U.S. - China Issues

07 March 2008

The United States and Nanjing: Friends for Almost 200 Years

Literature, history, education, architecture and business bond two peoples

By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington -- Nanjing, one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, is a city featuring a balanced blend of traditional and modern architecture, some of which was designed by Americans, with a powerful sense of imperial and republican history, culture and arts, and searing wartime tragedy.  It is also the place where China and America were introduced formally.

Americans had known of the Chinese long before 1844, when the two countries began formal diplomatic recognition, but it was in Nanjing where the two peoples became well-acquainted with each other, their politics, their economies, and their culture, arts and values.

U.S. diplomatic representation in China began in 1844 with Caleb Cushing, the first U.S. commissioner, who is credited with negotiating the Treaty of Wanghia.  The Wanghia Treaty, the first between the two countries, marks the beginning of official ties that remained unbroken until 1949.  In 1949, official relations were severed following the communist revolution and establishment of the People's Republic of China, but they resumed again formally in 1979, following the historic visit of President Richard Nixon to China in 1972.

Because of China's imperial system at the time of Cushing's appointment by President John Tyler, there were no means in place for emperors to accept the formal diplomatic letters of foreign ambassadors, so the envoys were regarded as "commissioners" until 1857.  From 1858 to 1935, the U.S. representative to China was designated formally by the U.S. government as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to China.  The American legation in Nanjing was upgraded to an embassy in 1935, and the envoy was promoted to ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary.

The last U.S. ambassador to reside in Nanjing, Leighton Stuart, was also an important educator who counted among his students many famous Chinese, such as Huang Hua, China's first ambassador to the United Nations.

THE ENDURING BOND OF ARCHITECTURE

Visitors to Nanjing often note an important distinction, which is is the architectural variety of its buildings and homes.  Chinese officials say that part of the city's charm is that there is a clear line of development from 1840 to 1949.  One of the city's remarkable structures is the bell tower of the Huiwen Academy on the campus of Jinling Middle School, which was built in 1888 by the United States Society of Jesus, which represents the Roman Catholic order of Jesuits.

Many of the buildings of the academy were designed by U.S. architects and are characterized by the American Colonial style.  An added influence to Chinese architecture and design began in the early 1920s, when many young Chinese architects returned to China after receiving an education in Japan, the United States and Europe.  In turn, they founded their own architectural schools at Chinese universities, and they formed the Chinese Architects' Society in 1927.

The most significant influence on modern architecture in Nanjing came with the formulation of the "Capital Plan" in 1929, when American architect Henry Murphy, the chief designer, and his student assistant Lu Yanzhi developed the major avenues of downtown Nanjing.  They divided the city into six districts -- the central public affairs, municipal public affairs, industrial, commercial, educational, cultural and residential districts.

"Looking back at history from our vantage point today, we can see that the basic layout of Nanjing has not been left to us by the Southern Dynasties or the Ming Dynasty, which had the city as its capital, but by the Republic of China," Liu Xianjue told the Associated Press in 2004.

According to the Capital Plan, the buildings were designed in the Chinese Palatial style with modern structural features.

SISTER CITIES

Nanjing broke important new ground with the United States when it became a sister city with St. Louis, Missouri.  Sister Cities are not a new concept to the United States, but the linkage with Nanjing proved to be historic.  In 1979 -- the year that official diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries -- St. Louis linked with Nanjing to become the first American sister city in the People's Republic of China.

Sister Cities International sponsors the program that pairs communities throughout the world to enhance understanding and to create cultural, educational and business exchanges.  Nanjing is also paired with Houston, Texas.

LITERATURE OPENS AVENUES OF UNDERSTANDING

Nanjing and rural areas in Jiangsu became familiar to many Americans through the writings of American Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck, who was raised in Zhenjiang, to missionary parents from West Virginia.  Her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in 1931, The Good Earth, depicted early 20th-century life in the Chinese countryside and became standard reading material for many generations of young American students.  For decades, it served as a compassionate introduction to China and its people.

Buck lived in Nanjing from 1920 to 1933 and taught English and literature at Nanjing University.  She said the purpose of her work was to teach the Western world about Asia and especially about China.  She said of her strong Chinese and American upbringing that it made her "mentally bifocal," able to see two quite unique cultures and understand and love both.

The American writer Iris Chang, the granddaughter of immigrants who fled China in 1937, has done much to improve the understanding of one of the greatest wartime tragedies in her best-known book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.  Chang wanted to create a full account of that event, which was also a personal tragedy for her family.

EDUCATIONAL OUTPOSTS

In 1986, Nanjing University entered into a joint arrangement with the Maryland-based Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to create the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies.  The presidents of both universities founded the center for advanced study with a simple, common vision that one day both the U.S. secretary of state and the Chinese foreign minister would be graduates of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

U.S. educational roots in Nanjing are proliferating.  For example, in October 2007 the New York Institute of Technology, a private university, opened a Nanjing campus in collaboration with the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications.  On February 29, 2008, Consul General Kenneth Jarrett witnessed the signing of an agreement to create a new Nanjing International University (NIU).  The University of Arizona is one of the founding partners, together with the Jiangsu Provincial Education Department, Nanjing Normal University and the Nanjing American University Foundation, based in Arizona.  NIU will have an American-style university campus when it is opened.

Another recent sign of broadening ties between America and Nanjing is the arrival of one of America's best-known companies -- the Ford Motor Co. -- which inaugurated new auto and engine manufacturing facilities with partner Changan Motor Company in 2007.

As America and Nanjing approach the start of a third century of interaction, the relationship continues to broaden and deepen.  They study together, teach together, build together and contribute to each other's cultural and artistic development.  In the process, they are deepening their friendship and playing a vital role in the expanding, positive overall relationship between America and China.