在华五十年

by John Leighton Stuart

这是美国外交家、教育家司徒雷登先生唯 一的回忆录，记录了他在中国的经历，反思与总结，以及他对自己理想的不懈追求。从书中可以了解到作者对事业的选择、在中国的使命、燕京大学的创建历程、二战期间被日军软禁的岁月以及二战后担任美国驻华大使所参与的对华事务等。阅读本书，我们不仅能够更全面地认识司徒雷登，还能了解到中国近代社会发展过程中一些鲜为人知的历史。

Genres: China

237 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Meihan Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written at the height of McCarthy era, many contents in this memoir contradict with the actual archives later declassified to an almost intolerable level. But still, Stuart was a key figure in the US-China dynamics in the last year of the Chinese Civil War.

I genuinely feel sorry for Ambassador Leighton Stuart. Born in China, spending fifty years the majority of his life there, and being the founder of the Yenching University, his contribution to China's higher education in the 20th century should not be ignored. As a US ambassador, his appointment was heralded by TIME and Chinese intelligentsia, and political figures from both KMT and CCP alike (almost half of the CCP leaders who received higher education were Yenching graduates, 'cause Yenching was the only higher education institution in China during the 30s and 40s that Marxism is allowed to be taught) in 1946.

Sharply contradicted to his self-description in this memoir that he was overwhelmed by the doomed situation in China and could not do anything to alter the situation, Leighton Stuart was bold enough to go beyond his authorization several times to reach out to the communist leaders to achieve a rapprochement.

In late 1948, while preparing for the evacuation of Americans in Southern China which might be influenced by the ravaging Civil War, he secretly instructed the US Consulate in Hong Kong to contact the CCP representatives there to express the US willingness to establish some kind of relations. The US Embassy (as well as many American property such as Chinling Women's College )'s remaining in Nanking during the takeover (while the Soviet Embassy followed the fleeing KMT government to Canton in February, which would remain a reason for Chinese grudge in the years to come. According to the telegram sent from Stalin to Mao via Mikoyan, it was for espionage purpose, but I genuinely doubt that) was another proof of Stuart's courage and pragmatism.

The matter of an official recognition was never off the table, and through the first half of 1949, Stuart tried many channels to deliver messages and make several promises (could not confirmed by any available official documents, and according to Stuart's secretary Phillip Fu, Stuart believed that once the breakthrough is achieved, he could talk the State Department into fulfilling these promises) to the central leadership of the CCP that as long as the New China does not hold the banner of world revolution and abide by international law, the United States would not grant its official recognition, but would provide assistance in retrieving all the assets the KMT regime took from Chinese people to Taiwan, but annual aid that amount to the sum of five years' annual US aid to India to China. A very staggering amount of money. He also asked the remained Embassy staff to conduct several researches on Sino-American economic relations and a comparative examination of Sino-American and Sino-Soviet treaties and sent the reports to Peiping (rebuffed by Zhou Enlai, but coincided with the Zhou Demarche, very strange).

Before he left China, he refused to stop by Canton as instructed to "boost the morale" of the KMT forces. His departure from China coincided with the releasing of the China White Paper by Dean Acheson (which basically put the blame of the loss of China on Chiang Kia-shek entirely) and Mao's sarcastic editorial "Farewell, Leighton Stuart." His name later become the synonym of American Imperialism in China for more three decades, and he died in the US in a quite miserable situation in 1964. His will to be buried in the campus of Yenching was never fulfilled, but his ashes was relocated to a cemetery in Hangzhou (where he was born) in 2008.

Many thanks to Professor H for giving the 33-page paper inspired by Leighton Stuart an A as I still believe it really sucks. That's the reason I didn't mark all those books as read late last year 'cause I was genuinely expecting a B- or something.

[Honghua Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that you want to read a second time👍👍

[Rain Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

很惊讶这本书在中国还能出版.

司徒雷登作为一个传教士出身, 投身教育事业的半路出家政坛的人用平实的语言表述了美国的立场. "如果中国能够发展成为一个强大, 团结, 进步的国家, 政府能受到人们的支持, 对美国友好, 在太平洋地区起到稳定作用, 这对美国来说是很重要的. ”

司徒先生能在西子湖畔得以安息, 幸甚何哉.