{{Short description|Chinese scholar & economist (1940-2014)}} {{family name hatnote|[[Chen (surname)|Chen]]|lang=Chinese}} [[File:Chen Yizi.jpg|thumb|Chen Yizi]]{{Neoauthoritarianism in China|Intellectuals}}{{Contemporary Chinese political thought|neoauthoritarianism}} '''Chen Yizi''' (Chinese: 陈一谘; July 20, 1940 – April 14, 2014) was a Chinese [[neoauthoritarian]]<ref name="l067">{{cite web | title=卢毅：回顾一场几乎被遗忘的论争——"新权威主义"之争述评_改革大数据服务平台 | website=中国改革开放全纪录（1978-2018）_中国改革开放数据库 | date=2009-05-04 | url=http://www.reformdata.org/2009/0504/23794.shtml | language=zh | access-date=2026-02-16}}</ref><ref name="Sautman, Barry">{{Cite journal|last=Sautman|first=Barry|author-link=Barry Sautman|date=1992|title=Sirens of the Strongman: Neo-Authoritarianism in Recent Chinese Political Theory|journal=[[The China Quarterly]]|volume=129|issue=129|pages=72–102|doi=10.1017/S0305741000041230|issn=0305-7410|jstor=654598|s2cid=154374469}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last=Dongen | first=E. van | title=Goodbye Radicalism! Conceptions of conservatism among Chinese intellectuals during the early 1990s | website=Scholarly Publications | date=2 September 2009 | url=https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/13949 | access-date=13 February 2026 | page=77}}</ref> scholar and economist who served as the director of China's Institute for Economic Structural Reform (中国经济体制改革研究所).<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=2014-04-25 |title=Chen Yizi, a Top Adviser Forced to Flee China, Dies at 73 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/world/asia/chen-yizi-a-top-adviser-forced-to-flee-china-dies-at-73.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241202235611/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/world/asia/chen-yizi-a-top-adviser-forced-to-flee-china-dies-at-73.html |archive-date=2024-12-02 |access-date=2025-01-03 |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2014-04-15 |title=Dissident Chen Yizi, former aide to Zhao Ziyang, dies in Los Angeles |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1483346/dissident-chen-yizi-former-aide-zhao-ziyang-dies-los-angeles |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416101908/https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1483346/dissident-chen-yizi-former-aide-zhao-ziyang-dies-los-angeles |archive-date=2014-04-16 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[South China Morning Post]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2014-04-16 |title=赵紫阳智囊陈一谘病逝中国媒体不提六四 |trans-title=Zhao Ziyang's adviser Chen Yizi passed away, but China's media avoided mentioning "June Fourth Incident" |url=https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/china/2014/04/140416_china_chen_yizi |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231008023424/https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/china/2014/04/140416_china_chen_yizi |archive-date=2023-10-08 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[BBC]] |language=zh}}</ref> Chen was a top adviser to [[Zhao Ziyang]], [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party]] between 1987 and 1989, as well as to the Chinese government.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />
In the 1980s, Chen Yizi was an important policy adviser for the [[reform and opening up]] in mainland China, but was exiled to the [[United States]] after defending students' protests in the [[Tiananmen Square Massacre]] in 1989.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> He was the most senior Chinese official known to have escaped China after the Massacre.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":5" /> He later established and served as the president of the Center for Modern China in [[Princeton, New Jersey]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chen |first=Yizi |date=1993-01-01 |title=Problems of communism and changes in China |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670569308724166 |journal=Journal of Contemporary China |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=82–86 |doi=10.1080/10670569308724166 |issn=1067-0564|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1999 |title=Chen Yizi, Chinese Communist Party Reformer |url=https://www.hrw.org/legacy/campaigns/china-99/chenyizi.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240626042305/https://www.hrw.org/legacy/campaigns/china-99/chenyizi.htm |archive-date=2024-06-26 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref>
== Biography ==
=== Early life === Chen Yizi was born in [[Chengdu, Sichuan]] on July 20, 1940.<ref name=":3" /> As a son of a [[hydro-engineer]], he attended [[Peking University]] where he studied physics and Chinese.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />
In 1965, he was labelled as a "[[Counter-revolutionary|counterrevolutionary]]" for submitting a long letter to [[Mao Zedong]], in which he criticized the lack of democracy of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) and made a number of suggestions to the CCP as well as the Chinese government.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> Subsequently, Chen was persecuted during the [[Chinese Cultural Revolution]] (1966–1976), attending his [[Struggle session|struggle sessions]], and was sent to receive ''[[Laogai]]'' in the countryside of [[Henan]] in 1969.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />
