Chu Anping

Independent activity Liberalism and republicanism 1909–1966 Disappeared

Liberal journalist of The Observer; Guangming Daily editor made a rightist by his “party’s empire” speech, who vanished in 1966

From Yixing, Jiangsu, he studied in Britain and taught at Fudan University. In 1946 he founded the liberal weekly The Observer, which criticised the Nationalist government until it was shut down in 1948. After 1949 he managed the Xinhua Bookstore and in April 1957 became editor-in-chief of the Guangming Daily; he belonged to the Democratic League and the Jiusan Society. On 1 June, at a United Front Work Department forum, his “Some Opinions for Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou” criticised the mentality of the “party’s empire”; when the Anti-Rightist Campaign began he was singled out, dismissed in November and in January 1958 labelled a “bourgeois rightist”. After Red Guard struggle sessions in August 1966 he attempted suicide, and he disappeared in September. He is one of the five central-level rightists never corrected.

Also known as: Ch'u An-p'ing