Acknowledgments
The idea for this book can be traced back to 2008, when I first visited the Chinese city of Chongqing in search of vestiges of family history. My paternal grandfather and great-uncle had been diplomats of Nationalist China and during World War II had both served stints at the Foreign Ministry in China’s wartime capital Chongqing prior to and after their overseas postings in the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Dutch West Indies (Curaçao). As I tried to piece together the wider historical context, I found a surprising gap in the literature on Dutch-Chinese relations during these years, despite the apparent salience of this period and the wealth of available publications on their bilateral ties in earlier days. The regrettable lack of reference works on (late) modern Dutch-Chinese relations, scholarly or otherwise, inspired me to begin researching archives in China and the Netherlands and, ultimately, to write this book. Systematic work in archives in several countries, on which the core of this book is founded, began in earnest in late 2011, when the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned me to write a monograph about the history of the Dutch embassy in wartime Chongqing. The actual writing of this book began in 2015, after I completed a study on Dutch engineers in China during the 1930s. New archival finds in 2017 and 2018 further contributed to the available material.
Numerous people and institutions have offered their help throughout all the stages of research, writing, and publication. First and foremost, in an ahistorical and antichronological order of sorts, I would like to acknowledge all those that have enabled the publication of this book, financially or otherwise. Specifically, I thank the China Scholarship Council for providing a scholarship and special grants; the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (including the embassy in Beijing and the consulate general in Chongqing) and the Chinese embassy in The Hague for sponsoring several projects connected to the research for this book; the F.J.M. Bourdrez Memorial Stone Committee for funding the research for chapter 2 of the book; and the Gravin van Bylandt Foundation, the Dr. Hendrik Muller Fund, and the J.E. Jurriaanse Foundation for granting publication funds. I thank Pamela Bruton for her wonderful work in copyediting the manuscript (and for educating me along the way on consistency, precision, and other stylistic demands one would be forgiven for assuming that a lawyer-historian should be up to himself), as well as Anne Holmes for preparing the index. At Brill, I am most grateful to Albert Hoffstädt for enthusiastically embracing this project five years ago (and since); to the series editors for supporting and accepting this book; and to Patricia Radder for condoning repeated and increasingly long delays without visible signs of wavering support and for her invaluable efforts in bringing this book to fruition.
Next, I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who have enabled, aided, and enhanced my research for this book. Along with the many archival workers and librarians in various countries who helped me to access precious historical data in their respective institutions over the years, Bert van der Zwan and his team at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs were kind enough to provide several valuable internal notes and documents on Dutch-Chinese relations that so far have not been transferred to the National Archives. I am indebted to Frank Dankers for sharing with me his extensive and meticulously researched master’s thesis (1982) as well as the original notes for his unfinished PhD research, including handwritten summaries of the Jin Wensi Papers held at the Hoover Institution. The numerous references to Dankers’s thesis in this book bear testimony to the lasting value of his work. I hope one day Frank will resume his research on early 20th-century Dutch-Chinese relations and, specifically, on the Dutch diplomat Willem Oudendijk. I stand ready to return the favor.
More than 20 families of former diplomats and other persons once involved in Dutch-Chinese relations have contributed to this study by generously allowing me to consult their private family files, including unpublished memoirs, personal correspondence, reports, historical photos, and so on. Along with the interviews that these individuals (listed in the bibliography) have granted me over the past eight years, these materials helped me to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of this unique period. A special word of thanks in this regard is due to Roland van den Berg, Sinologist and former Dutch ambassador to China (1986–1992). He is a son of the Dutch diplomat Jan van den Berg, who served in China throughout virtually the entire period covered by this book. It was Jan van den Berg who in 1944 proposed changing the official Chinese rendering of “Holland” into the variant that is still in use today. Roland has shared with me not only his father’s extensive personal correspondence, agendas, and historical photos but also – at several memorable and joyful occasions in France, the Netherlands, and China – his profound knowledge of historical Dutch-Chinese relations. Moreover, as president of the Bourdrez Memorial Committee, Roland has helped me to secure not only research funding but also permission from the committee to include my findings in this book.
I am grateful to several people who have assisted me in processing and researching primary sources. Zhou Changwen 周昌文, formerly at Southwest University and subsequently at Fudan University, helped me to access sources in mainland Chinese public archives and libraries; Rita Wang, at Stanford, helped me to photocopy and summarize archival records preserved at the Hoover Institution; and Sabrina Hsu 许诺, at Leiden University, assisted me in retrieving and processing historical records held in Taiwan depositories and in compiling the elaborate reference matter in the appendices of this book. I am most indebted to Darren Jiang 蒋世松, my former student at the Law School of Chongqing University and currently a doctoral candidate at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Darren has been a formidable help and close companion in this project from the very beginning until the very end. Without his tireless liaison work, critical assistance during the fieldwork, enhancement of Chinese communications and presentations (guarding me against many blunders), this book might not have materialized. I thank my good friend for his help and wish him good luck in his future academic career.
