Wan Li (December 1916 – 15 July 2015) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and politician who served as First Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1983 to 1988 and the 5th Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1988 to 1993.
Wan joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1936 and led revolutionary and wartime resistance activities in his native Shandong province. After the founding of the communist state in 1949, Wan served in a series of government ministries, then worked as a member of the municipal leadership in Beijing. He 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. In the 1980s, Wan became one of the leading moderate reformers in China's top leadership, advocating for constitutional reforms, the strengthening of legislative institutions, and the abolition of 'lifelong-terms' of top political leaders. He was named head of the national legislature (i.e., the NPC) in 1988. He retired in 1993. Wan Li was a supporter of Socialism with Chinese characteristics and even influenced it with his policies.
Wan was born to an impoverished family in Zhoucheng Subdistrict, Dongping County, Shandong province. Wan aspired to become educated from a young age, and was admitted to a provincial-run teacher's college located in Qufu in 1939. After joining the school, Wan founded a book club to study Marxist–Leninist works. After the student-led December 9th Movement, revolutionary and anti-Japanese fervour spread across campuses all over China, motivating youth to take up the cause for the country's future. Wan 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 (CCP) in 1936, and served in party administrative positions, many in Shandong province, from county level on up. Wan led the party organization in his native Dongping County in between 1937 and 1938, Propaganda and Organization Department director in Taixi Prefecture in 1938–40, deputy head of propaganda for Western Shandong regional CCP committee in 1940, and Secretary of the party's 2nd, 7th and 8th Prefectural Committees in the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Area in 1940–47. In the last phases of the Civil War, Wan Li served as Secretary-General of the Border Area committee (1947–49).
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Wan was named deputy director of the finance department of the Nanjing Municipality Military Control Committee, director of the Economic Department and Chief of the city Construction Bureau, all within a few months. He served as deputy director of the CCP South-west Military and Administrative Committee's Industrial Department (1949–52), where he would have encountered Deng Xiaoping, who was leading the southwest bureau at the time.
In 1952 Wan was transferred to begin work for the central authorities in Beijing. He shortly became the Vice Minister of Architectural Engineering (1953) followed by the post of Minister of Urban Construction (1955). From 1958, he was a secretary of the Beijing Municipality CCP Committee (under First Secretary Peng Zhen) and vice mayor; in 1959 he took a leading role in directing the construction of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in preparation for the 10th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
During the Cultural Revolution, like many of his contemporaries, Wan was purged and sent into solitary interrogation, and then took part in "re-education through labour".
Wan was restored to his Beijing posts in May 1973. He was named Minister of Railways in January 1975 (to April 1976) and 1st Vice Minister of Light Industry in 1977. In May of the same year, he took over Anhui Province as CCP 1st Secretary (i.e., provincial party leader) and Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee (i.e., government).
In Anhui, Wan Li was responsible for the earliest post-Mao agrarian reform. He instituted the household-responsibility system whereby farmers divided communal lands and assigned them to individual farmers. Wan faced resistance from conservatives in Beijing who criticized his reforms as not sufficiently socialist or ineffective. Nevertheless, he pressed on with the reforms. His six guidelines (the Anhui liu tiao) relaxed controls on trading as well, permitting farmers to sell surplus produce independently. Peasants were allowed to grow vegetables on 3/10th of a mu and did not have to pay taxes on wheat and oil-bearing plants grown on private plots.
The Anhui agricultural reforms were heralded as brilliant innovations by the central government. The system implemented by Wan was followed up with reform programs led by Zhao Ziyang in Sichuan province. Along with Xi Zhongxun, Hu Yaobang, and other reformists in charge of implementing wide-ranging reforms, Wan was seen as a pioneer who made significant contributions to the national reform programmes in the 1980s, winning praise from paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Wan Li was immortalised by the folk saying "If you want to eat rice, look for Wan Li."
Wan 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. In April he was made Vice Premier to fellow agrarian reformer Zhao Ziyang, and in August Wan was named Minister of the State Agricultural Commission. He was also made a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in September of that year.
Wan 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 supported Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in arguing to spread the household responsibility system nationwide in 1979–81. He also supported Zhao in curtailing the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in the mid-1980s.
After the January 1987 resignation of General Secretary Hu Yaobang, Wan Li was named to the interim "five man group", which essentially acted as an interim Politburo Standing Committee. Wan 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. However, the appointment was opposed by party elder Bo Yibo and others conservatives such as Yao Yilin. According to Zhao Ziyang's memoirs, Yao said that Wan had "offended too many people" and criticized Wan as "the type to stir up trouble when things go wrong."
Deng heeded the conservatives' opposition to Wan entering the party's foremost decision-making body, but instead suggested that Wan take on the office of the Chairman of the National People's Congress. The legislative position, while not part of the party's apex, was still a prestigious office that carried a full 'national leader' rank. Wan 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. Deng replied that Wan "could always learn [on the job] and find people to assist him."
Wan was duly elected as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1988, succeeding Peng Zhen. He maintained this position until he retired in 1993.
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
Wan was on an official visit to Canada and the United States during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. As Wan was seen as one of the representative figures of the CCP's reformist wing, leading voices within the party's top leadership, particularly retired elders, believed that Wan was sympathetic to the students and would rally behind Zhao Ziyang, the leading reformer in China's top leadership.