Ku Wei-chun (1887-), known as V. K. Wellington Koo, distinguished diplomat who made significant contributions to the formation and early years of the League of Nations and the United Nations and who also represented China as ambassador to France, Great Britain, and the United States. From 1957 to 1967 he served on the International Court ofJustice at The Hague. Chiating, Kiangsu, was the birthplace of V. K. Wellington Koo. His father, a tax collector who owned property in Chiating and Soochow and a mansion in the International Settlement at Shanghai, reportedly named the boy Wellington, or Wei-chün, because of his admiration for the Duke of Wellington. After studying at Anglo-Chinese College (1899-1900) and the Yü Ts'ai School (1900-1) in Shanghai, he enrolled at St. John's University, where he completed the four-year course of study in three years and served as literary editor of the student paper The Dragon. After receiving B.A. and M.A. degrees from St. John's in 1904, W^ellington Koo went to the United States with a group of Hupeh students led by Sao-ke Alfred Sze (Shih Chao-chi, q.v.). He spent a year at the Cook Academy in Ithaca, New York and matriculated at Columbia College in 1905. He became a member of the debating team and of several student societies and served as editor of the Columbia Daily Spectator and manager of the Columbian, the yearbook. He won the Columbia Philolescean Literary Prize and the Columbia- Cornell Debating Medal. He also served as president of the Chinese Students Alliance of the Eastern States. After graduation in 1908, he became a graduate student in political science at Columbia University. He received the M.A. degree in 1909 and the Ph.D. degree in 1912, and his dissertation was published in 1912 by the Columbia University Press as The Status of Aliens in China. During this period, Koo also served for a time as editor of the Chinese Students' Monthly and the Chinese Students' Annual.

Wellington Koo returned to China in April 1912, and became secretary of the cabinet and secretary in the presidential office. Soon afterwards, he married the eldest daughter of T'ang Shao-yi (q.v.). He became secretary to the ministry of foreign affairs in August, retaining his post in the presidential office, and vice chairman of the Commission for International Claims Resulting from the Revolution. In October 1912 Wellington Koo was promoted to the post of councillor in the ministry of foreign affairs.

In July 1915, at the age of 27, Wellington Koo was appointed Chinese minister to Mexico. His assignment was changed three months later, and he became minister to the United States and Cuba. His distinguished performances as a diplomat in the United States was recognized by Yale University in 1916 when it awarded him an honorary LL.D. degree. At the end of 1918, his wife having died in an influenza epidemic, he returned to China on leave. In January 1919, he went to France as a member of the Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He played a prominent role in the delegation's handling of the Shantung question and in the decision not to sign the Treaty of Versailles because it provided for the transfer to Japan of Germany's treaty rights in Shantung. In September, Koo signed, on behalf of the Chinese government, peace treaties with Hungary and Bulgaria. During this period, W'ellington Koo also served as a delegate to the International Labor Conference, which produced the International Labor Organisation. In addition, he was elected one of five members representing "minor states" on the Paris Peace Conference's League of of Nations Commission, which developed the League Covenant, and the chief delegate from China to the first meeting of the League Assembly, which convened in November 1920. By that time, Koo had been appointed minister to the Court of St. James's. On 14 November 1920, the day before the League Assembly convened at Geneva, Wellington Koo married Oei Hui-lan. Her father, Oei Tiong Ham, an overseas Chinese whose native place was Amoy, had become the "sugar-king" ofJava. The newly wed couple's life in Geneva was a combination of diplomatic activity and glittering social events. Koo overcame formidable obstacles to have China elected a nonpermanent member of the League Council. In so doing, he developed the principle of geographical representation that subsequently became an accepted policy for international organization. He served as China's first representative on the League Council, and in September 1921, when he again represented China at the Assembly and Council meeting, he became president of the Council for the fourteenth session. In October 1921, Wellington Koo was made a member of the Chinese delegation, headed by Sao-ke Alfred Sze, to the Washington Conference. At the conference, Koo, as Sze's chief collaborator, presented China's "Ten Points" which included a definition of China, its territorial and administrative entity, and its right to participate in international conferences aflfecting its interests. The Nine-Power treaty signed in February 1922 and the settlement of the Shantung issue constituted an important diplomatic success for the Chinese delegation. After the Washington Conference ended, Wellington Koo returned to China amidst rumors that he was to replace W. W. Yen (Yen Hui-ch'ing, q.v.) as minister of foreign affairs. Although frugal by nature, he and his wife moved into the Ch'en YuanYuan, a palace which the famous Ming general W u San-kuei had built for his favorite concubine. At the urging of Oei Hui-lan, Oei Tiong Ham bought the palace for them. Koo was appointed head of a commission for the discussion of national financial questions in June and was named minister of foreign affairs in August when Wang Ch'ung-hui (q.v.) formed a new cabinet. ^V'ellington Koo's first task as foreign minister was to hold negotiations with the Sov'iet Union in an attempt to establish full diplomatic relations, settle the Chinese Eastern Railway question, and reach agreement on the political status of Outer Mongolia. On 2 September, Adolf Joffe, the new Soviet representative, proposed that the Karakhan declarations of 1919 and 1920 be used as the basis of the discussions. Koo demanded that the Red Army forces in Outer Mongolia be withdrawn before negotiations began. Joffe objected to the then current administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway in disregard of Soviet tj-eaty rights, and Koo replied that "the best solution of this problem would be the complete restoration of the railway to China." Soon after these exchanges took place, the W'ang Ch'ung-hui cabinet fell, and Koo was forced to resign as foreign minister. Joffe went to Shanghai to meet with Sun Yatsen, and Koo became chief of a commission to prepare for a special tariff conference which had been requested by China at both the Paris and the Washington conferences.

