Wan Li
Wan Li)}} (1 December 1916 – 15 July 2015) was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and politician. During a long administrative career in the
People's Republic of China, he served successively as
Vice Premier,
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), and a member of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Secretariat and its
Politburo. 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.
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