Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Historical Note

The Chinese Nationalist Government created the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) in January 1945. CNRRA was a temporary organization charged with administering and coordinating the China-based operations of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which had been established at a 44-nation conference in 1943 to carry out global reconstruction in the wake of the Second World War. Dr. T. F. Tsiang, CNRRA's Director-General, and T. V. Soong, who chaired the Special Cabinet Committee on Relief and Rehabilitation, oversaw the organization. Its functions included administering emergency relief, returning refugees to their homes, rehabilitating China's agricultural and industrial sectors and establishing a public health program. Initially, CNRRA was headquartered in Chongqing (Chunking), China's wartime capital. In December 1945, however, it relocated its operations center to Shanghai and created a headquarters in Nanjing (Nanking). The agency distributed UNRRA supplies through free relief and direct sales at regional offices in Guangzhou (Canton), Changsha, Zhenjiang (Chinkiang), Hangzhou (Hangchow), Wuhan (Hankow), Kaifeng, Guilin (Kweilin), Shenyang (Mukden), Nanchang, Shanghai, Taipei, Taiyuan, Tianjin (Tientsin), Qingdao (Tsingtao), Wuhu.

CNRRA's efforts were hampered by the breakdown in interparty peace negotiations between the Nationalists and Chinese Communists in 1946. China's northern provinces, which had been under a long occupation by the Japanese, were also areas of Chinese Communist guerilla activity. After the Japanese surrender these territories fell under Chinese Communist control. Difficulties arose in the distribution of aid due to the realities of civil war. The official history of the CNRRA estimates that 2-3 percent (by weight) or 4-5 percent (by value) of all UNRRA supplies were distributed to Communist-held territories.

CNRRA was disbanded in 1948, after the mandate of UNRRA expired in 1947. UNRRA's programs were assumed by agencies within the new United Nations, particularly the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Refugee Organization (IRO).

Sources: UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, George Woodbridge (NY: Columbia University Press, 1950) 3 vol.; UNRRA: A Case Study in Financial Assistance for Economic Development, Irving Barnett, Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 1955; UNRRA Microfilms, 1943-1949, Joshua Lupkin, Finding aid, published in electronic form, January 2003, available from the World Wide Web: (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libra ries/indiv/rare/guides/UNRRA/index.html); and CNRRA: Its Purpose, Functions and Organization, (Shanghai: Department of Public Relations, CNRRA, 1946).

From the guide to the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration photographs, ca. 1945-1947, (Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace)