Wu was born in November 1938 to an ordinary intellectual family based in Wuhan, but she traces her ancestry to nearby Huangmei County in Hubei province. She was the younger of two children. Her parents died while she was young, so she was brought up by her brother, who was eight years her senior. In April 1962, she joined the Communist Party of China. In August of the same year, she graduated from the Petroleum Refinery department at the Beijing Petroleum Institute, with a degree in petroleum engineering. She spent much of her career as a petroleum technician, eventually becoming deputy manager at the Beijing Dongfang Hong refinery, and assistant manager and party secretary at the Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Corporation.