25 Facts About Wan Li

Wan Li was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and politician.

Wan Li was purged during the Cultural Revolution, but was eventually rehabilitated and returned to work as party chief of Anhui province, where he led the implementation of successful agrarian reforms centered on the household-responsibility system.

Wan Li was born to an impoverished family in Dongping County, Shandong province.

Wan Li aspired to become educated from a young age, and was admitted to a provincial-run teacher's college located in Qufu in 1939.

Wan Li returned to his native Dongping County and became a part-time teacher while devoting most of his time to the revolution and agitating for resistance against Japanese invaders.

Wan Li joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1936, and served in party administrative positions, many in Shandong province, from county level on up.

Wan Li served as deputy director of the CCP South-west Military and Administrative Committee's Industrial Department, where he would have encountered Deng Xiaoping, who was leading the southwest bureau at the time.

In 1952 Wan Li was transferred to begin work for the central authorities in Beijing.

Wan Li shortly became the Vice Minister of Architectural Engineering followed by the post of Minister of Urban Construction.

Wan Li was named Minister of Railways in January 1975 and 1st Vice Minister of Light Industry in 1977.

Wan Li instituted the household-responsibility system whereby farmers divided communal lands and assigned them to individual farmers.

Wan Li faced resistance from conservatives in Beijing who criticized his reforms as not sufficiently socialist or ineffective.

The system implemented by Wan Li was followed up with reform programs led by Zhao Ziyang in Sichuan province.

Wan Li was elected to the 11th Central Committee in 1977, and to the Central Committee Secretariat in February 1980, where he worked under General Secretary Hu Yaobang.

Wan Li served as the chair of the Five Disciplines, Four Graces and Three Loves activity committee.

Wan Li became the Vice Premier in 1984 and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1988.

Wan Li supported Zhao in curtailing the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in the mid-1980s.

Wan Li was one of seven individuals shortlisted as candidates for formal entry into the supreme body, due for confirmation at the 13th National Congress of the party in the autumn of 1987.

Deng heeded the conservatives' opposition to Wan Li entering the party's foremost decision-making body, but instead suggested that Wan Li take on the office of the Chairman of the National People's Congress.

Wan Li initially was unsure about his taking up the office, telling Deng that he was not qualified enough since he did not have a background in law.

Wan Li was duly elected as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1988, succeeding Peng Zhen.

Wan Li maintained this position until he retired in 1993.

Wan Li was on an official visit to Canada and the United States during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Wan Li gradually faded from public view after 1993, making occasional appearances but otherwise heeding his own view that retired politicians should not interfere with the workings of the party and state.

Wan Li died on 15 July 2015 in Beijing of an unspecified illness.