Moving on, I wish to thank the people who have read and commented on previous versions of the manuscript and offered expert advice. I am most grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. Special thanks are also due to Professor Wu Jingping 吴景平 from Fudan University, Professor Zhang Jin 张瑾 from Chongqing University, and Professors Huang Xianquan 黄贤全, Pan Xun 潘洵, and Liu Zhiying 刘志英 from Southwest University for their constructive criticisms. Others who have read parts of the manuscript or otherwise contributed to it include Professor Emeritus Leonard Blussé, an undisputed leader in the study of historical Dutch-Chinese ties; Judge Xue Hanqin 薛捍勤, vice president at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and former Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands (2003–2008); Frans Paul van der Putten, historian and expert on modern and contemporary Chinese diplomacy at the Netherlands Institute for International Relations Clingendael; Anne van der Veer, PhD candidate at Leiden University; Guido Tielman and Rob Schipper, Sinologists and diplomats who successively headed the Dutch consulate general at Chongqing; and Roland van den Berg, aforementioned, who at the age of 86 twice read an earlier version of the manuscript – already counting over 400 pages by then – to ensure his feedback would be merited and sound, which it was. I am grateful to each of them.
I thank my former teachers and present colleagues both at Southwest University and at Leiden University for their continuous encouragement and support. A special expression of appreciation and gratitude is due to Professor Zhou Yong 周勇 of Southwest University, founder and director of the Chongqing Dahoufang Research Center on the Unoccupied Areas during the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan (Chongqing Zhongguo Kangzhan Dahoufang Lishi Wenhua Yanjiu Zhongxin 重庆中国抗战大后方历史文化研究中心) and longtime president of the Chongqing Local History Association. My first meeting with him, on Boxing Day in 2011, in retrospect was a turning point in my life, as it sowed the seeds for a shift from a previous career in law and professional consultancy to one in academia. It was Professor Zhou Yong who inducted me into the world of Chinese historiography and who encouraged me to make Southwest University in China’s former wartime capital my research base. As my PhD adviser and subsequently as my senior colleague, he offered me his complete trust and support. I will continue to deeply cherish the unique teacher-student friendship (yi shi yi you 亦师亦友) that developed and the kind concern that he and his wife, Guo Jinhang 郭金杭 – my shimu 师母 – have consistently shown for me.
This leads me finally to my family. I thank my aunt Di-Ming Chang 张棣鸣 for traveling with me to China on various occasions and helping me to retrace various family archives and artifacts, including a Chinese calligraphy scroll dedicated by Robert van Gulik to my great-uncle in 1944 in Chongqing. I am grateful to my mother, Hilda Chang-Uhrin, for first pointing me to China back in 2003 when I was still happily working at my law firm in Amsterdam. Little could she have known that her gentle hint would result in the present book. I recall with affection the surprised but delighted look on the face of my late father, Dr. Tien-Ming Chang 张天鸣, when I confided to him my plan to pursue a doctoral degree in his birthplace, Chongqing (thus closing a circle, as my father had obtained his doctorate in my hometown, Leiden). Up until the last days of his life, he staunchly supported my work by reading, correcting, and commenting on rough chapters of the manuscript. I also happily recall my first discovery trip to Taiwan with my brother Felix in 2011 during the embryonic stage of this project and feasting on street vendors’ fried dumplings in between successive archival visits there. Above all, I thank my lovely wife, Christine, for her support and understanding throughout all these years and for condoning my frequent and long stays away from home, despite her busy job as a physician and the unrelenting duties of care for our two little boys. My appreciation for her cannot be fully expressed in words.
Rome was not built in a day, and there are multiple roads that lead to it. Similarly, multiple paths and ambitions have converged over the past years to produce the present work. While it is up to others to judge whether this book has achieved its principal goal of filling a long-standing void in academic scholarship and adequately capturing a near-forgotten but pivotal chapter of historical Dutch-Chinese relations, the least I can state here is that completing this endeavor has marked an important juncture in my ongoing journey of discovery. As a study of diplomatic history, this work is dedicated to those diplomats and scholars on whose past experiences and achievements it has thankfully and admiringly drawn. As a landmark in a personal journey in search of history, I dedicate this book to family: to the memory of my grandparents and my father, whose personal histories inspired it; to my mother and my wife, who encouraged me at every single step on this path; and to my two sons, who provided new motivation.
Vincent K.L. Chang
At Chongqing, on Tomb Sweeping Day, 5 April 2019