Yan Huiqing


Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶 was a Chinese politician who served as Premier and later President of the Republic of China in the 1920s. He was also an accomplished linguist.

Biography

A native of Shanghai and a graduate of the University of Virginia, he taught English at St. John's University, Shanghai for a short time after coming back from the United States, where he became a Freemason, and then went to Beijing to start his political career. In 1906, he became an editor at the Commercial Press, received a D.Litt. from the Peiyang University, and was appointed to the Imperial Ministry of Education.
He served as Foreign Minister, premier five times and as acting president during his last premiership in 1926. Wu Peifu handpicked him for the acting presidency to pave the way for Cao Kun's restoration, and he set up a cabinet in anticipation, but he was unable to take office due to Zhang Zuolin's objection. When Yan finally took his post, he immediately resigned and appointed navy minister Du Xigui as his successor.
A veteran diplomat, he was China's first ambassador to the Soviet Union, and a delegate to the Washington Naval Conference and the League of Nations; he also served as a diplomat to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and, finally, the United States, where he denounced the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. During World War II, he translated and compiled Stories of Old China in Hong Kong while under Japanese house-arrest in 1942. He took his first plane trip in 1949 to Moscow in hopes of resolving the Chinese Civil War.
He died in May 1950, survived by his widow and six children.