7th World Conference of Chinese Studies

Online-Vortrag vom 26.08.2023 für die 7th World Conference of Chinese Studies
Poznán/Poland, Berlin/Germany, Changsha/China, August 25-31, 2023


WANG CHONGHUI´S ROLE FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND SOCIAL HARMONY BETWEEN 1912 AND 1950.
A RE-EVALUATION.
THOMAS WEYRAUCH, GERMANY


Wang Chonghui belonged to the leading intellectuals, outstanding jurists, diplomats, as well as famous politicians of Imperial China and of the Republic of China. Even today, Wang enjoys the highest reputation as a legal scholar in the People's Republic of China.

Born in Hong Kong in 1881 as the son of Christian parents from Dongguan (東莞), Guangdong, a career as a world-famous Chinese law expert was anything but likely for him. China's Qing Dynasty was in decline as result of the two Opium Wars. For European powers, China was merely an object of imperialist desires, and in the burgeoning United States, racist resentment was so strong that it encroached on the Chinese. In 1882, anti-Chinese sentiment in the USA culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Despite all the difficulties for Chinese in the 19th Century, there were important beginnings for a gifted Chinese boy that Wang could take advantage of, namely in school education at Hong Kong Queen's College with English as the language of instruction and by studying at the Law Department of Tianjin Beiyang University. During a short study visit in Japan, he established relations with the revolutionaries around Sun Yatsen. He went on to study law at Berkeley and New Haven. Yale University, whose admission requirements included a command of Latin, offered him not only valuable insights into Anglo-Saxon common law and the Roman legal system of continental Europe and profound language skills in Latin, French and German. His examinations for the master and DCL degrees were awarded "summa cum laude" and "magna cum laude," respectively. In the U.S., he supported Sun Yatsen and his Tongmenghui Revolutionary League. After receiving his master's and doctoral degrees, he translated the German Civil Code into English, and later into Chinese. In Britain, he settled briefly to acquire membership in the bar association "The Inner Temple". He was then admitted to the diplomatic corps of Imperial China, for which he worked in Berlin and deepened his knowledge of German law. Secretly, he also met Sun Yatsen here and collected money for the Tongmenghui. As a delegate, under the leadership of diplomat Lu Zhengxiang, he took part in the negotiations of the Second Hague Conference of 1907 for the settlement of conflicts under international law and acquired his first diplomatic experience.

In April 1911, the Qing Imperial Court ordered Wang Chonghui to return to China to serve on the new Constitutional Commission. After arriving in China, however, he changed his destination and traveled south instead of Beijing to join the Tongmenghui revolutionaries. After the victory of their revolution, he drafted the text of the provisional constitution, which came into force in early 1912. Upon assuming the presidency, revolutionary leader Sun Wen asked that Wang Chonghui become minister of foreign affairs in his government. From 1916, Wang headed the Commission for the Codification of Law in Beijing. This involved drafting the most important laws from civil, criminal and administrative law with their procedural codes.

In 1921, the Beiyang government sent him to represent China in the newly formed League of Nations. On a diplomatic mission again, Wang was instrumental in the Nine-Power Agreement of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and China of February 6, 1922. It was primarily beneficial for China by precluding foreign domination over China and assuring the Republic of China of respect for its territorial integrity. Finally, a Sino-Japanese "Shandong Agreement" concluded on February 4, 1922, regulated the return of the entire Shandong Province, including the railroad lines, to China.

General Jiang Jieshi's Northern Campaign changed the political landscape as the opposing warlords were defeated and China was largely unified.

Since Wang was apparently regarded by Sun Yatsen and other Guomindang politicians in the south not as a traitor in the service of the Beiyang warlords but as a confederate, he was also warmly welcomed into the Guomindang government in the new capital of Nanjing after China's unification. Since 1928, Wang Chonghui served alternately as president of the Court of Justice, foreign minister and premier.

Six codes, most notably the extensive Civil Code, were produced by 1931, leaving a lasting mark on China. Since the Guomindang held the political teachings of Sun Wen, who died in 1925, according to which the course of development should proceed via a “revolutionary phase” of consolidating rule, the “guardianship phase” for guiding and educating the population, and the “constitutional phase” for complete democratization, the legal basis for the guardianship phase now had to be created after unification.

Under Wang Chonghui's leadership, in accordance with Sun Wen´s teachings the draft constitution for the guardianship phase was created in 1931 and legally enacted in a short time.