=== Top adviser for reforms === In 1979, Chen returned to Beijing at the beginning of China's [[Reform and Opening]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> In the 1980s, Chen became the founder of several government [[think tank]]s, and served as the director of the Institute for Economic Structural Reform (中国经济体制改革研究所) and deputy director of the Institute for Political Structural Reform (中国政治体制改革研究会).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Chen |first=Yizi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bI0oAwAAQBAJ |title=陈一谘回忆录 |date=2014-03-16 |publisher=China Independent Writers Publishing Inc. |language=zh}}</ref> He was a senior adviser to CCP General Secretary [[Zhao Ziyang]] and played an important role in the reform and opening up.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />
In particular, during this time, Chen concluded 43 million (to 46 million) died in the [[Great Chinese Famine]] between 1958 and 1962, after conducting a county-by-county review of deaths in five provinces and performing extrapolation.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Strauss |first1=Valerie |last2=Southerl |first2=Daniel |date=July 17, 1994 |title=HOW MANY DIED? NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS FAR HIGHER NUMBERS FOR THE VICTIMS OF MAO ZEDONG'S ERA |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190925173059/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/17/how-many-died-new-evidence-suggests-far-higher-numbers-for-the-victims-of-mao-zedongs-era/01044df5-03dd-49f4-a453-a033c5287bce/ |archive-date=2019-09-25 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Yang |first=Jishen |author-link=Yang Jisheng (journalist) |date=2013-09-27 |title=1958—1962中国的大饥荒 |trans-title=The Great Chinese Famine between 1958—1962 |url=http://unirule.cloud/index.php?c=article&id=2664 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220418042451/http://unirule.cloud/index.php?c=article&id=2664 |archive-date=2022-04-18 |access-date=2025-01-05 |website=[[Unirule Institute of Economics]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gráda |first=Cormac Ó |date=2013 |editor-last=Jisheng |editor-first=Yang |editor2-last=Xun |editor2-first=Zhou |title=Great Leap, Great Famine: A Review Essay |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41857599 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=333–346 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00595.x |jstor=41857599 |issn=0098-7921|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Chen was part of a large investigation group consisting of around 200 people from the Institute for Reforms, which visited every province in mainland China and examined internal documents and records of the Communist Party.<ref name=":6" />
In 1989, Chen supported the students' protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis, but after the [[Tiananmen Square Massacre]] on June 4, 1989, he resigned from his posts and quit CCP.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=陳一諮 |url=https://8964museum.com/people/en/p-b06-007/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250103090917/https://8964museum.com/people/en/p-b06-007/ |archive-date=2025-01-03 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=8964 Museum |language=zh}}</ref> Many of Zhao Ziyang's aides and advisers in government think tanks were soon purged and arrested, and Chen became one of the seven most-wanted dissidents in mainland China.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> He first travelled to [[Guangdong]], and then to [[Hainan]] before reaching [[British Hong Kong|Hong Kong]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" />
=== Life in exile === {{see also|Operation Yellow Bird}} [[File:Chen Yizi from VOA.jpg|thumb|In 2011, Chen was honored the "Distinguished Person for Advancing Democracy in China". ]] In 1989, as the most senior Chinese official known to have escaped from China, Chen first arrived in Hong Kong, then to [[France]], and finally to the [[United States]], where he later established the Center for Modern China in [[Princeton, New Jersey]] together with professor [[Yu Ying-shih]] from [[Princeton University]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Hoagland |first=Jim |date=1989-09-04 |title=Exiled Chinese Reformer Urges Ouster of Hard-Liners |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-04-mn-1268-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250103092123/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-04-mn-1268-story.html |archive-date=2025-01-03 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[Los Angeles Times]] |language=en-US}}</ref> He also took part in the Princeton China Initiative (普林斯顿中国学社).<ref name=":0" />
In 2002, Chen was diagnosed with cancer.<ref name=":2" /> In 2013, ''Memoirs of Chen Yizi - China's Reform in the 1980s'' was published in Hong Kong.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Memoirs of Chen Yizi : China's reform in the 1980s |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/Memoirs-of-Chen-Yizi-:-China's-reform-in-the-1980s/oclc/849860649 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[WorldCat]]}}</ref> Chen died in [[Los Angeles]] on April 14, 2014, at the age of 73.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-04-17 |title=Tiananmen exile dies as 25th anniversary nears |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10771709/Tiananmen-exile-dies-as-25th-anniversary-nears.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140418051922/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10771709/Tiananmen-exile-dies-as-25th-anniversary-nears.html |archive-date=2014-04-18 |access-date=2025-01-03 |website=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]] |language=en}}</ref>
== See also ==
* [[History of the People's Republic of China#Political reforms|Chinese political reforms]] * [[Reform and opening up]] * [[Great Chinese Famine]] * [[Great Leap Forward]]
== References == {{reflist|2}}
[[Category:1940 births]] [[Category:2014 deaths]] [[Category:Chinese economists]] [[Category:Chinese reformers]] [[Category:Neoauthoritarians]]