Shao Yuan-ch'ung (1888-14 December 1936), close associate of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek who served as confidential secretary and aide to Chiang at Nanking beginning in 1928. He was accidentally shot and killed by snipers at the time of the Sian Incident in 1936.

A native of Chekiang, Shao Yuan-ch'ung was born into a family which had a strong tradition of scholarship. His father died when the boy was but nine sui, and thereafter he was raised by his teacher, Shu Keng-tieh. In 1906 he enrolled at the Chekiang Higher School (later Chekiang University) at Hangchow, from which he was graduated in 1909. During his student days, Shao joined the T'ung-meng-hui. After passing an examination in 1909, Shao was appointed a judge of the local court in Chinkiang, Kiangsu. He resigned a few months later and went to Japan to meet Sun Yat-sen. Late in 1911 he returned to China and went to Wuchang to take part in the revolt that sparked the republican revolution. Shao soon won recognition as a journalist, and in 1912 he became chief editor of the Min-kuo News Agency in Shanghai. When the Kuomintang was created, Sun Yat-sen appointed him editorial director of the party's Shanghai office, with responsibility for liaison work in that city.

When the so-called second revolution began in the summer of 1913, Shao Yuan-ch'ung was serving as chief secretary at the headquarters of the Kuomintang forces at Huk'ou, Kiangsi. With the failure of the second revolution in September, he fled to Japan, where he served as editor of the Kuo-min tsa-chih and assisted Sun Yat-sen in the reorganization of the Kuomintang as the Chung-hua ko-ming-tang in 1914. He returned to Shanghai in 1915 with Ch'en Ch'i-mei (q.v.), who worked to extend Sun Yat-sen's power into the Yangtze provinces and to plan anti-Yuan uprisings. In December, Shao and Chiang Kai-shek participated in the bold but unsuccessful attempt, engineered by Ch'en Ch'i-mei, to seize the gunboat Chao-ho at Shanghai.

When Sun Yat-sen established a government at Canton in 1 9 1 7, he named Shao Yuan-ch'ung director of general affairs of the generalissimo's headquarters, later promoting him to acting chief secretary. By mid-1918, however, the balance of power in the southern regime had shifted in favor of the Kwangsi clique and Sun Yat-sen had gone to Shanghai. Shao took advantage of this lull in Sun's political career to go abroad, and he spent the years from 1919 to 1924 outside of China. He went first to the United States, where he studied at the University of Wisconsin and at Columbia University. He later worked on several Chinese newspapers in the United States (San Francisco and Seattle) and in Canada (Victoria and Toronto). In the summer of 1923 Shao went to Europe, where he inspected Kuomintang branch organizations in England, France, and Germany. By this time, Sun Yat-sen had decided to foster Kuomintang-Communist cooperation and to send a special mission, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, to Moscow to study questions of military organization. On Sun's orders, Shao went to Moscow in November 1923 to participate in the work of the mission. He returned to Germany at the end of November.

After the reorganization of the Kuomintang in January 1924, Shao Yuan-ch'ung rose rapidly in the party hierarchy. Although he was still in Europe when the First National Congress convened in January 1924, he was elected an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee. Soon afterwards, he was elevated to full membership, and upon his return to Canton that summer he was named to the Central Political Council. He also became acting director of the party's overseas department and a political instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy. He later was appointed acting director of the academy's political department. In September, Shao married Chang Mo-chun (q.v.) in Shanghai, with Yü Yu-jen (q.v.) officiating at the ceremony and Tai Chi-t'ao (q.v.) present as matchmaker. Near the end of 1924 Sun Yat-sen left Canton for Peking to attempt to work out arrangements with the military authorities in north China for national unification. Shao accompanied Sun on this trip, serving as a confidential secretary and handling correspondence, interviews, and various travel arrangements. In Peking, Shao also served on the Peking branch of the party's Political Council and edited the Min-kuo jih-pao. He remained close to the ailing Sun and witnessed his final testament just before his death in March 1925. In November 1925, at the Western Hills conference, Shao aligned himself with Chang Chi, Hsieh Ch'ih, Tsou Lu (qq.v.) and other conservatives in the party in opposition to Wang Ching-wei (q.v.) and the Russian adviser Borodin at Canton. Shao remained distrustful of those in the Kuomintang who supported the policy of alliance with the Communists. In 1926 he became director of the Kuomintang's youth department at Canton.

After the Northern Expedition began, Shao Yuan-ch'ung became prominent in the political affairs of his native Chekiang, serving as a member of the provincial branch of the party's Political Council and as mayor of Hangchow in 1927. He returned to south China in 1928 to become chief secretary of the Canton branch of the Political Council and editor of the Chien-kuo chou-pao [national reconstruction weekly]. At year's end, he moved to Nanking, where he was active in the formulation of economic and labor legislation as a member of the Legislative Yuan and chairman of its economics committee. At the Third National Congress of the Kuomintang in 1929, he was reelected to the Central Executive Committee and the Central Political Council. He also served as vice chairman (chairman after 1930) of the examinations committee of the Examination Yuan and as editor of the Chien-kuo tsa-chih [national reconstruction monthly]. When the split between Hu Han-min (q.v.) and Chiang Kai-shek took place early in 1931, Shao was named vice president of the Legislative Yuan, a post he held until December 1935. After 1931 he also served on the State Council and its foreign affairs committee. He took time off from his duties in the spring of 1935 to travel with his wife through Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Tsinghai, and Ninghsia. Their record of the trip, Hsi-pei lan-sheng [viewing the grandeur of the northwest], was published later that year. In December 1935 Shao was appointed director of the party history compilation committee.

Amidst the persistent political strife of the early 1930's, Shao Yuan-ch'ung remained a staunch ally of his fellow provincial Chiang Kai-shek. He enjoyed Chiang's trust and served him as confidential secretary and public relations assistant, his role being somewhat similar to that played later by Ch'en Pu-lei (q.v.). Shao continued to write voluminously, providing orthodox interpretations of Sun Yat-sen's political theories and showing special interest in Sun's concept of national psychological reconstruction (hsin-li chien-she). He also found time to practice the arts of poetry and calligraphy.

At the end of 1936 Shao Yuan-ch'ung accompanied Chiang Kai-shek to Sian for conferences with the Manchurian generals who then were pressing for the formation of a united front against the Japanese. He broadcast a speech to the nation on 10 December in which he appealed to the patriotism of the Chinese people to resolve the national crisis. Four days later he was shot and killed by snipers at the time of the Sian Incident, during which Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang Hu-ch'eng (qq.v.) seized Chiang Kai-shek and held him captive for 1 1 days. Shao was survived by his wife and by a son and a daughter.