Fan Changjiang - Fan and The Xi'an Incident in China

Fan and The Xi'an Incident in China

On December 12 in 1936, Xi'an Incident broke out in China during the invasion of Japan and nationalist-communist confrontation(1927-1936), which had great effects on political and military aspects. Fan Changjiang, as a reporter, headed to Xian in order to unveil the situation to the public. He said, 'I determined to go to Xian to unveil the truth of China's politics at all costs.' He gained the insight into the current affairs. Fan went there alone to find out the mysteries of Xi'an Incident.

Fan was finally permitted to interview the first premier of China, Zhou Enlai on February 4, 1937. Zhou told him all the details about Xi'an Incident, such as the reasons of the incident, the ideas of the Communist party and the important issues about defensing the country against Japan. All these information had made Fan's articles even more accurate and in-depth.

Later, with the permission of Zhou Enlai, he went to Yan'an with great welcome for further details or even investigation. In Yan'an, he visited the " Red Army University"(紅軍大學) and interviewed some senior and important officers in the Communist party of China, for example, Lin Biao(林彪), Liao Chengzhi (廖承志) and Zhu De (朱德), especially the first chairman of People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong(毛澤東)on February 9.

Fan told Mao that he wanted to stay in Shaanbei (陝北); in order to get more information about Communist Party of China, so that he could write a few book on them to propagate the party. However, Mao pointed out that the most important thing was to utilize the important position of Da Gong Bao in the public to propagate the ideas and policies of Communist Party of China, so the co-operation between the Communist party and Kuomintang could be facilitated. As a result, Fan returned to Shanghai.

With the details and information, he wrote a news article, called "The Turmoil in North Western Part"(《動盪中之西北大局》)and posed on Da Gong Bao on February 16.This article finally shocked the public and embarrassed Jiang Jieshi (蔣介石), the leader of Nationalist Government by unveiling the truth in Xian. Mao was glad after reading his article and even wrote a letter to Fan to appreciate his efforts.

Fan had written a lot of exclusive articles about Red Army March and Xi'an Incident, which acted as a forwarding power to the Chinese history. He was an initial reporter writing about the details of Red Army March in his two articles called Minshan Nanbei Chaofei Zhi Xianzshi 《岷山南北剿匪軍事之現勢》and Chenglan Jixing 《成蘭紀行》.