Huang Yanpei


Huang Yanpei was a Chinese educator, writer, and politician. He was a founding pioneer of the China Democratic League.

Life

Huang was born in Neishidi, Chuansha, Jiangsu during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor in the late Qing dynasty. His mother died when he was 13 and his father died when he was 17, so he lived with his maternal grandfather, who gave him a traditional Chinese education. In his young age, he studied at Dongye School and read the Four Books and Five Classics. Before he reached adulthood, he worked as an informal teacher in his hometown to support his family. In 1899, he topped the imperial examination in Songjiang Prefecture and obtained the position of a xiucai.
Huang's uncle sponsored him to read Western studies. In 1901, he was enrolled in Nanyang Public School, where he met Cai Yuanpei, who was teaching the Chinese language there. A year later, Huang obtained a juren position in the imperial examination in Jiangnan. Later, he left school with his mates in protest against the expulsion of some of his fellow students, who were expelled for allegedly showing disrespect towards a teacher by leaving an empty ink bottle on the teacher's desk — an act interpreted as mocking the teacher because it suggested that teacher was unlearned. Huang returned to Chuansha, where he established a Chuansha Primary School for children. During this time, he read Yan Fu's Tian Yan Lun — a translation of Thomas Henry Huxley's Evolution and Ethics — and other books on Western ideas.
In 1903, while giving a talk in Nanhui District, Huang was accused of being an anti-government revolutionary and was arrested and imprisoned. He was released on bail with the help of William Burke, an American missionary, and left the prison just an hour before an order for his execution from the Jiangsu provincial government reached Nanhui. Huang fled to Japan and returned to Shanghai three months later, where he continued to help to set up and run schools. In 1905, Huang was introduced by Cai Yuanpei to join the Tongmenghui. At the same, Huang established, ran and taught in various schools, including the Pudong Middle School. He also helped to set up the Organisation for Education Affairs in Jiangsu.
After the 1911 Xinhai Revolution which overthrew the Qing dynasty, Huang served as the Head of Civilian Affairs and Head of Education in the Office of the Governor of Jiangsu. He later became the Secretary of Education and reformed education in the region, helping to plan and set up several schools. At the same time, he was also the Vice President of the Education Society and a travelling reporter for the newspaper Shen Bao.
In 1908, Huang, Tong Shiheng and others founded Pudong Electric Co., Ltd. to provide electricity in Pudong. In 1913, Huang published an article, Discussion on schools adopting a practical stance towards education, to express his thoughts on how education should be tailored towards pragmatism. Between February 1914 and early 1917, Huang, as a reporter for Shen Bao, visited and observed various schools throughout China. In April 1915, he followed an industrial organisation to the United States, where he visited 52 schools in 25 cities and saw that vocational education was very popular there. He visited Japan, the Philippines and Southeast Asia to observe education in those countries. He made notes from his observations, compiled them and had them published.
In 1917, Huang travelled to Britain to observe the British education system. On May 6 that year, with support from many people in the education sector and the business industry, Huang founded the National Association of Vocational Education of China in Shanghai. A year later, he established the Chinese Vocational School. Over the next ten years, Huang remained active in the education sector, using the Chinese Vocational School to expand his activities. During the May Fourth Movement in 1919, he used his position as the Secretary of Education to rally support from the schools in Shanghai to disrupt classes and stage demonstrations.
In 1921, Huang was appointed as the Education Minister by the Beiyang government but he refused to take up this post. In 1922, he drafted the educational system and helped to set up more schools. Five years later, he ran a Life Magazine to further publish his thoughts and ideas. In 1927, when the ruling Nationalist Party was in conflict with the Communist Party, Huang was accused of being a "scholar-tyrant" and became a wanted man, but he escaped to Dalian, Liaoning. He returned to Shanghai after Chiang Kai-shek withdrew the order for his arrest.
When the Mukden Incident occurred in 1931, Huang became worried about Japanese aggression towards China so he took part in anti-Japanese activities. He also set up a newsletter agency, Newsletter on Saving the Nation, to stir patriotic sentiments among his fellow Chinese. A year later, he sent a message throughout China, urging everyone to put aside their differences and unite to resist the Japanese. When the January 28 Incident occurred in 1932, Huang and other influential men in Shanghai formed the Shanghai Citizen Preservation Organisation to raise funds to support the 19th Route Army and preserve Shanghai's economy and security. This continued until Shanghai fell to the Japanese in 1937.
Huang retreated to Chongqing following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, where he served as a representative in the National Defence Council. A year later, he became a member of the People's Political Council. In 1941, he founded the China Democratic League with Zhang Lan and others and served as its first Chairman. In 1945, Huang established the China Democratic National Construction Association with Hu Juewen and others and served as its first Chairperson.
In July 1945, in an attempt to act as mediators for the conflict between the Nationalist and Communist parties, Huang, Zhang Bojun and others travelled to Yan'an to meet Mao Zedong and the Communists. When he returned to Chongqing, Huang wrote a book, Return from Yan'an, describing a conversation he had with Mao — widely known as the Zhou Qi Lü conversation. During the Chinese Civil War, Huang resigned from the People's Political Council in protest against the war and returned to Shanghai, where he continued to help to set up and run schools.
Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Huang became a member of the Central People's Government, Vice Premier of the State Council, and Minister of Light Industry. He also consecutively served as the Vice Chairman in the second, third and fourth Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Huang had differing views on some of the Communist government's policies and was especially opposed to state monopoly in purchasing and marketing. Mao Zedong even once called Huang "a spokesperson for capitalists". Huang managed to retain only his positions in the National People's Congress and Political Consultative Conference when the Communist Party started purging non-communist members from its government bodies.
Huang died on 21 December 1965 in Beijing. His body was cremated and the ashes buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

Other names

In 1945, Huang travelled to Yan'an to meet Mao Zedong and they had a conversation. In this dialogue, Huang noted that history is a testament to an observation that no form of government — an empire, a kingdom, a republic, and so on — had ever been able to break out of a cycle of rise and fall.
Huang said,
Mao replied,

Appearances in media

In 2010, China's CCTV-8 released a 25-episodes television series based on Huang Yanpei's life. It was titled Huang Yanpei and starred Zhang Tielin as the eponymous character.