21 Facts About Zou Taofen

Zou Taofen was a Chinese journalist, media entrepreneur, and political activist.

Zou Taofen was one of the so-called "Seven Gentlemen" who were arrested in 1936 and then freed in July 1937 on the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Zou Taofen died in Shanghai on July 1944, and was granted posthumous Chinese Communist Party membership in September of that year.

Zou Taofen was born in Fuzhou, Fujian province in 1895 as the eldest of six children.

Zou Taofen's father was a minor official who struggled to support the family.

Zou Taofen's mother did sewing, taking in orders from women for festival clothes, and making shoes for the children.

Zou Taofen's father wanted Zou to study engineering, and sent him to Nan Yang College in Shanghai, but in 1919 Zou transferred to St John's University, where he majored in English.

In 1926 Zou Taofen became editor of the society's journal, Shenghuo zhoukan and changed its mission from vocational education to political reporting and social criticism.

Zou Taofen embraced his success as a successful commercial entrepreneur and wrote enthusiastically about foreign business geniuses, such as George Eastman, who showed that capitalism could strengthen a nation.

Zou Taofen used his magazine not only as a forum to urge the Nationalist Government offer stronger resistance but to launch a campaign to raise money for armies that were more resolute.

The circulation of Zou Taofen's magazine grew to 155,000, but when the government began to crack down on opposition figures, Zou Taofen left China for Europe.

Zou Taofen departed just as the government decided to close his magazine in December 1933.

Zou Taofen's journey took him through Europe, then to the Soviet Union, where he attended a summer session at Moscow University, and finally to the United States, where he traveled May through July 1935.

Zou Taofen was impressed that the United States "has the material basis for making people happy" and with the "bountiful food and clothing".

Zou Taofen continued to campaign for freedom of the press, though without success.

Zou Taofen returned to Shanghai, where he continued to write in support of the United Front, promote establishment of democratic government, and urge expansion of mass education.

Zou Taofen wrote that he had three wishes: that his body be dissected at a hospital; that it then be cremated and the ashes sent to Yan'an, the wartime communist headquarters; and that he be made a member of the Party.

Zou Taofen died on July 24,1944, and was granted party membership September 28.

Zou Taofen Jiahua stayed on in the New Fourth Army district after his father left for Shanghai in 1944.

Zou Taofen joined the Party and became a construction officer and engineer.

Zou Taofen Jingmeng was head of the China Meteorological Administration and president of the World Meteorological Organization.