Ji Chaoding

About Ji Chaoding

Ji Chaoding (Chinese: 冀朝鼎; Wade–Giles: Chi Ch'ao-ting; 1903–1963) was a Chinese economist, communist activist, and spy. His book Key Economic Areas in Chinese History (1936) influenced the conceptualization of Chinese history in Europe by emphasizing geographic and economic factors as the basis of dynastic power. Ji was educated at Tsinghua University in China, then in the United States at University of Chicago and Columbia University. He became a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As an underground party member, he was on the staff of the Institute of Pacific Relations in the 1930s before returning to China in 1939. From the West, he worked as a spy, providing intelligence directly to Zhou Enlai. He became a trusted adviser to the Ministry of Finance in the wartime Nationalist government but remained in China as a well-placed official in the new government of the People's Republic of China after 1949.