Wu Zhihui

Biography

In 1903 the newspaper Subao ran an article that called the ruling Empress Dowager Cixi a “whore”. The author was Wu Zhihui, and afterwards he had to leave the country: first Hong Kong, then London.

He was born on 25 March 1865 in Wujin County, Jiangsu province, into a poor family, and at birth was named Wu Tiao. Later he became known as Wu Jingheng, while “Zhihui” was his courtesy name, the one by which he is most often known. In 1891 he passed the juren examination, one of the hardest in the old imperial system. He then taught at a preparatory school in Nanyang, in Shanghai.

After fleeing China he lived in Scotland and France, and in Edinburgh he attended university lectures. In 1903 he arrived in Paris and met there Li Shizeng, the son of a high official whom he had known in Beijing, and Zhang Renjie, the son of a wealthy merchant. Wu was more than ten years older than both. All three knew Confucian philosophy well, but they were drawn to the doctrine of anarchism, then flourishing in France. Together they formed the Shijie She (the “World Society”), which for several decades remained a centre of anarchist thought and recruitment. In 1905 they joined the Tongmenghui, the forerunner of the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party), and the next year Wu declared himself an anarchist. He ran the radical journals New Era and Labor (China’s first syndicalist magazine), and wrote about science, rationalism, language reform and the abolition of marriage. His ideas were revolutionary, but by his own estimate a utopian society would take three thousand years to achieve. He also took part in the Work-Study Movement in France, organised for Chinese students; among his pupils were many anarchists and future communists.

In 1912, after returning to China, Wu founded the Society to Advance Morality, also known as the “Eight Prohibitions Society”, together with Li Shizeng, Zhang Ji and Wang Jingwei. He believed that the young republic must not be threatened by the social decay of the late Qing: from gambling at mah-jong to stag parties and second wives. The organisation lived by anarchist principles: no president, no officers, no rules with any means of enforcement, no dues or fines. Yet the requirements grew with each level of membership. The lowest bound members not to visit prostitutes and not to gamble, the next added a renunciation of concubines, then came a refusal to hold government office and to smoke, and at the highest level members gave up alcohol and meat.

Wu himself declined office, but he accepted Cai Yuanpei’s invitation to join the commission on language reform. In 1912–1913 he chaired the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, which worked on a phonetic system meant to replace regional dialects. The results were the standard Guoyu pronunciation and the Zhuyin fuhao system, based on the shorthand system of Zhang Binglin. Zhuyin is still in use today. In June 1913 he became one of the founders of the journal Gonglun (“Public Opinion”).

When Sun Yat-sen’s “Second Revolution” failed that same year, Wu and Li Shizeng returned to France for their safety. By some accounts, they founded a university in Lyon and revived the Work-Study Movement.

In the 1920s Wu was counted among the “Four Elders” of the Kuomintang, together with Li Shizeng, Zhang Renjie and Cai Yuanpei. He led an anti-communist campaign, pressed for the removal of the left from the party, and supported Chiang Kai-shek. He accepted no government post, citing his anarchist principles.

In 1943 Lin Sen, Chairman of the National Government, died in Chongqing, the wartime capital. Chiang Kai-shek offered Wu his place. Wu refused and gave “three no’s”: he usually wore plain clothes, while heads of state wore tailcoats; he had an ugly face; and he loved to laugh and would not be able to keep from laughing when foreign diplomats presented their credentials. In 1946 he was elected to the National Assembly, which drew up the new constitution. In May 1948 he administered the oath of office to Chiang Kai-shek on his inauguration as President of the Republic of China, shortly before the government left the mainland.

He moved to Taiwan and taught Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo. Wu Zhihui died in Taipei on 30 October 1953, aged 88. By his will his ashes were lowered into the sea off the island of Quemoy; Chiang Ching-kuo carried this out.