View source for Bo Yibo

{{Short description|Chinese politician (1908–2007)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}}
{{family name hatnote|[[Bo (Chinese name)|Bo]]|lang=Chinese}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| image               = Boyibo1946.jpg
| caption             = Bo Yibo, aged 38, {{c.|1946}}
| office1             = Executive Vice Chairman of the [[Central Advisory Commission]]
| term_start1         = 12 September 1982
| term_end1           = 18 October 1992
| alongside1          = {{cslist|[[Xu Shiyou]]|[[Tan Zhenlin]]|[[Li Weihan]]|[[Song Renqiong]]}}
| 1blankname1         = Chairman
| 1namedata1          = {{ubl|[[Deng Xiaoping]]|[[Chen Yun]]}}
| office2             = Director of the National Machinery Industry Commission
| term_start2         = February 1980
| term_end2           = May 1982
| predecessor2        = New title
| successor2          = [[Zou Jiahua]]
| office3             = [[Vice Premier of China]]
| term_start3         = 16 November 1956
| term_end3           = 16 March 1966
| premier3            = [[Zhou Enlai]]
| term_start4         = 1 July 1979
| term_end4           = 20 June 1983
| premier4            = {{ubl|[[Hua Guofeng]]|[[Zhao Ziyang]]}}
| office5             = Director of the National Economic Commission
| term_start5         = May 1956
| term_end5           = September 1968
| predecessor5        = New title
| successor5          = {{ill|Su Jing|zh|苏静}}
| office6             = Director of the National Basic Construction Commission
| term_start6         = November 1954
| term_end6           = August 1956
| predecessor6        = New title
| successor6          = {{ill|Wang Heshou|zh|王鹤寿}}
| office7             = Director of the National Organization Committee
| term_start7         = March 1950
| term_end7           = 1954
| predecessor7        = New title
| successor7          = Position revoked
| office8             = 1st [[Minister of Finance (China)|Minister of Finance]]
| term_start8         = 19 October 1949
| term_end8           = 18 September 1953
| predecessor8        = New title
| successor8          = Deng Xiaoping
| office9             = First Secretary of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
| term_start9         = 1949
| term_end9           = 1954
| predecessor9        = [[Liu Shaoqi]]
| successor9          = [[Li Xuefeng]]
| name                = Bo Yibo
| native_name         = 薄一波
| birth_name          = Bo Shucun ({{zh|t=薄書存|labels=no}})
| alma_mater          = [[Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party]]
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1908|2|17|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Dingxiang County]], Shanxi, [[Qing Empire]]
| death_date          = {{death date and age|2007|1|15|1908|2|17|df=y}}
| death_place         = Beijing, China
| children            = 7, including [[Bo Xilai]]
| relations          = [[Bo family]]
| party               = [[Chinese Communist Party]]
| module              = {{Infobox Chinese|child=yes|order=st
| c = {{linktext|薄|一|波}}
| p = Bó Yībō
| altname = Bo Shucun
| s2 = {{linktext|薄|书|存}}
| t2 = {{linktext|薄|書|存}}
| p2 = BóShūcún
}}
}}
'''Bo Yibo''' ({{zh|s=薄一波|p=Bó Yībō|w=Po<sup>2</sup> I<sup>1</sup>-po<sup>1</sup>}}; 17 February 1908 – 15 January 2007) was a Chinese politician. He was one of the most senior political figures in China during the 1980s and 1990s.

After joining the [[Chinese Communist Party]] when he was 17, he worked as a Communist Party organizer in his native city of [[Taiyuan]], Shanxi. He was promoted to organize Communist guerrilla movements in northern China from a headquarters in [[Tianjin]] in 1928, but he was arrested and imprisoned by [[Kuomintang]] police in 1931. In 1936, with the tacit support of the Communist Party, Bo signed an anti-communist confession to secure his release. After his release Bo returned to Shanxi, rejoined the communists, and fought both the [[Kuomintang]] and the [[Japanese Empire]] in northern China until the Communists completed their unification of mainland China in 1949.

