Wellington Koo

Early life and education

Born in Jiading, now a suburb of Shanghai, in 1888, Koo grew up in an upper-class cosmopolitan family and was fluent in both English and French, which greatly aided his diplomatic career. In 1895, he was greatly affected by China's defeat at the hands of Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War, which led to the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki. Koo later wrote: "Ever since I was seven years old, when I heard with depressed heart the news of China's defeat by Japan, I had desired to work for China's recovery and the removal of the Japanese menace". Koo's father resolved to give him a "modern" education to help him prepare for the coming 20th century and to work for China's modernization. The naval battles during the recent war where the modern British-built warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy had blown out of the water the antiquated junks of the Imperial Chinese Navy had dramatically shown that modern, industrial powers had the advantage over backward nations. In 1897, Germany occupied the Shandong Province after a short campaign, which again showed to the young Koo that as long as China was backward, it would be bullied by stronger powers.

Aged 11, Koo was sent to be educated at the Anglo-Chinese Junior College in Shanghai, where he was taught in English various subjects such as modern science and geography, though his studies were cut short when he contracted typhoid fever. While at the college, Koo once rode a bicycle down the streets of Shanghai into the International Settlement and followed an English boy also riding a bicycle onto the sidewalk, where an Indian policeman allowed the English boy to continue while stopping Koo to give him a fine for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk. Koo was shocked to discover that owing to extraterritoriality, the laws and rules that applied to Chinese in China did not apply to British subjects—in this instance, laws prohibiting riding a bicycle on the sidewalk—and that a foreign policeman had power over the Chinese police. Koo was left with a lifelong desire to end the status of extraterritoriality that had been imposed by the 19th-century "unequal treaties".

Koo studied at Saint John's University, Shanghai from 1901 to 1904, and Columbia University in New York City, where he was a member of the Philolexian Society, a literary and debating club, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator, and graduated with a B.A. in liberal arts (1908) and a M.A. in political science (1909). In 1912, he received his Ph.D. in international law and diplomacy from Columbia. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "The Status of Aliens in China".

Early diplomatic career

Koo returned to Beijing in 1912. He served the Republic of China as English Secretary to President Yuan Shikai. In 1915, Koo was made China's Minister to the United States and Cuba.

The Paris Peace Conference

In 1919, he was a member of the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, led by Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang. In 1897, China had been forced to sign a treaty that gave a 99-year lease giving sovereignty over the city of Qingdao to Germany while also giving Germany various special rights and economic control over the Shandong peninsula. Qingdao became the principal German naval base in Asia. In 1914, Japan entered World War I on the Allied side and seized Qingdao after a siege. The Japanese made it very clear that they wished to take over the German rights in Shandong province by right of conquest, a demand that the Chinese vehemently rejected. In January 1915, Japan presented the 21 Demands that if accepted would have turned China into a virtual Japanese protectorate, warning in a note presented to the Chinese that Japan would take "vigorous methods" if the 21 Demands were rejected. Following protests from the United States that the 21 Demands would negate the Open Door policy towards trade with China, the Japanese dropped the more extreme of the 21 Demands. On 25 May 1915, the Japanese forced the Chinese to agree that after the war ended, the Japanese would take over all of the German rights in the Shandong peninsula, which caused protests all over China over what was deemed "National Humiliation Day".

As a young diplomat, Koo was strongly opposed to the acceptance of the Japanese demands. Koo had become close to President Woodrow Wilson, who invited him to visit the White House, where he was given to understand that the United States would support China's demands regarding the Shandong peninsula against Japan at the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson asked for Koo to attend the peace conference in Paris, and moreover, Koo travelled on the same ship that took Wilson and the rest of the American delegation to France in December 1918. The Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan wrote: "Koo, who was only thirty-two in 1919, was a forceful and distinguished personality...At Columbia University, in New York, where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree, he had been an outstanding student...He had also been on the university debating team, as the Japanese delegates would learn to their cost".

