Tong Zeng (; June 3, 1956 – October 23, 2025) was a Chinese scholar, peace activist and businessman. He was chairman of the China Federation of Demanding Compensation from Japan, and chairman of Zhongxiang Investment Co., Ltd.
Tong Zeng wrote a paper in 1990, later known as Tong Zeng's "Book of Ten Thousand Words", which triggered a civil movement to safeguard the dignity and rights of victims of Japanese atrocities during World War II. Early on, Tong Zeng was restricted by the Chinese government. Reports by Human Rights Watch in 1994 and 1996, Amnesty International in 1995, and the US State Department in 1995 and 1996 mentioned that Tong Zeng was unfairly treated. He was a Nobel Peace Prize candidate in 2015 and 2017. He spoke for the voiceless and sought justice and peace in an uncertain world.
Tong was also the first to question the "Human Genome Project". In 1998, he publicly opposed the collection of blood samples of the elderly in China, and by some institutions in both China and the United States, for the so-called purpose of studying the model and analysis of the mortality of the elderly. Science magazine also participated in the interview report. In 2003, he published the book The Last Line of Defense, in which he proposed that "SARS might be produced in a laboratory or a genetic weapon aimed at the Chinese". In the preface of the book, Tong wrote: "Though the cause of the SARS virus has not been found, this book gives people a new thinking," the AP, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, China Youth Daily, and other media reported.
On July 6, 2019, Tong wrote to suggest that the United Nations should learn from the historical lessons of Albert Einstein and other scientists who failed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons after the war, and must prevent the militarization and weapons of biological genetic research in some countries. At the end of 2019, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, he raised his concern to the Chinese government that the virus may have originated from laboratories, and sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, asking them to conduct thorough inspections of all biological, viral, and genetic laboratories around the world.
Early life Tong Zeng's father, Tong Qiangmeng, graduated from the mechanical department of Chongqing University in 1956. His mother, Mu Huifang, graduated from accounting at a technical secondary school. Tong was born in Chongqing, China, on June 3, 1956. Chen Zongshun (pseudonym: Liu Bai), a Chinese biographer, has published four books about Tong Zeng over the past 20 years, three of which record Tong Zeng's early life. The titles of three books have also been included in bibliographies such as the National Library of Australia, the Stanford University Library of the United States, and the National Diet Library of Japan. In particular, the book Tong Zeng: the hero of our times, published in Hong Kong in 2015, is still on the sales list of the publishing house. Chinese freelance writer Guan Mingqiang wrote a long documentary report on Tong Zeng in 1998, which also detailed his early life. In these works, Tong Zeng's early life is written in detail. Tong 's childhood was greatly influenced by his grandfather. In 2016, another modern Chinese writer, Guan Jie, published another biography of Tong Zeng in China. The book also described Tong Zeng's early life in detail, and described Tong Zeng as having been born with a pair of black and bright eyes.
After graduating from high school, 19-year-old Tong Zeng went to the countryside to work in agriculture and opened up wasteland to grow tea, like many of his peers in China at the time, but he did not forget to read and study.
At the age of 20, Tong Zeng taught temporarily in local rural elementary schools and middle schools, teaching Chinese, history, geography, and other courses. At the age of 22, he was admitted to Sichuan University in China, and studied economics there. In 1982, he was assigned to teach at the Beijing Industry Management Institute. In 1985, he signed up for the international law professional examination for overseas graduate students funded by a Hong Kong foundation, but was not admitted. In 1986, he was admitted to Peking University for a master's degree in law.Diaoyu Island and my 42 years, beiqing.com (Chinese), 2012-08-26
Since 1987, Tong Zeng has published several articles in various Chinese newspapers. He once proposed "the theory of the new period", and put forward four major civilizations: "spiritual civilization", "material civilization", "environmental civilization", and "institutional civilization". Among them, he mentioned environmental protection to civilization construction for the first time. During his postgraduate study at Peking University, "the theory of the new period" put forward by Tong Zeng was funded by the foundation established by George Soros in China at that time. Then Tong Zeng was once again funded by the foundation and established the student social group Peking University Taiwan Research Association. Tong Zeng wrote "Where is the World Going" with his peers in 1989, in which he specifically discussed the development trends of poverty and hunger, military competitions, population crisis, lack of resources, and environmental degradation.
