsi, because he was there in November 1931 when the Chinese Soviet Republic government was established under Mao. Yeh was named people’s commissar of trade for the new government and at approximately the same time he became director and political commissar of the General Supply Department (tsung-kung pu) of the First Front Army, led by Chu Te and Mao.
When the Eighth Route Army was created in August 1937, Yeh was named to head the Rear Services Department (hou-ch'in pu) his major wartime task. It appears, however, that he relinquished this post to Yang Li-san in 1943. Yeh also served in the Second Assembly of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan-Ning) Border Region Government as a deputy from Yen-ch’uan, a region in Shensi not far to the northeast of Yenan. In this capacity he attended the meetings of the first session of the Second Assembly in November 1941, and of the second session in December 1944. Because the Communists in Yenan controlled far more territory and maintained larger military forces than they had in Kiangsi before the Long March, the question of supplies became increasingly important, especially after the early 1940's, when the KMT enforced an economic blockade of the Communist areas. Barter, exchange, and trade geared to war times were conducted largely within the Communist-held territory, Yeh must have taken part in the controlled exchange, for by 1945 he was manager of the official trading company for the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region. He also served during the war years as director of the Border Region's Bureau of Supplies (wu-tzu chii).
Now established as an expert in economic affairs, Yeh accompanied the Red military forces that moved into Manchuria at the close of hostilities in August 1945. The military forces were led by Lin Piao, who was accompanied by such high-ranking Party leaders as Ch'en Yun, Kao Kang, Li Fu-ch’un, and Lin Feng. Lin’s Northeast Democratic Allied Army (NEDAA) came into being early in 1946. For a time in 1946 Yeh was a deputy chief-of-staff of Lin’s army, and when the NEDAA was redesignated the Northeast PLA in 1948, he became head of its Rear Services Department. Earlier, in the spring of 1946 the Communists created their first government in Manchuria, the Northeast Administrative Committee (NEAC), with the capital at Harbin. The NEAC was headed by Lin Feng, Ch'in Yun headed the Finance and Economics Committee, to which Yeh, along with Li Fu-ch'un, was assigned. By 1948 he was serving concurrently as director of the NEAC's Finance and Commerce Department.
In May 1949 Yeh was made a vice-chairman of the NEAC's Finance and Economics Committee, holding the higher post for only four months because the government in Manchuria was reorganized in August 1949 on the eve of the establishment of the central government at Peking. When the Northeast People's Government (NEPG) came into being in August 1949 the capital was moved to Shenyang. At this time Kao Kang replaced Lin Feng as head of the government. Kao also took over the responsibilities of the Finance and Economics Committee from Ch'en Yun, Yeh continued to serve as a vice-chairman of this committee, now under Kao. Yeh also became director of the Foreign Trade Department and was named a member of the NEPG Council.
Yeh relinquished all his posts in Manchuria when the Central People’s Government was formed in October 1949. At that time he was transferred to Peking and named to membership on the Finance and Economics Committee under the Government Administration Council (the cabinet). In this capacity Yeh served under Committee Chairman 6h’en Yun, his former superior in the northeast. More important was his appointment as minister of Trade, then responsible for both domestic commerce and foreign trade. Three years later, during the government reorganization of August 1952, the responsibilities for domestic commerce were transferred to the new Ministry of Commerce headed by Tseng Shan. Yeh’s ministry was renamed the Ministry of Foreign Trade, with Yeh as head of the reorganized portfolio. As of January 1965, when he was reappointed as the minister, Yeh was one of only three men to have held a ministerial post continuously from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 the other two being Chu Hsueh-fan (Posts and Telecommunications) and Fu Tso-i (Water Conservancy), both non-Communists.
As already described, when the Finance and Economics Committee (FEC) was established in October 1949, Yeh was named as a member. By May 1951 he was also serving as chairman of the FEC’s Tariff Commission, and then in August 1952 he was promoted to be a vice-chairman of the FEC, a post he continued to hold until the FEC was dissolved at the inauguration of the constitutional government in September 1954. As its title suggests, the FEC was charged with coordinating the activities of several ministries and commissions. Under the structure of the reorganized government (September 1954), a new set of “staff offices” was created with coordinating responsibilities. In October Yeh was named as a deputy-director of the Fifth Staff Office, with specific responsibilities in the fields of finance and trade. It was headed by Finance Minister Li Hsien-nien, one of Peking’s most prominent economic specialists. Under still another reorganization, in September 1959, the numbered staff offices were redesignated; the Fifth Office became known as the Finance and Trade Office, with Li continuing as the director and Yeh as one of the deputy directors. He continued to hold this important position as well as his Foreign Trade portfolio until his death in 1967.
Politics
During this same 1950-1964 period, Yeh was also constantly engaged in trade negotiations in Peking. He is known to have signed well over 50 trade agreements or protocols in China with representatives from at least 24 different nations. As a reflection of the political orientation of the PRC during the first years of its existence, most of Yeh’s negotiations took place with Communist countries. After the mid-fifties, however, he was also engaged in talks with officials from non-Communist nations, particularly the Afro-Asian countries. In addition to the scores of agreements to which Yeh was China's official signatory, he participated in negotiations with many other nations which led to agreements signed by other Chinese Communist leaders.
Although Yeh was the most important PRC official in the conduct of foreign trade until his death, he also devoted a portion of his time to other activities related to domestic commercial affairs. In July 1950 he became the director of the Board of Supervisors of the newly formed All-China Federation of Cooperatives, an organization whose main task is to stimulate the flow of goods and commodities between the rural and urban sectors of the economy. This assignment was particularly appropriate until 1952 when Yeh’s Ministry of Trade was in charge of domestic as well as foreign trade. He continued to hold this post until mid-1954 when he was replaced by Tseng Shan, the same man who in August 1952 had taken over the portfolio for domestic commerce. In his capacity as the Trade minister, Yeh was also involved in the establishment of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC). The first steps in this process took place in the fall of 1951 when an 18-member group, including Yeh, was given the task of convening a conference to form a national organization made up principally of private businessmen and industrialists. Subsequently, a large preparatory conference was held in June 1952, at the close of which Yeh was named to the Standing Committee of the Preparatory Committee. However, when the ACFIC was finally established as a permanent organization in November 1953, Yeh dropped his affiliation, probably because he had been removed from his responsibilities regarding domestic commerce in August 1952.
Membership
When the Second National Committee of the quasi-legislative CPPCC was formed in December 1954, Yeh served as a member representing the CCP. He was not re-elected in April 1959 when the Third CPPCC was established, but was at the same time transferred to the more important NPC. Yeh was elected to the Second NPC (1959-1964) as a deputy from his native Kwangtung and was re-elected to the Third NPC, the first session of which was held in December 1964-January 1965. More important, Yeh was elected to membership on the Party Central Committee at the Eighth National Congress in September 1956. He was one of 33 men elected directly to full membership who had been neither a full nor an alternate member of the Party’s Seventh Central Committee elected in 1945 in Yenan. By the end of 1957 he was also identified as a vice-chairman of the Central Committee Finance and Economics Committee, however, this organization seems to have been abolished by 1958.
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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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1929
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1937
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1944
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1946
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1951
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1967