The Chinese delegation stayed at the Hotel Lutétia, though the Australian journalist George Ernest Morrison who also served with the Chinese delegation stayed at the MacMahon Palais. On 22 January 1919, Alfred Sao-ke Sze of the Chinese delegation arranged for a dinner attended by Koo where Ronald Macleay of the British delegation frankly told that Britain "could not do much" in the matter of the Shandong. During the First World War, hundreds of thousands of Chinese coolies went to France where they dug the trenches for both the British and French armies, often under German fire. Koo argued very forcefully that though no Chinese troops had fought in Europe, the sacrifices of the Chinese coolies who dug the trenches amid appalling conditions on the Western Front entitled China to be treated as one of the powers that made an important contribution to the Allied victory. When Macleay suggested that Britain would probably favor the Japanese claims on the Shandong Peninsula because Japan had done more for the Allied victory than China, Koo countered him with saying that besides for expelling the Germans from the Shandong in 1914 that Japan had done nothing for the Allied cause while Chinese coolies had dug the trenches from the fall of 1914 onward until the end of the war in 1918.

Political career

Koo also was involved in the formation of the League of Nations as China's first representative to the newly formed League. In 1921, Koo became the Chinese minister to Britain. Much to his displeasure, Punch published a ballad that "welcomed" Koo to London that read: "'Morality, heavenly link'/I'm sure you will never taboo,/Through to it, I don't think you'll 'eternally drink'/Temperate Wellington Koo/It is rather malicious, I own/To play with a name that is true/But I hope you'll condone my irreverent tone/Generous Wellington Koo". The implication of the ballad that Koo was a not a diplomat representing China who was worthy of respect, but rather just a foreigner with a "funny" name who existed to amuse the British greatly offended him. To make up for the slight, King George V invited Koo and his glamorous young wife, Hui-lan Oei, as the guests of honor at a reception at Buckingham Palace for the visiting King Albert I of Belgium. At the reception, the fluently English-speaking and youngish couple made a great impression on the high society of London.

In October 1921, Koo was reassigned as the Chinese minister in Washington. Koo was to represent China at the Washington Naval Conference, hence his sudden reassignment to Washington just after his arrival in London. Koo's principal opponent at the Washington conference was Kijūrō Shidehara, the Japanese ambassador in Washington. The Washington conference proved to be Koo's triumph as the conference ended with Japan renouncing its claims to the Shandong and the attending powers all signing the Nine-Power Treaty affirming the independence of China. After the conference, Koo returned to China a national hero.

From 1922, Koo served successively as Foreign Minister and Finance Minister. On 15 May 1924, he was the target of assassination attempt when an ornate gift package arrived at his house addressed to him, which Koo's servants opened instead. Upon opening the package, a bomb exploded, killing one of the servants while another two were badly wounded by the blast. The man who sent the package fled to Japan, which led Koo to conclude that the Japanese were behind the attempt on his life. Later that month, Koo signed a treaty with the Soviet Union under which the Soviet Union renounced all "Unequal treaties" that China had signed with Imperial Russia in exchange for which Koo recognized the de facto independence of Outer Mongolia, which until then he had claimed as part of China. Koo opened up talks with the British for the return of the British colony of Weihaiwei, which the British had signed a 25-year lease on in 1898, which led Koo to argue as 1923 had already passed, the lease had expired. There was much spirited disagreements as the British were unwilling to consider returning the colony, despite the fact the 25-year lease had expired in 1923.

Ambassador in Paris

In August 1932, Koo arrived in Paris as the Chinese minister-plenipotentiary. Koo also concurrently served as the chief of the Chinese delegation to the League of Nations when it was holding its sessions in Geneva.

When Lord Lytton finally presented his report to the League in February 1933 concluding that Japan had indeed committed aggression, it was the subject of much debate within the League. In March 1933, Koo gave what was described as a very strong speech, urging the League to finally act against Japan, now that it was established by the Lytton commission that Japan had committed aggression. The Japanese delegate to the League, Yōsuke Matsuoka, promptly announced that his government did not accept the Lytton report and was leaving the League, effective immediately.

