Qiu Changwei | |
---|---|
邱昌渭 | |
Secretary-General to the President | |
In office 26 June 1949 – 20 March 1950 | |
Preceded by | Weng Wenhao |
Succeeded by | Wang Shijie |
Member of the Legislative Yuan | |
In office 20 May 1948 – June 1949 | |
Preceded by | multi-member district |
Succeeded by | multi-member district |
Constituency | Hunan 3 |
Personal details | |
Born | Qing China | 16 October 1898
Died | 24 July 1956 Taiwan | (aged 57)
Nationality | Republic of China |
Political party | Kuomintang |
Alma mater | Pomona College Columbia University |
Qiu Changwei (Chinese: 邱昌渭; 16 October 1898 – 24 July 1956) was a Chinese-born politician. He began his political career in the Guangxi Provincial Government, then served on the National Political Assembly and Legislative Yuan. His tenure as Secretary-General to the President of the Republic of China between 1949 and 1950 saw the government relocate from mainland China to Taiwan. In Taiwan, Qiu was a member of the Civil Service Higher Examination Committee and Continental Liberation Planning and Research Committee .
Qiu was born on 18 October 1898, and could trace his ancestry to Zhijiang County in Hunan.[1]
Qiu earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Pomona College in 1923, and completed his Master of Arts in political science, followed by a doctorate in philosophy, both at Columbia University, in 1924 and 1928, respectively. Upon his return to China, Qiu became a professor at Northeastern University. He also taught at Tsinghua University, Peking University and Sun Yat-sen University. During his teaching career, he served as an adviser and secretariat of the Fourth Army Group of the National Revolutionary Army, as well as secretary-general of the Guangxi Provincial Government.[1][2]
On 18 January 1932, Qiu was appointed Chief Secretary of Intelligence for the Nationalist government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[2][3] He resigned from the foreign ministry on 28 March of the same year.[4] On 2 October 1936, Qiu returned to the Guangxi Provincial Government as head of the provincial education ministry.[5] He was reassigned to lead the provincial civil affairs ministry on 24 June 1939.[6] From 11 August 1939, Qiu was a member of the Guangxi Examination Committee.[7] The following year, Qiu was a member of the Guangxi delegation to the National Assembly convened to consider Control Yuan appointments.[8] Qiu was dismissed from his position as leader of the provincial civil affairs ministry on 1 February 1943,[9] and formally resigned as a member of the Guangxi Provincial Government on 4 October 1943.[10] He was elected to the fourth term of the National Political Assembly , which started on 23 April 1945, representing Hunan.[2]
On 3 October 1946, the Executive Yuan appointed Qiu to a district management committee.[11] Later that month, he became the deputy secretary-general of that body.[12] Qiu was elevated to lead the second inspectorate convened by the district management committee on 30 January 1947,[13] and resigned from the committee entirely on 21 February 1947.[14] He was elected to the First Legislative Yuan in the 1948 Chinese legislative election, representing Hunan's third district, a multi-member constituency.[1] During his tenure on the Legislative Yuan, Qiu was a member of the Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and Finance and Financial Affairs Committees.[1] From 26 June 1949, Qiu was Secretary-General to the President of the Republic of China. In July 1949, Qiu was to be succeeded on the Legislative Yuan by supplemental member Jiang Gu , who did not report to assume the office.[15][16] Qiu submitted his resignation as presidential secretary-general on 20 March 1950.[17]
Qiu returned to public service on 19 August 1954, as an appointed member of the Civil Service Higher Examination Committee.[18] His second term on the committee began on 25 August 1955.[19] On 9 October 1954, Qiu was appointed secretary-general of the Continental Liberation Planning and Research Committee .[20]
Qiu died in Taiwan on 24 July 1956.[1] A collection of Qiu's papers, complied during his tenure as presidential secretary-general, was donated to Columbia University Libraries in 2005.[2] One of his daughters, Chiu Kai-yun, became a United States citizen in 1965 and was the head librarian of the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar from 1976 to 2003, the second-longest tenured librarian since the library was founded in 1840.[21][22][23]