Wang Zhonghui

Early years

He came from a Protestant pastor's family. Born in Hong Kong in 1881. He received a bilingual education - in Chinese and English. He attended St. Paul’s College and King’s College as a child, and also studied Chinese classics with a home teacher.

In 1895, Wang entered the law faculty of Beyang University in Tianjin. After his graduation, he worked for a year as a teacher at Nanyang College in Shanghai, and in 1901 he left for Japan to study law. In Tokyo, he participated in the publication of the anti-Manchu newspaper Gominbao, which was published in English. The purpose of this publication was to agitate the revolution in China. However, in Japan, he did not stay long and at the end of 1902 went to the USA and Europe to improve knowledge in the field of jurisprudence.

At first he entered the University of California, but soon transferred to Yale, where in 1903 he received a master's degree in canonical and civil law, and in 1905 he received a master's degree in civil law. At this time, he became one of the co-publishers of the magazine of the Association of American Lawyers. In the USA, Wang met with Sun Yat-sen , who came to New York. Wang joined the Tunmenhui (United Union) organization from the first days of its foundation. He drafted for Sun Yat-sen a draft of his first public statement on the purpose of the Chinese revolution - “The Correct Solution of the Chinese Question”, helped to develop a plan for an anti-Qing uprising and appeal to foreign states, urging them to give up support for the Qing government .

In 1905 he moved to Europe, where he continued his law practice. In 1907, Wang Zhonghui became a member of a law firm in London. Soon he was appointed Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of China and was sent as part of the Chinese delegation to the Second International Conference in The Hague.

Political Activities

In the fall of 1911 he returned to China and during the Xinhai revolution served as an adviser to Chen Jimei, the military governor of Shanghai. In the same year, as a delegate from Guangdong Province, he participated in the congress held in Nanjing, where Sun Yat-sen was elected interim president of the Republic of China on December 29. Wang was instructed to go to Shanghai and officially inform Sun Yat-sen about his election. Wang Zhonghui became the Minister of Justice in the first republican cabinet of Tang Shao, but in June 1912, Tang resigned, and Wang Zhonghui also resigned as minister.

After that he moved to Shanghai, where he took up the post of chief editor at Zhonghua Buk Company and the post of director of Fudan University. For a while, Wang Zhonghui retreated from political affairs.

Diplomatic, legal and judicial activities

After the death of President Yuan Shikai, he returns to state affairs. In 1917 he moved to Beijing, where he became chairman of the Codification of Laws Commission. In 1920, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1921, Wang joined the delegation of 10 people sent to participate in the work of the Commission on the revision of the Charter of the League of Nations. In November of that year, he was sent as one of the main representatives of China to the Washington Conference, where he showed brilliant diplomatic abilities in protecting the sovereign rights of his country. Particularly active during this conference, Wang advocated the abolition of the principle of extraterritoriality, which was still valid in China. On December 12, at a meeting of members of the Far Eastern Committee created at the conference, Wang Zhonghui raised the question of eliminating the so-called spheres of influence (interests) of other states on Chinese territory. Although the principle of extraterritoriality was not completely abolished, European countries, the United States and Japan were forced to agree to some restoration of Chinese rights. At the same time, thanks to Wang, the anti-Chinese Anglo-Japanese Union was dissolved, and the Lansing-Ishii agreement aimed at infringing on the interests of China) was canceled.

From mid-December 1921, he served as Minister of Justice in the office of Liang Shin, then Yan Huiqing. At the end of July 1922, he served as Prime Minister of the Republic of China.

In 1923, Wang served as assistant judge at the Permanent Court of International Justice, where he was elected in 1921. On the recommendation of the Foreign Minister, Lu Chenxiang represented China at a meeting of the General Assembly of the League of Nations in September 1923. Wang performed his duties in the Permanent Court of International Justice until 1925. Then he became a member of the Committee of the League of Nations on the codification of international laws.

In 1925, Wang represented China at the Customs Conference in Beijing. The main disagreements between the representatives of China and other states arose regarding the abolition of the “Licin”, the size of the increase in tariff rates for goods and the purpose of their use. Thanks to Wang's argument, the Republic of China managed to restore its tariff autonomy.

In 1928 he was appointed chairman of the legal "renminbi" (department) and was introduced to the State Council. In 1928-1931 he performed a large amount of work to improve the criminal law and create an interim constitution of 1931. In 1930, on behalf of the Chinese government, Wang Zhonghui held a preliminary discussion with the American Consul F. Meyer on the abolition of extraterritorial rights. At the same time, he was negotiating with English representatives.

In 1931, he was appointed judge of the Permanent Chamber of International Justice, at the same time fulfilling the diplomatic missions of Chiang Kai-shek . In February 1935 he went to Japan as the personal representative of the President of the Republic of China to discuss issues of Sino-Japanese cooperation. As a result of the visit, Wang reported to Chiang Kai-shek about maintaining the anti-Chinese orientation of Japanese foreign policy.

