Wan Shaofen

Wan Shaofen (; August 1930 – 25 June 2026) was a Chinese politician who served as Party Secretary of Jiangxi from 1985 to 1988, the first female provincial-level party chief of the People's Republic of China. Her career was closely tied to that of Hu Yaobang. She was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution because of her association with Hu, rose to prominence after he became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 1982, and lost her position as party chief of Jiangxi after Hu's downfall in 1987.

Early life and career Wan was born in August 1930 in a village near Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province. Her parents were primary school teachers, and she is said to have descended from a Song dynasty defense minister.

She studied economics at National Chung Cheng University (now Nanchang University), where she participated in underground communist activities in 1948. She formally joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1952, after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and became a local leader in the Communist Youth League of China (CYL) and the official trade union. She gained attention worldwide as the first woman to hold a top provincial leadership position in the PRC. However, Wan's background in the youth league, the trade union, and women's work was not well suited for running a provincial economy in the reform era. During her tenure, the economic growth of Jiangxi lagged behind neighbouring provinces, especially the coastal provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong.

Personal life and death After her divorce in the late 1960s, Wan raised her daughter as a single mother.