During the Abyssinia Crisis caused by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Koo was a strong supporter of having the League of Nations apply sanctions against Italy, believing this was a hopeful precedent that might led to the nations that belonged to the League supporting China should Japan invade. In May 1936, the Italians took the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and Benito Mussolini proclaimed victory in Rome. Though the Italians never fully controlled the Ethiopian countryside, the conquest of Ethiopia was a major blow to the prestige of the League of Nations. Koo wrote at the time that at the League's headquarters in Geneva there was "a general sickening atmosphere at the impotence and cowardice" of the League in face of the Italian aggression against Ethiopia. On a more hopeful note for Koo, he met the Soviet foreign commissar Maxim Litvinov who often attended the sessions of the League and discussed with him the possibility of Soviet aid to China.

In 1936, France and China upgraded their relations from the legation to embassy level, and Koo thus became the first Chinese ambassador to France. Fluent in French, Koo and his wife tried very hard to join the high society of Paris, believing it was the best way to make China's case to the French elite. At one party, a French society hostess who believed him to the Japanese ambassador told him: "Japan is a big power, becoming more powerful by the day. You will surely be able to shallow up China". Koo was forced to tell her that he was actually the Chinese ambassador and the last thing he wanted to see was his country being "shallowed up" by Japan. Likewise, Madame Koo tried to leave a party by asking her hosts to call for her chauffeur and her limousine, only for the Japanese ambassador's limousine and chauffeur to appear, as her hosts did not know the difference between Japanese and Chinese. Koo's two teenage sons embarrassed him by throwing deck chairs in a lake in a Paris park, and tried to claim diplomatic immunity when a French gendarme ordered them to stop. The incident attracted much adverse comment in the French newspapers about the badly behaving sons of the Chinese ambassador who were trying to abuse diplomatic immunity.

Second Sino-Japanese war

In July 1937, Japan invaded China. On 7 July 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurred, and the Japanese promptly sent 5 divisions into northern China that advanced on Beijing. Koo spent many sleepless nights in the summer of 1937 as he worried deeply about the crisis. Koo met several times with diplomats from the Japanese embassy in Paris in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution, but the Japanese kept making extreme demands that Koo rejected. Koo wrote in his diary that the news from China was "depressing" as he expressed dismay at the news that the Japanese had taken Beijing, adding in "I felt no face to see anybody. China has become a joke". Koo broke off talks with the Japanese who had rejected his demand that Beijing be returned to China. Koo wrote in his diary that reports that the Japanese were heavily bombing Tianjin "made his hair stand up" with fear. Later that same month, the Japanese took Tianjin, which Koo called his diary the "most depressing and sickening news".

As China had hardly an arms industry at the time and needed to import arms, the Chinese were at a disadvantage against the better armed Japanese, whose more industrialized nation did have an arms industry. Koo's principal duty in Paris was to secure the supply of arms into China via a railroad that ran from the French colony of Indochina (modern Vietnam) into China. The arms that were carried into China were not just French, but also came from the Soviet Union. Several times, the French cabinet considered closing the railroad following complaints from the Japanese embassy in Paris and dark hints that Japan might invade Indochina if the railroad were not closed, but Koo was always able to persuade the French to keep the railroad running. Koo felt that the best response to the Japanese invasion was a Sino-Soviet alliance with "Anglo-American-French material co-operation in the background". Koo believed that as the victors of World War I that both Britain and France had a vested interest in upholding the international order created after that war with "the moral sympathy and support of the United States". Koo argued that the Franco-Soviet alliance provided for a certain stability in Europe, and the lack of the same stability in Asia was what explained why "Japan could run amuck". Koo felt it was in their own interests of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States to support China, and he was gravely disappointed when he discovered that his viewpoint was not as widely shared as he had assumed.

