About author:Zhao Zhenyu was born in December 1945 in Baoying County, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, and was a former special envoy for Caribbean affairs of the Chinese government. Graduated from Shanghai Overseas Chinese College, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1970, and successively served as a clerk, secretary and counsellor in the Diplomatic Service Bureau, the United States Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General in Toronto, the Embassy in Canada and other departments; from 1999 to 2003, he was the Chinese Ambassador to Papua New Guinea; from 2003 to 2006, he was also the Chinese Ambassador to Jamaica and the Permanent Representative of China to the International Seabed Administration; in 2009, he was awarded the title of Outstanding Diplomat by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; during the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, He served as the deputy general representative of the Chinese government world expo.
In China, when one mentions Canada on the other side of the ocean, one first thinks of norman Bethune, the great warrior of internationalism. However, many people may not know that in Toronto, the capital of ontario, Canada, there is another person who has made outstanding contributions to the cause of the Chinese revolution and is a contemporary of Bethune, who is Called "an old friend of the Chinese people" by Vice Chairman Soong Ching Ling and awarded him the honorary title of "People's Friendship Messenger" by the Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. During my tenure in Toronto, I had the privilege of getting to know this admirable old man and listening to his stories of nearly 30 years of legendary life in China.
First Session Of a Young Age
In the 1980s and 1990s, I was stationed in Canada, the country of maple leaves, three times. From 1983 to 1987, when I was working at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, I heard about Wen Youzhang. At that time, the Embassy regularly received the English bimonthly Canadian Far East Newsletter from his toronto apartment, and I was a loyal reader of the Canadian Far East Newsletter, and I was full of respect for Wen Youzhang.
Wen Youzhang
In March 1990, I returned to Canada to take up a post at the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Toronto. One day in May, when the wind was beautiful, my wife and I went to visit the old man Wen Youzhang, whom I had admired for a long time. It is a quiet and welcoming two-storey old-fashioned apartment, with a courtyard of lush greenery and a few pots of flowers in front of the door, full of vitality, just like the owner of the residence, although he has reached his old age, he is still full of vitality. Dressed in a suit, Elder Wen, accompanied by his second wife, Ella, sat in a wheelchair in the living room to greet us.
From opposing hegemonism and evil forces in the international community to the collapse of the "Gang of Four" in China and the new atmosphere of reform and opening up, he has sorted out all kinds of information from China and overseas, as well as his personal research and thinking on problems.
He also intersperses stories from time to time, such as when relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated in 1969, when the Soviets tried to subvert the Chinese regime and have put into action, set out to cobble together a new "Revolutionary Central Committee" for China, and the main candidates for him were Wang Ming, who had been in Moscow, and Zhang Guotao, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China living in Toronto. Kulushine, the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Canada, came to Toronto from Ottawa to seek Wen Youzhang's help and ask him to arrange for him to meet with Zhang Guotao, but was immediately refused by Elder Wen. Later, this plan was also stillborn.
When talking about the Canadian Far East Newsletter, Mr. Wen recalled that the predecessor of the journal, the Shanghai Newsletter, was founded in Shanghai in June 1946; in 1953, it was renamed the Canadian Far East Newsletter and published in Toronto.
Each issue of the newsletter is personally written, edited and distributed by him, and the readership is mainly Canada, the United States and some European countries that pay attention to and study Chinese politicians and intellectuals. Since its inception, he has been concerned about China for decades, and has been reporting and commenting on the cause of China's revolution and socialist construction as the theme, introducing to the Western world a series of historical changes in New China under the leadership of the Communist Party, including new developments in the political, economic, diplomatic, cultural, social and other fields.
Along with the growth of New China, along the way, "Newsletter" has not only gained more and more readers and supporters of New China, but also built a bridge between China and Western countries with a friendly attitude and objective stance.
Elder Wen confessed his heart to me that his release of the Canadian Far East Newsletter also had a original intention - to enhance the friendship between the Canadian and American people and the Chinese people, maintain world peace, and promote the diplomatic recognition of China by Canada and the United States. He said that although Canada did not establish diplomatic relations with China until October 1970, the Canadian Peace Movement Committee he headed was the first Canadian social group to propose to the Canadian government to recognize the People's Republic of China after the founding of New China.
With the changes in the international situation and the improvement of China's international status, as early as 1968, Elder Wen keenly observed and foresaw that the time for the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Canada was approaching. To this end, he drafted a telegram, which he placed in a wallet he carried every day, ready to be sent to Zhou Enlai.
Wen Youzhang mobilized Chinese recruits in Chongqing in 1938
On October 13, 1970, China and Canada simultaneously published a communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations in their respective capitals. Upon hearing this news, he immediately and excitedly opened his wallet, took out the draft telegram, and sent a congratulatory message to Premier Zhou Enlai, which had been stored for two years: "Allow me to express my gratitude to the Government of Canada for finally establishing normal relations with your Government. We welcome the moment when friendly relations between the two peoples have arrived. ”
Elder Wen talked about the affairs of the world, and there was a qiankun on the wheelchair. When we first met, my wife and I were deeply impressed.