Activism
The origin of Chinese folk claims against Japan After the end of World War II, Germany was divided into two until 1990, when East and West Germany achieved unification. East and West Germany successfully signed the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" with the four victorious nations of Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The treaty ensured the unity and sovereignty of Germany, but there was no war compensation mentioned in this document. On April 17, 1990, China's "Newspaper Digest" published a 300-word translated essay, "Europe revisited war reparations". It attracted the attention of Tong Zeng, who was 34 years old. He wrote an essay--"The Enlightenment of Europe Revisiting War Reparations for China", which was later revised to "China Demands Japan's Compensation for War Victims without Delay", which was sent to China's National People's Congress in March 1991. Media from Hong Kong and Japan reported on it. Twenty years later, Cambridge University Press published: A Case Analysis of the Chinese War Reparations Movement. In 1991, Tong Zeng, a legal scholar, submitted a "Book of Ten Thousand Words" to some representatives to the National People's Congress, petitioning to ask reparations from Japan. In particular, Timothy Webster, a professor of international law and comparative law in the United States, in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, introduced in detail the views put forward by Tong Zeng in that year and the early actions to claim compensation from Japan. For the first time, Tong distinguished "war compensation" from "civil compensation", and he was the first person to propose that "Chinese civilian victims have the right to claim compensation from the Japanese government and enterprises", raising the issue of protecting the human rights of war victims to a theoretical level. It laid the legal foundation for the Chinese people to demand compensation from Japan. At the same time, a large number of volunteers gathered around Tong to start the movement of demanding compensation from Japan. At the end of 1992, according to the AP, the Chicago Tribune, and other reports, Tong had been supported by 300,000 signatures.
The awakening of the victims of World War II On August 7, 1991, Tong Zeng and 108 Chinese citizens submitted letters to Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, who was visiting China, demanding that Japan apologize and compensate the Chinese for the losses caused by the invasion of China in World War II. For the first time in the post war period, the Chinese people asked the Japanese government to apologize and compensate for the war crimes of World War II. On January 8, 1992, South Korean comfort women demonstrated for the first time at the entrance of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea and filed a claim for compensation. UPI also reported that Tong Zeng led 600 senior Chinese intellectuals to petition relevant Chinese departments, saying that the Chinese government had abandoned Japan's war compensation, but the individual Chinese victims did not give up their rights. Subsequently, more and more people have demanded Japanese war compensation, and Tong is widely regarded as the leader of the war reparations movement.
Tong initiated and promoted a non-governmental compensation campaign against Japan after being disseminated by the media.
From 1991 to 1995, he received nearly 10,000 letters from victims of World War II from all over China. Those who wrote to seek Tong Zeng's help included survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, "Comfort women" in China and South Korea, family members of the victims of human tests conducted by Japanese Unit 731, Chinese people injured in Japanese germ warfare, victims of forced labour, and victims of "indiscriminate bombing". There are also letters signed by victims' organizations in support of Tong Zeng, and so on.
A reporter of China South Reviews magazine described this phenomenon as: "if the psychological activities of a society in a certain period can be counted, then from 1992 to 1994, Tong may have been the one that made the most Chinese think of day and night". Many victims of World War II came to Beijing from all over China to seek help from Tong Zeng. He called on the victims of World War II to write to the Japanese Embassy in China for an apology and compensation. In October 1992, the Emperor of Japan visited China for the first time. Tong publicly expressed his request for the Emperor of Japan to apologize for the invasion of China during World War II and compensate the Chinese victims. During the Emperor of Japan's visit to China, Tong was sent away to Chongqing by his work unit for a "business trip", AP reported. In March 1994, Tong asked the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa to apologize and pay compensation to the Chinese victims of World War II. He also called on the victims of World War II to protest in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, as UPI took the lead in reporting many times. The Chinese government stopped Tong and he was detained for three days. China has released more than 100 elderly activists after two days of questioning.