During Bo's career he held successive posts as Communist China's inaugural Minister of Finance, a member of the [[Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party|Communist Party's Politburo]], Vice-Premier, chairman of State Economic Commission, and vice-chairman of the party's [[Central Advisory Commission]]. Bo was purged in 1966 by the [[Mao Zedong|Mao]]-backed [[Gang of Four]], but he was brought back to power by [[Deng Xiaoping]] in the late 1970s, after Mao's death.

Bo was one of a select group of powerful veterans centred on Deng who were informally known as the "[[Eight Elders|Eight Immortals]]" for their political longevity and for the vast influence they commanded during the 1980s and 1990s. After returning to power Bo supported [[economic liberalization]], but was a moderate conservative politically. He initially supported both [[Hu Yaobang]] and the [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989|1989 Tiananmen protesters]], but he was eventually persuaded by hardliners to support both Hu's dismissal in 1987 and the use of violence against protesters in 1989. Bo's political involvement declined in the 1990s, but he used his influence to support both Deng Xiaoping and [[Jiang Zemin]], and to promote the career of his son, [[Bo Xilai]]. He was the last remaining, and longest-lived, of the Eight Elders at the time of his death on 15 January 2007, just a little over a month short of his 99th birthday.

==Biography==

===Early life===
Bo Yibo was born in [[Taiyuan]], the capital of [[Shanxi]], which had become one of the poorest provinces in China by the early 20th century. His father was a craftsman who produced paper, but the family was so poor that they were forced to drown one of Bo's newborn brothers because they were not wealthy enough to feed him. As a student, Bo was politically active, and once organized a protest against local land taxes.<ref name="g" /> After graduating from high school in Taiyuan he attended [[Beijing University]].<ref>Wortzel 32</ref> While studying in Beijing he joined the [[Chinese Communist Party]], four years after it was founded, in 1925.<ref name="g">Gittings</ref>

Between 1925 and 1928 Bo held a number of minor, local positions as a Communist Party organizer in his home city of Taiyuan. After [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s [[Kuomintang]] (KMT) began to [[Shanghai massacre of 1927|violently suppress communists]] across China in 1927, Bo went into hiding and continued to organize Communist activities in rural areas. In 1928 Bo was sent by the Party to work underground as a Party organizer in [[Tianjin]]. He was arrested by the KMT three times; and, after the last time, in 1931, he spent several years in jail. While imprisoned in a correctional facility for military personnel in Beijing, Bo held a formal Party title and was responsible for spreading communism and organizing communist activities in the prison.<ref name="CD">''China Daily''</ref>

In late 1936 the Kuomintang warlord governing Bo's home province of Shanxi, [[Yan Xishan]], began to fear that [[Second Sino-Japanese War|the Japanese Empire was planning to invade China]] and formed a "united front" with the Communists to resist the Japanese in Shanxi. Yan then began attracting Shanxi natives across China to return and work for his government in various patriotic organizations. Yan arranged for Guo Yingyi, one of Bo's former classmates and a former Communist then working for Yan, to travel to Beijing and secure Bo's cooperation. Guo succeeded in persuading Bo to sign an anti-Communist confession to secure his release<ref name="FG158">Feng and Goodman 158</ref> (with the tacit support of the Communist Party)<ref name="g" /> and Bo returned to Shanxi to work with Yan Xishan in October 1936.<ref name="FG158" />

After returning to Shanxi, Yan placed Bo in charge of his "Patriotic Sacrifice League", a local organization dedicated to organizing local resistance against  Japanese invasion<ref name="FG158" /> (which Bo organized as a front for promoting Communism).<ref name="W33">Wortzel 33</ref> While working under Yan, Bo organized a "dare-to-die" corps of young volunteers<ref name="g" /> and used his good relationship with Yan to persuade Yan to release communists that he was holding in prison.<ref name="W33" /> After the Japanese succeeded in taking northern Shanxi in 1937 and wiping out 90% of Yan's military forces,<ref>Gillin 273–274</ref> Bo  collected the survivors of his unit and conducted anti-Japanese guerrilla operations in southern Shanxi. When cooperation between Yan and the Communists ended in 1939, Bo led the survivors of his unit that were loyal to him and joined the Communist [[Eighth Route Army]].<ref name="W33" /> Bo worked until the Japanese surrendered, in 1945, as a commander and political commissar in the [[People's Liberation Army]], fighting the Japanese in Shanxi, [[Hebei]], [[Shandong]], and [[Henan]]. He held a number of positions within the Party that recognized his administrative authority over [[Taihang Mountains|much of these areas]], and his prestige and influence grew throughout the period of the war.<ref name="CD" /> During the later stages of Chinese Civil War, from 1946 to 1949, Bo worked closely under [[Liu Shaoqi]] and General [[Nie Rongzhen]].

=== People's Republic of China ===
After the Communists won the civil war in 1949, Bo worked as China's finance minister and chairman of the [[National Development and Reform Commission|State Planning Commission]]. In 1956, the State Economic Commission was established under Bo in order to ease administrative burdens on the State Planning Commission.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Hou |first=Li |title=Building for oil: Daqing and the Formation of the Chinese Socialist State |date=2021 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-26022-1 |edition= |series=[[Harvard-Yenching Institute]] monograph series |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page= |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=17–18}} Bo served in a number of other similar positions, including [[Vice Premier of China|vice premier]] (from 1957) under [[Zhou Enlai]].<ref name="CD" /><ref name="Kahn">Kahn</ref>

During the early 1950s he was Mao's swimming partner.<ref name="g" />

He promoted moderate economic policies until he lost Mao's favour in 1958.

In 1964, Bo and [[Li Fuchun]] traveled to southwest China to relay Mao's selection of [[Panzhihua]] as the base for steel industry development during China's [[Third Front (China)|Third Front]] construction.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Hou |first=Li |title=Building for oil: Daqing and the Formation of the Chinese Socialist State |date=2021 |publisher=[[Harvard University Asia Center]] |isbn=978-0-674-26022-1 |edition= |series=[[Harvard-Yenching Institute]] monograph series |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=102}}

Bo Yibo was a member of the CCP Politburo from the 8th National Party Congress in 1956 to the beginning of the [[Cultural Revolution]], and again during the leadership of [[Deng Xiaoping]], from 1979 until the 12th National Party Congress in 1982, when most of the elders retired from formal government positions.

===Persecution in the Cultural Revolution===
When the [[Cultural Revolution]] began in 1966, Bo was quickly identified as a "capitalist roader" and purged as one of the "[[61 Renegades]]"—Party members who had spent time in Kuomintang prisons.<ref name="ft">''Financial Times''</ref> [[Jiang Qing]] produced the anti-communist statement that Bo had signed in 1937 with the Kuomintang in order to secure his release from prison, accusing him of "betraying the party" and making him an easy target for persecution. On 9 February 1967, [[Kang Sheng]] and his associates organized a rally in the [[Beijing Workers Stadium]] to criticize and "struggle against" Bo. Bo was paraded through the stadium with an iron plaque around his neck describing his "crimes", but he was more defiant than most victims persecuted by Red Guards, and demanded (unsuccessfully) to speak in his own defence. While being paraded he shouted: "I am not a traitor! I am a member of the Communist Party!" Bo's insistence that he was a loyal Communist Party member and that Mao had approved all of his actions created a chaotic atmosphere, and the rally was cancelled after three minutes.<ref name="g" /><ref>Wu and Peng 123</ref>