As the chief of the Chinese delegation, Koo went to Geneva to lodge a formal complaint at the League of Nations, arguing that Japan was guilty of aggression and the League should impose sanctions on Japan, just as it had imposed sanctions on Italy for its aggression against Ethiopia in 1935. Koo did not expect the League to take action, and the failure of the League to save Ethiopia was hardly an auspicious precedent. However, Koo thought an appeal to the League might win public sympathy in the West. At a meeting with the French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos, Koo learned that the French "advised delay". Koo in turn told Delbos: "The aggression of Japan against China was too flagrant, and if the League should refuse to take cognizance of it, the League would become a complete farce". Delbos cynically told Koo that the League was useless and that "You might as well call for the moon for help as much as the League of Nations". In September 1937, Koo gave a speech to the League, asking for Japan to be declared the aggressor. Koo reported to Nanjing that it was clear that "the League could not do much" and that "the matter hinged with Britain and France", the two veto-holding members of the League Council. Both the British and French delegations advised Koo not to ask for sanctions against Japan, warning that the United States was not a member of the League and that sanctions against Japan would only work if the Americans also applied sanctions. Koo himself thought that calling for sanctions would be a mistake as American "collaboration" with imposing sanctions was essential, but the Waichiaopu insisted that Koo ask for sanctions against Japan.

Europe in the late 1930s

During the Sudetenland crisis of 1938, Koo favored having the idea of deterring Germany from invading Czechoslovakia by involving the League of Nations, whose charter called for "collective security" in the event of aggression. Koo believed that this represented a precedent that could be applied to China. The French cabinet minister that Koo was most close to was Georges Mandel, the minister of the colonies. As the colonial minister, Mandel was in charge of French Indochina and thus had the power to allow or deny arm shipments to China. By contrast, Koo had difficult relations with Georges Bonnet, the foreign minister who was in favor of ceasing arm shipments to China to improve relations with Japan. Through Mandel did not always have the authority to so, he continued to allow Soviet arms to be shipped via Indochina to China over the protests of both Bonnet and the Japanese. Koo reported that through the French Premier Édouard Daladier did not always support the anti-appeasement faction in his cabinet led by Mandel, but that Daladier was sympathetic towards China and overruled Bonnet when he pressed to have the Indochinese railroad closed. French premiers in the Third Republic had powers analogous to the chairmen of a committee as cabinets in the Third Republic were coalition governments. The Daladier cabinet was divided into three factions with the "peace lobby" (appeasement) faction led by Bonnet; the "firmness" (anti-appeasement) faction led by Mandel; and Daladier leading another faction that rested uneasily between the other two.

The ambassador that Koo spoke with the most was William Christian Bullitt Jr., the American ambassador to France. Bullitt was a close friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who had appointed him ambassador to France in 1936 to serve as his personal representative in Paris as Bullitt completely by-passed the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and instead sent his reports straight to the president, whom he also spoke to by telephone at least once every week. Koo had hopes that speaking to Bullitt would influence Roosevelt. In July 1938 when the Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr., visited Paris, Bullitt introduced him to Koo, whom spoke about the need for American economic aid to China. Through Morgenthau could make no promises on behalf of Congress, he promised to use his influence in Washington to lobby for financial aid to China.

In September 1938, Koo attended the fall session of the League of Nations in Geneva, where he pressed for sanctions against Japan. In his speech, Koo complained at the previous sessions of the League in September 1938 and in May 1938, all China had received were "nicely-worded resolutions", going on to say "The resolutions remain nothing, but empty words." Citing the Sudetenland crisis, both the British and French delegations asked for Koo not to speak about the Sino-Japanese war, saying this was not an opportune time to speak of the issue, but Koo ignored their objections.

War in Europe

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and on 3 of September, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Koo wrote in his diary on 3 September 1939: "These are momentous days in history, the beginning of a war which may alter the face of the world and of civilization itself". Shortly afterwards, Koo suggested in a message to Chiang Kai-shek that China formally declared its wish to align with the Allied powers and to offer Chinese resources and manpower to aid the Allied cause in Europe. On 30 November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, leading to calls to expel the Soviet Union from the League of Nations. At the session of the League Assembly when a vote was taken to expel the Soviet Union, Koo as the chief of the Chinese delegation chose to abstain from the vote, which ended with the Soviet Union become the first and only member to be expelled from the League.

