Tingfu F. Tsiang

Tingfu F. Tsiang began as a historian of China’s foreign relations. Educated at Oberlin and Columbia, he worked with Chinese laborers in France during the First World War before completing a doctorate on British labor and imperialism. At Nankai and Tsinghua he trained historians, collected diplomatic records, and argued that Chinese sources should have a larger place in accounts of China’s encounters with foreign powers. ¹

Tsiang moved into diplomacy as ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1936. As the Republic of China’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 1947, he defended its claim to represent China after the Communist victory on the mainland. He became ambassador in Washington in 1961, presented credentials in January 1962, and served until 1965. His published collections of diplomatic documents and outline of modern Chinese history continued the scholarly work with which he had begun his career. ¹