Lou Tseng-Tsiang
Encyclopedia
Lou Tseng-Tsiang was a Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

 and a Roman Catholic monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

. He was twice Premier of the Republic of China
Premier of the Republic of China
The President of the Executive Yuan , commonly known as the Premier of the Republic of China , is the head of the Executive Yuan, the executive branch of the Republic of China , which currently administers Taiwan, Matsu, and Kinmen. The premier is appointed by the President of the Republic of China...

 and led his country's delegation at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He sometimes used the French name René Lou in earlier life, and his monastic name was Pierre-Célestin.

Life

Lou was born in Zhejiang on June 12, 1871, and grew up in China, raised a Protestant in religion and a Confucianist in philosophy. His father, Lou Yong Fong, was lay catechist for a Protestant mission in Shanghai. He studied at home until the age of thirteen, when he entered the School of Foreign Language in Shanghai, specializing in French. He continued his education at the school for interpreters attached to the Foreign Ministry, and in 1893 he was posted to St Petersburg as interpreter (fourth-class) to the Chinese embassy. At that time the diplomatic international language was French, but Lou also gained fluency in Russian. The ambassador, the reform-minded Xu Jingcheng (Hsü Ching-ch'eng), took an interest in his career. Lou married a Belgian citizen, Berthe Bovy, in St Petersburg on February 12, 1899, and eventually converted to Roman Catholicism. The couple had no children.

Diplomatic career

His early years were marked by the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...

, during which his mentor, Xu Jingcheng, was beheaded in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

. Lou served the Qing regime as Chinese delegate at the first and second Peace Conferences in The Hague
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)
The Hague Conventions were two international treaties negotiated at international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands: The First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907...

 (1899 and 1907), as Minister to Belgium, and as Ambassador to Russia, but he never forgot the imperial government's betrayal of his "second father". When the 1911 Revolution broke out he was Ambassador in St Petersburg, and he took it upon himself, against the advice of his colleagues at other European capitals, to cable Beijing that there could be no hope of assistance from the Great Powers.

Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China

At the proclamation of the Chinese Republic in 1912, he joined the Party of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...

, and served as Foreign Minister in the provisional government under President Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai was an important Chinese general and politician famous for his influence during the late Qing Dynasty, his role in the events leading up to the abdication of the last Qing Emperor of China, his autocratic rule as the second President of the Republic of China , and his short-lived...

, March 1912-Sept. 1912. In August–September 1912 he also served as Prime Minister, but his lack of political clout forced his resignation, ostensibly for health reasons. He returned to the cabinet as Foreign Minister from November 1912 to September 1913, and reformed the Foreign Ministry: abolishing the complicated bureaucracy of the imperial commissions, requiring knowledge of foreign languages at all levels, and instituting modern civil service examinations for recruits. He managed to avoid being identified with any particular faction within the new government, but this relative political isolation meant that he was little able to influence policy, and he again resigned. On leaving office he became one of the founders of the Chinese Society of International Law
Chinese Society of International Law
Chinese Society of International Law founded by in 1980 and has more than 800 registered members from all over the country engaged in teaching and research institutions of international law, state organs and other practical work departments. Chinese Society of International Law in China is the...

.

From 27 January 1915 to 17 May 1916 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for a third time, in the "northern" government
Beiyang Government
The Beiyang government or warlord government collectively refers to a series of military regimes that ruled from Beijing from 1912 to 1928 at Zhongnanhai. It was internationally recognized as the legitimate Government of the Republic of China. The name comes from the Beiyang Army which dominated...

 in Beijing which enjoyed international recognition, undertaking difficult negotiations with Japan and Russia. He became Foreign Minister for the fourth time on 30 November 1917. He served until 13 August 1920, with deputy minister Chen Lu becoming acting minister during his absence for the peace talks in Paris (November 1918 to December 1919).

