Background
Ku was born in I-hsien in western Liaoning.
Ku was born in I-hsien in western Liaoning.
In 1925, while still a teenager, he became involved in revolutionary underground work and sometime between this date and 1932 joined the CCP
Apparently he was assigned to work in Shanghai, because he was arrested there by the KMT authorities in 1932. Like many Party members, Ku was released upon the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War in 1937, after which he made his way to Communist-held areas in north China. He spent most of the war engaged in Party work, with a particular emphasis on financial-economic work in the Shansi-Hopeh-Shantung-Honan Border Region (see under Yang Hsiu-feng, the regional chairman).
At the close of hostilities in 1945, when thousands of Chinese Communist soldiers and cadres were sent to Manchuria under the leadership of such prominent Party members as Kao Kang, Lin Piao, Ch’en Yun, and Li Fu-ch’un, Ku was among those who administered the portions of Liaopei and Nunkiang provinces (in central Manchuria) which the Communists occupied. There he apparently continued to specialize in economic affairs. At this time Manchuria was divided into nine provinces (the administrative demarcations having been made by the Nationalists). In 1946 the Communists established the Northeast Administrative Committee (NEAC) to govern their territory in Manchuria.
Ku served as chairman of the NEAC Finance Department from May to August 1949, replacing commerce and trade specialist Yeh Chi-chuang. In August 1949, just prior to the establishment of the central PRC government in Peking, the NEAC was reorganized into the Northeast People’s Government (NEPG) under the chairmanship of Kao Kang. Ku was then named to membership on the NEPG Council while at the same time he continued to head the Finance Department for the new government until July 1952.
Apparently he was assigned to work in Shanghai, because he was arrested there by the KMT authorities in 1932. Like many Party members, Ku was released upon the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War in 1937, after which he made his way to Communist-held areas in north China. He spent most of the war engaged in Party work, with a particular emphasis on financial-economic work in the Shansi-Hopeh-Shantung-Honan Border Region (see under Yang Hsiu-feng, the regional chairman).
At the close of hostilities in 1945, when thousands of Chinese Communist soldiers and cadres were sent to Manchuria under the leadership of such prominent Party members as Kao Kang, Lin Piao, Ch’en Yun, and Li Fu-ch’un, Ku was among those who administered the portions of Liaopei and Nunkiang provinces (in central Manchuria) which the Communists occupied. There he apparently continued to specialize in economic affairs. At this time Manchuria was divided into nine provinces (the administrative demarcations having been made by the Nationalists). In 1946 the Communists established the Northeast Administrative Committee (NEAC) to govern their territory in Manchuria.
Ku served as chairman of the NEAC Finance Department from May to August 1949, replacing commerce and trade specialist Yeh Chi-chuang. In August 1949, just prior to the establishment of the central PRC government in Peking, the NEAC was reorganized into the Northeast People’s Government (NEPG) under the chairmanship of Kao Kang. Ku was then named to membership on the NEPG Council while at the same time he continued to head the Finance Department for the new government until July 1952.
In January 1961 the CCP re-created regional Party bureaus. Gradually, over the next two years, a large number of senior leaders in Peking (many of them economic experts) were transferred to these bureaus. By May 1963 Ku had been reassigned to Manchuria (at Shenyang, the bureau headquarters), and by October he was specifically identified as a Bureau secretary, a post that makes him subordinate to First Secretary Sung Jen-ch’iung. It was therefore logical that Ku would relinquish his vice-chairmanship of the State Planning Commission, a step formally taken in September 1963. Ku continues to hold only one post in the national government. He is a member of the quasi-legislative CPPCC, but the position has become largely nominal since the inauguration of the constitutional government in 1954 when the importance of the CPPCC declined. He was named to the CPPCC’s Third National Committee in April 1959 as a “specially-invited personage” and was again named in this capacity to the Fourth Committee, which first met in December 1964- January 1965. Unlike the majority of Communist officials, Ku has not been called upon to engage in the innumerable political activities of the “mass” organizations (such as the China Peace Committee). Rather, he has been permitted to devote himself almost exclusively to economic affairs, and presumably continues to fulfill such a role in Manchuria, China’s industrial heartland.
The caliber of Ku’s work in Manchuria must have been known to such top economic specialists as Ch’en Yun and Li Fu-ch’un, both of whom had also served there. This might account for Ku’s transfer to Peking in 1954 at the time the new constitutional government was inaugurated (September). He was named (October) as a vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission under Chairman Li Fu-ch’un, a post Ku held for nearly nine years. His primary responsibilities appear to have been centered around international economic problems and negotiations. In December 1958 he led an economic delegation to Budapest and from there apparently went directly to the USSR; in any case, he was present in Moscow in early February 1959 when Chou En-lai signed an important agreement on the “further expansion” of Sino-Soviet economic cooperation, the terms of which provided for large-scale credits to the Chinese.
Ku returned to Moscow in April 1961 as the head of a scientific and technical delegation. After extended negotiations, he signed an agreement covering economic, scientific, and technical cooperation. Ku's activities abroad were reflected in Peking where he frequently took part in talks with delegations visiting China to negotiate economic agreements, as illustrated in December 1960 when he was among those officially participating in the talks with a delegation led to Peking by Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia. He has also writtetn on occasion for the Party press or specialized' economic journals; for example, in July 1959 for the important magazine Chi-hua yii t’ung-chi (Planning and statistics) he wrote a survey of industrial development covering the first decade of the PRC.