On 18 June 1940, the Japanese submitted an ultimatum threatening to invade Indochina if the French did not end all arms sales to China at once. On 20 June 1940, the government of Philippe Pétain submitted to the ultimatum and ended all arms sales to China. On 21 June 1940, an armistice was signed, taking France out of the war. Koo briefly served as the Chinese ambassador in Vichy, where he was forced to live under reduced conditions. Under the armistice signed on 21 June 1940, Germany imposed harsh reparations on France while the franc was artificially devalued in regard to the Reichsmark, which essentially allowed the occupiers to loot France. Owing to the shortage of food in occupied France, Koo's wife observed that he was forced to eat canned food for the first time in his entire life. Koo spent the rest of the summer of 1940, trying to persuade Vichy officials to resume arms shipments. Koo reported to Chongqing that France was "powerless" in Asia as he stated that he had information on good authority that the Germans had ordered that the French should not "provoke" the Japanese. In July 1940, the British submitted to a Japanese ultimatum and closed the Burma Road, though the road was reopened again in October 1940. In September 1940, the Japanese occupied the northern half of French Indochina. For Koo, the only hopeful news that the United States reacted sharply to the Japanese advance into Indochina, warning Tokyo that this was regarded in Washington as an extremely unfriendly act, and that the Japanese should not occupy the southern half of French Indochina under any conditions.

Ambassador in London

In 1941, Koo was appointed Chinese ambassador in London. He remained the Chinese ambassador to the Court of St James's until 1946. Koo decided that wartime London was too dangerous for his family to live, and sent his wife and children to New York. Madame Koo had wanted to go to London and went to New York most unwillingly. Many in the Foreign Office disliked Koo as one of Britain's "bitterest enemies" in the 1920s, charging that he was a Chinese nationalist who rejected the "white man's burden" view of Britain's role in the world. Koo's main role in London was in seeking British support for China and especially to ensure that the British did not close the Burma Road, which was China's lifeline following the closure of the French railroad to China. In July 1941, the Japanese occupied the southern half of French Indochina, giving Japan the ability to project air and naval power well into the South China Sea. In response, the American, British and Dutch governments imposed an oil embargo on Japan and froze all Japanese assets in their countries. The Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden chose not to inform Koo of these steps, who first learned of these British moves from reading the newspapers. Koo was deeply worried about a possible Japanese invasion of Burma, which would close the Burma Road. Koo pressed for more British aid to China, only to be told that the British were fully committed to the struggle against Germany and had little to spare to assist China. In the summer and fall of 1941, Koo offered to have Chinese troops sent to reinforce the garrison in Hong Kong, only to be politely rebuffed as the Foreign Office told him that the existing Anglo-Indian-Canadian garrison could hold Hong Kong against any Japanese attack.

Following the Japanese attack on the British empire in December 1941, the Japanese invaded the British colony of Burma in January 1942 from Thailand. As an ambassador in London, Koo played a critical role in the talks that saw the British grant the Chinese permission to send two armies into Burma to assist the British in the defense of Burma. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, was opposed to accepting the Chinese offer, preferring that Burma be defended by only British troops or Indian troops under the command of British officers. Much to Koo's pleasure, the dire situation in Burma with the British being defeated by an invading Japanese force that consisted of only 2 divisions forced Churchill to accept the Chinese offer of help. For Koo, the fact that Britain was being forced to accept Chinese help symbolized how the Second World War was changing the face of world politics. However, the Chinese intervention did not stem the Japanese advance and by May 1942 the Japanese had occupied all of Burma, reaching the frontiers of India.