In 1936, he resigned as a judge and returned to Nanjing. In February 1937, he took an active part in the work of the Third Kuomintang Plenum, which dealt with politics regarding Japan. In a manifesto led by Wang Zhonghui, the Kuomintang first spoke out for resistance to Japan. The same year, the Nanking government was reorganized and Wang was a supporter of a tough policy towards Japan, and was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The negotiations between Wang Zhonghui and the Japanese Ambassador Kawagoe, which took place in March 1937, demonstrated the inevitability of the Sino-Japanese war. Therefore, Wang began a search for allies. However, attempts to conclude a pact with the United States and Australia were unsuccessful. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Wang Zhonghui intensified his efforts to form military alliances with Great Britain, France, the United States, but without significant success. The USA and Great Britain recognized the sea blockade of China declared by Japan on September 5, 1937. Italy openly spoke out in support of Japanese action. The German government declared its neutrality, a ban on the export of military materials to China and the recall of military advisers, despite the protests of Wang Zhonghui. Therefore, the latter turned to the Soviet Union. On August 21, 1937, Wang signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet ambassador D. Bogomolov . At the same time, he continued his attempts to conclude an alliance with the United States. At the same time, he was in every possible way fawning over the surrender of China to Japan, which was prompted by the governments of France and Great Britain.

In 1941, he resigned as Minister of Foreign Affairs ( Kuo Taichi became Minister in his place) in the same year he was appointed Secretary General of the Supreme Council of National Defense. Wang continued to monitor the international situation, take part in resolving various issues, and publicly express his opinion, to which they listened. In 1942 he accompanied Chiang Kai-shek on a trip to India. He was a member of the Chinese delegation at the Cairo Conference in November 1943, where, along with Chiang Kai-shek and Franklin Roosevelt , the President of the United States, he was directly involved in solving important issues such as China’s participation in the occupation of Japan, and the conclusion of a US-China mutual security agreement, the provision by the United States of military bases on Chinese territory, on American assistance to China, on the creation of a joint military advisory body for cooperation between the United States and China in the Far East after the end of World War II war.

In 1945, Wang Zhonghui was included in the Chinese delegation to the conference on the establishment of the United Nations in San Francisco. After returning to China, he worked as the director of the Far Eastern branch of the Pacific War Investigation Commission. In the same years, Wang took part in the development of the constitution, which was proclaimed in 1947. He was a member of the first State Council, and in June 1948 he again took up the post of chairman of the legal renminbi. In the same year, Wang became a member of the Chinese Academy.

Recent years

After the defeat of the Kuomintang in the civil war in 1949, he traveled to Taiwan with the government of Chiang Kai-shek. In Taipei, Wang Zhonghui was elected a member of the Kuomintang Central Committee and the Central Advisory Committee. Despite his chronic illness, he continued to be chairman of the yuan until his death on March 15, 1958.

In 1905, he translated the English language into the German Civil Code of 1900; this translation was published in 1908. He was engaged in the preparation of an authorized English translation of Chiang Kai-shek's book “The Fates of China”, published in the USA in 1947.

• Furuya Keiji. Chiang Kai-shek. His Life and Times. NY, 1981.
• Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. v. 3, NY - L., 1970.
• 鄭則民 《王 寵 惠》 ， 中国社会科学院 近代史 研究所. 民国 人物 传 第 2 巻. 中華書局. 1980.
• 邵 桂花 《羅文 幹》 ， 中国社会科学院 近代史 研究所. 民国 人物 传 第 12 巻. 中華書局. 2005. ISBN 7-101-02993-0 .
• 徐友春 主編 (编). 民国 人物 大 辞典 増 訂 版. 河北 人民出版社. 2007. ISBN 978-7-202-03014-1 .
• 劉寿林 等 (编). 民国 職官 年表. 中華書局. 1995. ISBN 7-101-01320-1 .
• Wang, Chung Hui (1907). The German Civil Code, Translated and Annotated, with an Historical Introduction and Appendices. London: Stevens and Sons, Ltd.
• 跳转 ^ 浦 薛 鳳: 《忆 王 宠 惠 博士 及其 英译 〈德国 民法〉》, 台湾 《传记 文学》 第 38 卷 第 3 期, 1981 年 3 月。
• 跳转 ^ 浦 薛 风: 《忆 王 宠 惠 博士 及其 英译 〈德国 民法〉》, 台湾 《传记 文学》 第 38 卷 第 3 期, 1981 年 3 月。
• ^ 跳转 至 ： 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 李 新 總 主編 ， 中國社會科學院 近代史 研究所 中華民國 史 研究室 ， 韓信夫 、 姜克夫 主編 (编). 《中華民國 史 大事記》. 北京: 中華書局. 2011. ISBN 9787101079982 .
• 跳转 ^ 陳 布雷 等 編著. 《蔣介石 先生 年表》. 台北: 傳記 文學 出版社. 1978-06-01.
• 跳转 ^ 徐明松 、 倪安宇. 靜默 的 光 低吟 的 風 王 大 閎 先生. 遠景 出版. 2012-05: 250. ISBN 978-957-39-0824-1 （中文 （台灣））.