Hu Lancheng

Who was Hu Lancheng?

Hu Lancheng was a Chinese writer and editor. He was married to the novelist Eileen Chang from 1943 to 1947.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War he collaborated with the Japanese, serving briefly in the Propaganda Ministry of the puppet government in China headed by Wang Jingwei in the early 1940s and publishing a literary journal, Bitter Bamboo in which Chang published some of her work. Disagreements with colleagues in Nanjing led to his departure for Wuhan, where he continued supporting the regime as the editor of Dachubao until 1945. These actions made many Chinese regard him as a Hanjian or traitor, and led to intense controversy regarding the value of his works.

After the war, he went into hiding, eventually fleeing to Tokyo, Japan. In the early 1970s he taught in the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan for several years, until popular pressure forced him to return to Tokyo, where he died in 1981.