At the United Nations

In 1945, Koo was one of the founding delegates of the United Nations, and the first signer of the United Nations Charter. He later became the Chinese Ambassador to the United States and focused on maintaining the alliance between the Republic of China and the United States as the Kuomintang began losing to the Communists and had to retreat to Taiwan.

Koo retired from the Chinese diplomatic service in 1956. and in the same year he became a judge of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and served as vice-president of the Court during the final three years of his term. In 1967, he retired and moved to New York City, where he lived until his death in 1985.

In an interview conducted in 1969 on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, Koo stated that the Paris peace conference, which launched the May 4th movement, was a turning point in Chinese views of the West as he observed that many Chinese intellectuals believed the victorious powers of 1918 would allow China to be treated as an equal, and the outcome of the Paris peace conference had turned public opinion against the Western powers. There was a widespread feeling in China that given the suffering of the Chinese coolies on the Western Front that France, Great Britain and the United States would reward China for its sacrifices. Koo stated: "Looking back at China's stand at the Paris peace conference and the developments preceding, it appears that these events are...a turning point in China's history, both from the domestic and international point of view...One could wonder what would be the situation in China [today] either if China had succeeded in settling the Shandong question in Paris to her satisfaction or if she had signed the treaty without the reservation. These are questions which probably can never be fully answered now". Koo noted that the new Communist government in Russia, which denounced liberalism as a device for Western imperialism and renounced all of the special Russian rights in China gained under the Tsarist regime, won tremendous prestige in China as the one power that seemed willing to treat China as an equal, which led directly to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1920.

Personal life

In 1908, Koo married his first wife, Chang Jun-o (traditional Chinese: 張潤娥; simplified Chinese: 张润娥; pinyin: Zhāng Rùn'é). They divorced in 1912.

Koo's second wife, Tang Pao-yueh "May" (唐寶玥; 唐宝玥; Táng Bǎoyuè; c. 1895–1918), was one of the illegitimate daughters of the former Chinese prime minister Tang Shaoyi and a concubine Mai-Mai Sze. Their marriage took place soon after Koo's return to China and divorced his first wife in 1912. She died in the U.S. during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. They had two children: a son, Teh-chang Koo (1916–1998), and a daughter, Patricia Tsien (1918–2015).

Koo's third wife was the socialite and style icon Oei Hui-lan (1889–1992). She married Koo in Brussels, Belgium, in 1921. She was previously married, in 1909, to British consular agent Beauchamp Stoker, by whom she had one son, Lionel, before divorcing in 1920. Much admired for her adaptations of traditional Manchu fashion, which she wore with lace trousers and jade necklaces, Oei Hui-lan was the favorite daughter of Peranakan tycoon Majoor Oei Tiong Ham, and the heiress of a prominent family of the Cabang Atas or the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia. She wrote two memoirs: Hui-Lan Koo (Mrs. Wellington Koo): An Autobiography (written with Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, Dial Press, 1943) and No Feast Lasts Forever (written with Isabella Taves, Quadrangle/The New York Times, 1975). Koo had two sons with her: Yu-chang Wellington Koo Jr. (1922–1975) and Fu-chang Freeman Koo (1923–1977).

On September 3, 1959, Koo married his fourth wife Yen Yu-yun (1905–2017), the widow of Clarence Kuangson Young, who had been his long-term mistress since the 1930s while her husband was still alive. He had three stepdaughters from this marriage: Genevieve (wife of American photographer and film director Gordon Parks), Shirley, and Frances Loretta Young (wife of Oscar Tang).

Death and legacy

Though he outlived two of his sons, Koo died surrounded by his family on the night of 14 November 1985, aged 97. Wellington Koo was survived by his fourth wife, two children, nineteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Dying older than the 87-year-old Qianlong Emperor, the 87-year-old Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek, the 92-year-old People's Republic paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, and the 96-year-old People's Republic paramount leader Jiang Zemin, Koo holds the distinction of being the longest-lived person to ever lead China. Despite this, both his third and fourth wives lived even longer than he did—Oei Hui-lan died at the age 103 and Juliana Koo died aged 111.