Personally heading the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, he refused to sign the Versailles Treaty because Article 156 transferred the German treaty territory in Shandong to Japan
Shandong Problem
The Shantung Problem refers to the dispute over Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which dealt with the concession of the Shandong peninsula....

 rather than returning sovereign authority to China. China was the only participating country not to sign the treaty.

Benedictine monk and priest in Belgium

From 1922 to 1927 Lou was China's envoy to the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. At the death of his wife he retired from an active life, and in 1927 became a postulant, under the name Dom Pierre-Célestin, in the Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monastery of Sint-Andries in Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. He was ordained priest in 1935. During the Second World War he gave lectures about the Far East in which he propagandized for the Chinese war effort against Japan; German security agents noted the names of those attending but took no further action.

In August 1946 Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

 appointed Lou titular abbot of the Abbey of St Peter in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

. In his final years he hoped to return to China as a missionary, to fulfill the instructions Xu Jingcheng had given him at the beginning of his career:
Europe's strength is found not in her armaments, nor in her knowledge — it is found in her religion [...]. Observe the Christian faith. When you have grasped its heart and its strength, take them and give them to China.
His planned departure was postponed during the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...

, and Dom Lou died in Belgium on 15 January 1949.

Publications

His best known work, published in 1945, is an autobiography in French, Souvenirs et pensées, summarizing his diplomatic and political career and his subsequent religious vocation, in which Christianity appears as a completion of the Confucian tradition of "pacifying the universe". The work was translated into English by Michael Derrick
Michael Derrick
John Michael Derrick was the son of the artist, illustrator and cartoonist Thomas Derrick, and older brother of the writer Christopher Derrick...

 as Ways of Confucius and of Christ (London, 1948), and into Dutch by Frans Van Oldenburg-Ermke, under the title Mijn roeping: herinneringen en gedachten.

His other writings and published addresses include:
  • La Vie et les oeuvres du grand chrétien chinois Paul Siu Koang-k’i. Lophem-lez-Bruges: Abbaye de Saint-André, 1934. (A study of Xu Guangqi
    Xu Guangqi
    Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...

    .)
  • Foreword to Marius Zanin, Auguste Haouisée
    Auguste Haouisée
    Auguste Haouissée, SJ was a French prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, who served as Bishop of Shanghai from 1946 until his death, having previously served as its Apostolic Vicar....

     and Paul Yu Pin
    Paul Yü Pin
    Paul Yü Pin was a Chinese cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Nanking from 1946 until his death, having previously served as its Apostolic Vicar, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1969.-Biography:Paul Yü Pin was born in Hai-lun, Kirin, to Shuayuan Yu Pin and...

    , La Voix de l’église en Chine: 1931-1932, 1937-1938. Brussels: Éd. de la Cité chrétienne, 1938.
  • Published in English as The Voice of the Church in China, 1931-32, 1937-38. London and New York: Longmans, Green and co., 1938.
  • Conférence sur madame Elisabeth Leseur, with a foreword by Marie-L. Herking. n.p., 1943.(On Elisabeth Leseur
    Elisabeth Leseur
    Elisabeth Arrighi Leseur , born Pauline Elisabeth Arrighi, is best known for her spiritual diary and the conversion of her husband, Félix Leseur , a medical doctor and well known leader of the French anti-clerical, atheistic movement.The cause for the canonization of Elisabeth Leseur was started...

    .)
  • Allocution de Dom Lou, abbaye de Saint-André le samedi 10 août 1946 fête de Saint Laurent. n.p., 1946.
  • Lettre à mes amis de Grande-Bretagne et d’Amérique. Bruges: Abbaye de Saint-André, 1948.
  • La rencontre des humanités et la découverte de l’Evangile. Bruges: Desclée De Brouwer, 1949.

Further references

  • Nicholas M. Keegan, 'From Chancery to Cloister: the Chinese Diplomat who became a Benedictine Monk', Diplomacy & Statecraft 10:1 (1999), pp. 172–185.
  • In the 1999 film My 1919 he is portrayed by Xiu Zongdi.

External links

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