After the rally Bo was transferred to a Beijing prison, where he was charged and convicted of many crimes, including being "a backbone general of the Liu-Deng Black Headquarters", "a core element of the Liu Shaoqi renegade clique", "a big traitor", "a counter-revolutionary revisionist element", and "a [[Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns|Three Anti]] element". His captors claimed that many of these crimes should be punished by death. Because of Bo's stubborn refusal to break down and "confess" to these charges, he was subjected to various means of torture throughout 1966 and 1967, during which he was routinely beaten and systematically deprived of food, water and sleep.<ref>Wu and Peng 123–132</ref>

While imprisoned, Bo attempted to keep notes on the circumstances of his beatings by writing on scraps of newspaper, but his jailers confiscated these and used them as evidence of Bo's recalcitrance. Eventually, his hands trembled so much that he could not hold chopsticks, and he had to scrape his rice off the floor of his cell. When he complained to his jailers that this was "not the communist way", his jailers only beat him more severely.<ref name="g" /> Bo's children were jailed or sent to the countryside, and his wife died in captivity (she was reportedly beaten to death by Red Guards,<ref name="g" /><ref name="Kahn" /> but they claimed that she committed suicide).<ref>Wu and Peng 135</ref> Bo Xiyong, [[Bo Xilai]], and Bo Xicheng were imprisoned at the ages of sixteen, seventeen and seventeen (respectively), and Bo Xining was sent to the countryside at the age of fourteen.<ref>Wu and Peng</ref> Bo remained in prison for over a decade.

===Career under Deng Xiaoping===
Three years after Mao died, in 1979, [[Deng Xiaoping]] led an effort to rehabilitate members of the Communist Party who had been  persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Bo was released from prison and reinstated as a member of the [[Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party|Politburo]],<ref name="g" /> and to his former position of vice premier.<ref name="Kahn" /> He joined the ranks of a small group of other senior officials of Deng's generation who Deng had returned to government known as the [[Eight Elders|"Eight Immortals"]]. In 1982 he was promoted to the [[Central Advisory Commission]], a formal group of Party elders with over forty years of political experience. During the 1980s the group clashed with a group of younger reformers within the Party led by [[Hu Yaobang]].<ref name="g" />

Bo came to support economic reform after one of his trips in the 1980s to [[Boeing]]'s facilities in the United States. During his visit, Bo discovered that there were only two airplanes parked at the facility. He asked the Boeing executives whether there would be any planes left if the two that he saw were gone.  The company's executives answered that two was the exact number they wanted at this particular time, because their production was based on customer orders and anything more than necessary would be a waste of resources. After this visit to Boeing, Bo became much more critical of the Chinese practice of a [[planned economy]], pointing out that excesses of production were in fact a waste of resources. Even for a planned economy, Bo believed that central planning should be based on market demand instead of on rigid Soviet-style planning undertaken without regard to market forces.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Bo was an important supporter of economic reform in the early 1980s, but eventually supported the efforts of other, more conservative, party elders to remove Hu from power in 1987. During the [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989]] Bo initially supported moderate Party leaders who called to compromise with protesters, but was later persuaded to support Party hardliners who believed that the students were secretly being controlled by "imperialists with ulterior motives". He ultimately supported the decision to use force to suppress the demonstrations.<ref name="g" />

After 1989 Bo intervened numerous times to support Deng's efforts to restart economic (but not political) liberalization, and to prevent economic hardliners from dominating Party politics.<ref name="g" /> Even after completely retiring during the 1990s, his status meant that he remained an influential figure who still pulled strings behind the scenes and could make or unmake party officials.<ref name="Kahn" /> He used his influence to support the rise of [[Jiang Zemin]], who became the [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party]] in the 1989. Bo Yibo retired from politics after the [[Central Advisory Committee]] was abolished in October 1992 after the 14th Party Congress. In 1993 he co-authored a book on the early history of the Chinese Communist Party.<ref name="Kahn" />

Bo closely supported the political career of his son, [[Bo Xilai]],<ref name="g" /> who was considered a member of the "[[Crown Prince Party]]," though its members are only loosely affiliated by their background. Bo Xilai eventually rose to become China's commerce minister; and, later, the Communist Party Committee Secretary of [[Chongqing]], but his political career ended with the 2012 [[Wang Lijun incident|Wang Lijun scandal]].

