In 1906, together with Zhang Jingjiang, he departed Japan for further studies in France, joining the Tongmenghui dedicated to overthrowing the Qing Dynasty, when their ship stopped in Singapore.

While in France, he joined the group of Paris Chinese anarchists, such as Li Shizeng and Cai Yuanpei, whom he assisted in printing propaganda leaflets supporting the republican movement.

However, he disagreed with Song Jiaoren over the establishment of the Kuomintang, and left China for Belgium, where he earned degrees in medicine and pharmacology at the Free University of Brussels, but he never went into medical practice.

In 1925, on the death of Sun Yat-sen, Chu returned to China and became a member of the Kuomintang educational commission and the head of the medical school at the Guangdong University.

As a Kuomintang Committee member, he organized the Chinese Arts Association, served as the Chairman of the Commission for the Establishment of National Hygiene and represented China in European countries in the early 1930s.