China salutes WWII American general Joe Stilwell in personal push to improve US ties


Thu, August 10, 2023 

China has rolled out the red carpet for the descendants of a second world war American general, commemorating the late officer as Beijing turns to informal personal contacts to improve ties between the two countries.

Yuan Jiajun, the Communist Party chief of Chongqing, met members of the family of Joseph Stilwell in the southwestern city on Wednesday.

The group included Susan Cole and Nancy Millward, the great-granddaughters of the general who was based in the city during the war and worked closely with Chinese leaders against Japanese forces.

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"[We] hope to take this visit as an opportunity ... to better promote people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States and contribute to the development of China-US relations," Chongqing Daily quoted Yuan as saying.

Members of the family have visited China before but previous commemorations have not attracted such attention.

Yuan is one of the 24 members of the Politburo, the party's inner circle, and his presence this time for the 140th anniversary of Stilwell's birth highlights Beijing's focus on informal contact with the United States.

Despite some resumption of senior-level official communication, relations with Washington remain in the doldrums and Beijing has opted to host a series of prominent American public figures to try to promote ties.

In June, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his "American friend" billionaire Bill Gates that people were the foundation of relations.

"We count on the American people, and hope for lasting friendship between the two peoples," Xi told the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, just days before meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In July, Xi met former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, telling the centenarian that "we never forget our old friends".

Xi said he hoped that Kissinger and "other people of foresight" in the US could continue to play a constructive role in restoring relations between the two countries.

That theme continued on Wednesday when Yuan referred to Stilwell as "an old and good friend of the Chinese people".

"We will always remember his name," he said.

Stilwell's efforts were a key chapter in the history of US-China collaboration and he is the only high-ranking US military figure who has a museum dedicated to his memory in China.

As part of this week's events commemorating his 140th birthday, Cole and Millward planted a friendship tree at the museum in Chongqing on Tuesday together with Liu Ning and Liu Yinna, the great-grandson and great-granddaughter of Zhu De, the founder of the Chinese Red Army, which later became the People's Liberation Army.

When Stilwell died in 1946, Zhu said that not only had the US lost a great general but the Chinese people had lost a great friend.

The commemorative events also included a seminar on Tuesday, attended by more than 150 people, including representatives from the Chinese foreign ministry and the US embassy in Beijing.

China has previously saluted the legacy of the Chinese-American wartime friendship to foster relations.

In April last year, Qin Gang, then China's envoy to Washington, attended the 80th anniversary of the Flying Tigers, a group of American pilots who fought for China against Japanese forces during the second world war.

Qin addressed the event while wearing a Flying Tigers jacket sent by two US veterans.

During a trip to Chongqing in May, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns visited the Stilwell museum and one dedicated to the Flying Tigers.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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