East China Normal University has issued at least seven obituaries after the new year during the latest wave of COVID-19 infections. Five of the deceased were Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members. Among them, Tang Jianwu, a distinguished professor of the State Key Laboratory of Estuarine Coastal Science, was only 52 years old.
Tang, an estuarine and coastal wetland ecologist and former president of the Institute of Eco-Chongming, died in Shanghai on Jan. 4.
Tang held a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Peking University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He was an assistant professor at Northwestern University, a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory at the University of Chicago, and an environmental consultant at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. He was engaged in research on the global carbon cycle, global change ecology, and wetland ecology for a long time.
Yu Wenzhao, a professor at the School of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences of East China Normal University, died on Feb. 20 in Shanghai at 88, according to an obituary notice issued by the School. Yu was a CCP member, a psychologist, and a pioneer of management psychology in China.
Yu was born in Shanghai and graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Peking University in 1956, majoring in psychology. From 1961 to 1965, he went to the Soviet Union to study and obtained an associate doctorate from Moscow University.
From 1956 to 1981, he worked at the Institute of Psychology and the Shanghai Institute of Physiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since 1981, he has been the lecturer, associate professor, professor, deputy head of the Department of Psychology, and director of the Department of Applied Psychology of East China Normal University. In 1993, he became a supervisor of doctoral students, enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council.
Ma Dingsan, a CCP member and former party secretary of the Chinese Department of East China Normal University, died in Shanghai on Jan. 18 at 89.
Mao Shisong, a CCP member, mathematical statistician, and lifelong professor at East China Normal University, died in Shanghai on Jan. 16 at 87. As one of the pioneers of the mathematical statistics profession in China, Mao established one of the first three mathematical statistics majors in China at East China Normal University in 1983; edited several statistical monographs; and received numerous awards and honorary titles, the official obituary said.
Xu Juntao, a mathematics professor and former director of the Graduate School of East China Normal University, died on Jan. 12 at 84 years.
Liu Shoulin, a teacher of Chinese literature at East China Normal University, died on Jan. 3 at 81.
Wang Zhiliang, CCP member, a professor of Chinese literature at East China Normal University, and a translator of Russian literature, died on Jan. 2 died at the age of 94.
Wang finished the first poetic translation of Pushkin’s representative work, “Evgeny Onegin,” after the CCP took power in China. He translated over 30 works, including ”The Captain’s Daughter“ and ”Anna Karenina.”
According to its website, East China Normal University is a comprehensive research university organized by the CCP’s national government, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, and jointly built by the Ministry of Education and the Shanghai Municipal Government.
In December 2022, a new outbreak of the CCP virus occurred in mainland China. Since the outbreak, there’s been intensive death of CCP members, officials, experts, scholars, and celebrities in various fields who stood up for the CCP. Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Harbin Institute of Technology, China University of Petroleum, and many other universities supported by the CCP were hit hard, with Party member professors dying in a cluster.
