Chen Shunyao
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chen Shunyao | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||
| Born | September 1917 | ||||||||
| Died | 31 July 2019 (aged 101) Beijing, China | ||||||||
| Alma mater | Tsinghua University | ||||||||
| Occupations | Politician, academic administrator | ||||||||
| Political party | Chinese Communist Party | ||||||||
| Spouse | Song Ping | ||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||
| Relatives | Chen Junwu (brother) | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 陳舜瑤 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 陈舜瑶 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Chen Shunyao (Chinese: 陈舜瑶; September 1917 – 31 July 2019) was a Chinese politician and academic administrator. She served as deputy party secretary of Tsinghua University, and was a delegate to the First and Third National People's Congresses. She was the wife of the high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Song Ping, a former member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee.
Chen was born in September 1917 in Jinan, Shandong, Republic of China, with her ancestral home in Fuzhou, Fujian.[1][2] In September 1936, she entered the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University, where she met her future husband Song Ping, a chemistry student and activist in the December 9th Movement against Japanese aggression in China.[1][2]
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937 and the Japanese army occupied Beijing, Chen and Song evacuated with Tsinghua University to Changsha in southern China, where she joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1937. She later went with Song to the CCP headquarters in Yan'an. She studied at the CCP Central Party School and worked as Zhou Enlai's secretary in 1939.[1][2]
In 1940, the CCP sent Chen as a representative to the Kuomintang government in China's wartime capital Chongqing, and later Nanjing after the end of World War II. When the Chinese Civil War broke out, she was transferred to the CCP-held area in Northeast China, where she worked in education, including a stint as the principal of Harbin Girls' High School.[1][2]