"Thirteen years ago, in Paris, I watched firsthand as Japan forcibly seized China's Shandong. Chinese tolerated and ceded our rights and interests in Shandong to Japan. Today, thirteen years later, I ask you, can China endure such a thing? Can you bear it? "If today, the League of Nations cannot even pass the 'Lytton Report' and we give way to the Northeast, then I am afraid that thirteen years from now, there will be no more representatives of various countries present at this meeting, because then the League of Nations will not exist!" Thirty years from now, I am afraid that there will be no more peace and that the world will never have a peaceful day. ”
- "Gu Weijun in "918""
90 years ago today, if there was no such event, perhaps it would have been just an ordinary day in the long river of history. 因为那场事变，它成为了横亘在每一代中国人心中的“国耻日”，这就是震惊中外的的“九一八事变”。
On the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army in northeast China raided Shenyang and occupied northeast China by force. Since then, the beginning of The attempt of Japanese imperialism to conquer China by force has begun. After the "918 Incident", the people were full of emotion, especially the policies of "foreign countries must first be safe inside" and "non-resistance" at that time, which produced very strong national sentiments in society. On the battlefield is the charge of the soldiers, and behind the scenes is the battle of the diplomats. The more such popular sentiment intensifies, the more diplomats are needed to step out of the walls and interact with the world and beyond.
Today, I recommend to you China's first "diplomatic documentary novel, a blockbuster work of Chinese anti-Japanese literature" - "Gu Weijun in "918".
Gu Weijun is a legend. He is known as the "first diplomat of the Republic of China" and a shining heroic star in the magnificent modern history of China. The man who shouted "no" at the Paris Peace Conference and refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles also began to mediate with the "enemy" after the September 18 Incident. Under his efforts, the League of Nations at that time set up a "Lytton Investigation Mission" headed by the British Lytton, and after investigation, the "Lytton Report" was formed, confirming that Japan had launched a war of aggression without compromise and that Japan should unconditionally withdraw from the three eastern provinces.
Gu Weijun and Victor Bulwall Lytton
And even such a well-founded report, the process of finally being voted by the League of Nations, was extremely difficult. Gu Weijun had to face various constraints from within, wrestle wits and courage with the Japanese representative to the League of Nations, and persuade Western countries to support China. In this book, there is a description of Gu Weijun's verbal battle with Japanese diplomats. In the face of the Japanese representative's speech in English at the League of Nations Congress, which reversed black and white and unreasonably stirred up three points, Gu Weijun demonstrated the incomparably clever wisdom of a diplomat. He first expounded China's views to the participants in French, the official language of the League of Nations, and refute the Representative of Japan in a reasonable and well-founded manner, and said the paragraph at the beginning of this article in a sonorous manner. The entire venue erupted in neat and warm applause.
When the "Lytton Investigation Report" was finally unanimously approved by the League of Nations Conference, Gu Weijun sat in his chair, leaving two lines of tears. At home, the good news of victory spread throughout the streets. This means that China is about to regain the sovereignty of the three eastern provinces lost as a result of the 918 Incident. However, individual efforts could not change the aggressive nature of imperialism after all, the northeast was not recovered after all, and the Chinese people began a fourteen-year war of resistance against Japan.
翻开《顾维钧在“九一八”》，黯淡了的刀光剑影又渐渐清晰，远去了的鼓角铮鸣又轰然作响，历史不容忘记。 As the national shame of the Chinese nation, the "918 Incident" should be given a comprehensive and three-dimensional understanding of it. Mountains and rivers change color, today is not the same as in the past, the country is strong, then the diplomacy is strong. On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the "918 Incident", I only wish the motherland's mountains and rivers are good, and the country is safe!