KMT elder who represented the state as a largely ceremonial Chairman of the National Government for twelve years into the war with Japan
Born in Minhou, Fuzhou, in 1868 and educated by American missionaries, he worked at the Taipei telegraph bureau in 1884 and fought the Japanese occupation of Taiwan as a guerrilla. He joined the Tongmenghui in 1905, became speaker of the provisional senate in Nanjing after the Xinhai Revolution, and after the failed Second Revolution followed Sun Yat-sen into exile and into his Chinese Revolutionary Party. After Sun's death he led the right-wing Western Hills Group, which demanded the expulsion of the Communists. Chairman of the National Government from December 1931, after Chiang Kai-shek resigned, he held little real power but was respected as an elder free of ambition and corruption. He moved to Chongqing during the war, spurned every offer to collaborate with Japan, and died in office in 1943 after a stroke that followed a car accident.
Activities and affiliations
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1905–1912
Tongmenghui (Chinese United League)
Political and party leadership -
1924–1943
Political and party leadership
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1931–1943
Republic of China state institutionsChairman of the National GovernmentHeads of state, government and party of ChinaMain
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1884Worked at the Taipei telegraph bureau
- 1902Worked at the Shanghai customs
- 1905Joined the Tongmenghui
- 1911Civil administrator of the Jiujiang military government
- 1912Speaker of the Provisional Senate in Nanjing
- 1913Exile in Japan after the Second Revolution; joined the Chinese Revolutionary Party
- 1918.10Speaker of the senate of the extraordinary parliament in Guangzhou
- 1924Member of the KMT Central Executive Committee
- 1925.11Led the Western Hills Conference
- 1931.12.15–1943.08.01Chairman of the National Government