A rebel from China
My wife and I visited Mun Lao and Ella on behalf of the Consulate General at regular intervals, and his second son, Wen Zhongzhi, a professor at york University in Canada and a historian of the Far East, his youngest daughter Shirley, and William Su, the son-in-law of the then president of the Canada-China Friendship Association, were also present at times.
Whenever they get together, everyone sits around his wheelchair with Elder Wen as the center and listens to his life stories that he has experienced in China. Wen Zhongzhi defined his father's extraordinary life in a classic phrase: "A rebel from China." ”
Elder Wen sincerely stressed to us: "I have gained more and more from China spiritually. I helped China very little, and the Chinese revolution turned me from a missionary into a new person. ”
Wen Huanzhang and his wife and children, in the back row is Wen Youzhang
In December 1898, Wen Youzhang was born in Jiading (present-day Leshan), Sichuan, to a devout Canadian Christian priest family, where he spent his early childhood years. When he was young, he often played with chinese friends and inadvertently practiced the Sichuan language "Tong Zi Gong". He once improvised for us to recite a well-known Sichuan nursery rhyme, which surprised everyone. He later returned to Canada to study, and in early 1918 he accompanied the Canadian Legion to France to participate in the First World War against the Germans. After his triumph, he entered victoria college at the University of Toronto, where he studied English, history, philosophy, literature, theology, church history, and comparative religion.
In December 1925, Wen Laozi inherited his father's business and returned to Sichuan after many years of absence as a pastor of the United Church of Canada, while preaching in Chengdu and Chongqing, and teaching English at universities and high schools such as West China Union University. He was extremely gifted in language, and explored a set of "English direct teaching methods" with the meaning of "listening and speaking ahead", and achieved good results, and the Chongqing University where he taught also published and distributed his English direct teaching method textbook. In order to learn Chinese well, he specially hired a tutor who did not speak English, concentrated on studying five hours a day, forcing himself to integrate into the local context as soon as possible, and gradually talked to the people around him in fluent Sichuan.
Wen Youzhang's wedding photo with his wife
In 1952, he and his wife Wen Yuehua returned to China to visit, and the "rural sound" was still the same. When Vice Premier Guo Moruo, a "fellow villager" in Leshan, Sichuan Province, met with him, the two talked cordially in Sichuan. When Guo Mo saw him speaking so authentically Chinese, he couldn't help but exclaim, "Your Chinese is no different from what Chinese said!" "In fact, every time we met, he spoke Sichuan in many cases, just explaining in English to the family here. More than 40 years after leaving China, I was shocked that he could still speak authentic Sichuanese.
While studying hard to Chinese, Elder Wen also attaches great importance to understanding China's national conditions and public opinion. Because of his long-term contact with ordinary people, he has a real understanding of the suffering of the poor people in the eastern Sichuan region. The harsh reality of Chinese people being oppressed by the three mountains led him to gradually combine the spread of Christian doctrine with the achievement of social justice. He opposed the imperialists' use of force to gain privileges in China, and advocated that the patriotic sentiments of the Chinese people should be respected and the unequal treaties imposed on the Chinese people should be abolished.
When he was teaching at a church middle school in Chongqing, in the "Lean English Weekly" he founded, he not only published English learning knowledge, but also published some political commentaries, pinpointing the shortcomings of the times and evaluating society. With the increase in social visibility in China, Wen Youzhang's words and deeds caused dissatisfaction among other missionaries and were also opposed by the church.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek actively prepared to launch a civil war amid the opposition of the people of the whole country, and on December 1, 1945, he created the "One-Two-One Massacre" in Kunming to suppress the students' anti-civil war movement. On December 9, Chengdu students held a parade and rally in Shaocheng Park in solidarity with Kunming students.
As the only foreign professor at the rally, Wen Youzhang not only risked his life to accept the invitation, but also bravely stepped onto the podium to give a speech under the close surveillance of the military and police, despite the threat of some people throwing grenades, which won the thunderous cheers of the students. Recalling this experience to us, he said that his commitment to this struggle was a turning point in his life, marking his shift from a utopian view of intellectual reform to a position of devotion to revolution.
Wen Youzhang returned to the former residence of Baita Street in Leshan in 1975
Elder Wen's move not only aroused a strong reaction among the church and foreign missionaries, but also the Ministry of Education of the Kuomintang government immediately sent a note to the United Church of Canada, declaring him an undesirable foreigner and restricting him to leaving China within one month, otherwise he would be expelled. Against this background, Wen Youzhang felt that he could no longer continue to spread the "gospel" that the church wanted him to spread, and decided to resign from the church's clergy. He wrote to the Church that the decision was the result of a long and painful consideration. He considers it his duty to participate actively in the socio-political struggle for the betterment of people. In June 1946, his resignation request was approved by Toronto, officially ending his missionary career.
(Note: This article was first published in the "Party History Expo" No. 3 of 2018, and the text has been slightly changed this time)
To be continued~
Author | Zhao Zhenyu
Edit | Diplomats say something about Qingyan