===Death===
Bo lived long enough to be the oldest member of the Communist Party in China by the end of his life.<ref name="g" /> He died of an undisclosed illness on 15 January 2007.<ref name="ft" /><ref>{{cite news |title=Obituary: Bo Yibo |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries1 |access-date=13 January 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=24 January 2007 |language=en}}</ref> He was cremated and his remains were interred at [[Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery]] next to his wife [[Hu Ming]].<ref>''South China Morning Post''</ref> His daughter, who died twelve years later, was buried next to them.

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Bibliography==
* [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2007-01/17/content_785104.htm "Biography of Bo Yibo"]. ''China Daily''. 17 January 2007. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
* Feng Chongyi and Goodman, David S. G., eds. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ib-sEZzxkb4C&pg=PA158&dq ''North China at War: The Social Ecology of Revolution, 1937–1945'']. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. 2000. {{ISBN|0-8476-9938-2}}. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
* [https://archive.today/20150507174517/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c25aed8e-a5ac-11db-a4e0-0000779e2340.html%23axzz1w9pCAt5N "Bo Yibo, Chinese Revolutionary, Dies at 98"] ''Financial Times''. 17 January 2007. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
* Gillin, Donald G. ''Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949''.  Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.  1967.
* Gittings, John. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries1 "Bo Yibo: Veteran Chinese Leader and 'Immortal' whose Loyalty to the Party Survived its Purges"]. ''The Guardian''. 24 January 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
* Kahn, Joseph. [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/world/asia/16iht-obits.4228059.html?_r=1 "Bo Yibo, Leader Who Helped Reshape China's Economy, Dies"]. ''New York Times''. 16 January 2007. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
* [[Larry Wortzel|Wortzel, Larry M.]] [https://books.google.com/books?id=rfu-hR8msh4C&pg=PA33&dq ''Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Military History'']. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 1999. {{ISBN|978-0313293375}}. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
* {{Cite news |last=Wu |first=Nan |date=23 September 2013 |title=Babaoshan struggles to meet demand as cadres' final resting place |language=en |work=South China Morning Post |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1315525/babaoshan-struggles-meet-demand-cadres-final-resting-place |access-date=13 January 2022}}
* Wu Linquan and Peng Fei. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Qvo5sUPuaKEC&pg=PA122&dq "Bo Yibo Has an Attitude Problem"]. In ''China's Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969: Not A Dinner Party''. Ed. Michael Schoenhals. Armonk, New York: East Gate. 1996. {{ISBN|1-56324-736-4}}. pp.&nbsp;122–135. Retrieved 28 May 2012.

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{{s-aft|after=[[Li Xuefeng]]}}
{{s-new}}
{{s-ttl|title=Executive Vice Chairman of the [[Central Advisory Commission]]|years=1982–1992}}
{{s-aft|after=Position revoked}}
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{{s-ttl|title=[[Minister of Finance (China)|Minister of Finance]]|years=1949–1952}}
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{{s-end}}

{{1st State Council of China}}
{{2nd State Council of China}}
{{3rd State Council of China}}
{{5th State Council of China}}
{{8th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party}}
{{Vice Premiers of the People's Republic of China}}
{{State councillors}}
{{Ministers of Finance of the People's Republic of China}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bo, Yibo}}
[[Category:Chinese Communist Party politicians from Shanxi]]
[[Category:Politicians from Xinzhou]]
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:2007 deaths]]
[[Category:Victims of the Cultural Revolution]]
[[Category:Family of Bo Xilai]]
[[Category:People's Republic of China politicians from Shanxi]]
[[Category:Ministers of finance (China)]]
[[Category:61 Renegades]]
[[Category:State councillors of China]]
[[Category:Burials at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery]]
[[Category:Members of the 7th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:Members of the 8th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]
[[Category:Members of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]