Having already been appointed a deputy judge at the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague in 1922 but taking a leave of absence pending the completion of his codification duties in China, Wang took up his full-time judicial duties in 1931.

In 1935 he successfully endeavored to settle the intra-party dispute between Hu Hanmin and Jiang Jieshi. He thus ensured unity within the Guomindang and the Republic of China in times of danger.

After the expiration of the guardianship phase, the constitutional phase had come, for which the 1936 constitution was conceived under Wang Chonghui, but it did not come into force because of subsequent events. Jiang Jieshi's abduction and the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937 prevented the constitution from taking effect.

It should be emphasized in this context Wang's involvement in mediating for the release of the kidnapped Jiang Jieshi. Before and during the war with Japan, Wang, as foreign minister, sought diplomatic contacts with other states, especially the Soviet Union and Germany.

In a big way, Wang, a foreign policy maker, succeeded in getting foreign powers to return concession territories to China and relinquish privileges between 1928 and 1943. On April 15, 1941, Wang Chonghui became secretary-general of the Supreme Defense Council, and in that capacity accompanied Jiang Jieshi as China's delegate to Cairo in 1943, where the fate of East Asia was to be determined. Together with the United States and Great Britain, China declared that Japan should return all Chinese territories conquered since 1895. In addition, the Japanese colony of Korea was to become an independent state.

As China's representative in the League of Nations, Wang Chonghui had come to know its strengths, but also its weaknesses. It was therefore obvious that Wang would also become the Chinese representative at the founding conference of the United Nations after World War II.

The impossibility of putting the 1936 constitution into effect during the domestic political turmoil and the war with Japan led to the revision of the legislative work after the war under the leadership of Wáng Chǒnghuì. In 1946, the National Constituent Assembly was able to complete the work. The National Assembly, elected in 1947, finally enacted the Constitution in 1948.

With the establishment of the Academia Sinica in 1948, the highly respected Wang Chonghuibecame the first academic to be elected to this circle.

He was also elected Chairman of the Board of Soochow University (Suzhou), where he had taught in the early years and which he had long promoted.

In 1948, he was again elected President of the Judicial Court of the National Government. After the revolution in 1949, he continued to work in that position on Taiwan. When Soochow University was re-established there, he served on the Board of Governors.

Wang Chonghui's numerous merits led to a lasting legacy:

1) His translation of the German Civil Code into English and Chinese promoted the understanding of the Roman legal tradition in the area of the Anglo-Saxon cultural region, that means in Great Britain and in the USA. It was also a milestone for the development of the Civil Code of the Republic of China of 1929 to 1931 and the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China of 2021, respectively.
2) Wang's contributions to the 2nd Hague Conference from the perspective of a world disadvantaged state contributed to peace and international cooperation.
3) For the construction of China's post-revolutionary order, he made great achievements in various capacities.
Wang Chonghui's role in building the Chinese legal system is significant.
This includes his commitment to equal rights for women.
4) Without Wang's contributions to decolonization, many states would have relinquished colonies, concession territories, and privileges much later.
5) His contributions to the retrocession of Japanese-occupied territories in China, such as at the Cairo Conference, are related to this. The fact that Inner Manchuria and Taiwan were reintegrated into the territory of the Republic of China can be traced back to Wang's diplomatic groundwork.
6) The fact that a jurist named Wang Chonghui helped shape the jurisprudence of the Permanent Court of International Justice and was a tremendous prestige gain for China.
7) Wang's educational work as a law teacher and founder of educational institutions continues to this day. Lawyers on both sides of the Taiwan Straits still benefit from it today.
8) As a mediator in the intra-party dispute between Hu Hanmin and Jiang Jieshi, Wang was able to keep the ruling Guomindang party capable of acting when it came to unifying the country and establishing a central authority.
9) This also applies to his role as a prudent mediator in the conflict between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party during Jiang Jieshi's abduction. Here, too, bloodshed was avoided (at least for the period between 1937 and 1949) and central power was preserved. This strengthened China's resistance to the Japanese wartime adversary.
10) In the legal processing and prosecution of war crimes, Wang Chonghui provided guidelines based on internationally recognized standards that allowed for fair trials.
11) The overall view of life's achievements shows Wang Chonghui' s pursuit of humanism in law and politics.

Today, Wang Chonghui is highly regarded by historians in both parts of China. But in the perception of the public, the accurate idea of his historical greatness is still underdeveloped.