In March 1923 the Peking government gave C. T. Wang (^'ang Cheng-t'ing, q.v.) responsibility for handling Sino-Soviet relations. After Huang Fu (q.v.) resigned in early April, Wellington Koo became acting foreign minister in Kao Ling-wei's cabinet. Ts'ao K'un (q.v.) and his supporters forced Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) to abdicate the presidency in June so that Ts'ao could assume office. Koo retained his post and worked to negotiate a settlement of the so-called Lincheng Incident, during which a number of Westerners had been kidnapped by train robbers in Shantung. After weeks of patient negotiation resulting in a compromise settlement of the issue, Koo turned his attention to negotiations with Soviet envoy Leo M. Karakhan. He soon assigned direct responsibility for these negotiations to C. T. Wang.

Beginning in January 1924, Wellington Koo served as minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Sun Pao-ch'i (q.v.). In March, C. T. Wang signed an agreement with Karakhan which provided for the immediate establishment of diplomatic relations but which contained no provisions for the cancellation of Soviet-Mongol treaties or the withdrawal of Red Army forces from Outer Mongolia. The cabinet refused to ratify the agreement, and Koo repudiated Wang's signature and dismissed him from office. On 31 May, however, Koo signed a similar agreement under strong Soviet pressure. He became acting premier in July, after Sun Pao-ch'i resigned, but he was forced to resign in October, when Feng Yü-hsiang (q.v.) staged a coup at Peking. Koo helped Ts'ao K'un and i WUlfV his family to escape to a foreign concession in Tientsin, surrendered his seal of office to C. T. W'ang, and retreated to Weihaiwei. His wife remained in Peking at the foreign-run Hotel de Pekin. Later, on the advice of Chang Tso-lin and Chang Hsueh-liang (qq.v.), she went to a foreign concession in Tientsin, where Koo joined her. In their absence. Sun Yat-sen died in their Peking palace in March 1925. After a year of political inactivity, during which he served as a trustee of the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture, AVellington Koo returned to Peking in May 1926 to become minister of finance in the cabinet of W. W Yen. Chang Tso-lin, who had driven Feng Yü-hsiang's forces from Peking, opposed the appointment of Yen and forced the cabinet to flee Peking. A new cabinet was formed by Tu Hsi-k'uei in late June. Koo served as minister of finance until October, when he became acting premier and minister of foreign affairs. He attempted to resign three times in the next two months, but Chang Tsolin refused his requests. After assuming the post of commander in chief of the Ankuochün [national pacification army] and moving to Peking in December 1926, Chang confirmed the appointments of Koo and his colleagues in the cabinet in January 1927. Chang's raid on the Soviet embassy in April created new problems for Koo, who resigned in June and retired to a villa in the Western Hills.

As the Northern Expedition forces approached Peking in June 1928, Chang Tso-lin and his entourage left the ancient capital. Wellington Koo went to Peking and accompanied his friend as far as Tientsin. The special train continued on to Manchuria only to be blown up near Mukden by the Japanese. Chang Tsolin died in the explosion. Soon afterwards, the Nationalists at Peking issued an order for the arrest of Wellington Koo as a prominent supporter of Chang Tso-lin's regime. After taking refuge in Weihaiwei, Koo went to France and then went on a fishing trip in Canada. Wellington Koo returned to China in 1929 and went to Mukden, where he was associated with Chang Hsueh-liang. After Chang caused the collapse of the northern coalition of Feng Yü-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan (q.v.) that threatened Chiang Kai-shek's National Government in 1930, he prevailed on Chiang to rescind the order for Koo's arrest and to restore his property to him. Koo remained in Mukden, where he constantly warned Chang Hsuehliang that his foreign policy was aiding the Japanese and urged Chang to change it. Chang, however, did not heed Koo's counsel. In 1931 Koo became chairman of the reform commission for Manchuria and a member of the foreign affairs commission of the Kuomintang Central Political Council.

The occupation of Manchuria by the Japanese, beginning with the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, resulted in Wellington Koo's return to national politics and international diplomacy. C. T. Wang resigned as minister of foreign affairs ; Sao-ke Alfred Sze refused the post; and Koo became officiating minister of foreign affairs in December. At the end of the year, Chiang Kai-shek was forced into temporary retirement, and Koo was replaced by Eugene Ch'en (q.v.). After serving as chairman of the commission for the recovery of the lost territory of the Northeast, Koo was attached to the Lytton Commission, which had been sent to Manchuria by the League of Nations to investigate the Sino-Japanese dispute, as China's assessor. He filled that role from February to August 1932, despite personal danger, and presented a lengthy memorandum on Japanese aggression to the commission. He was appointed minister to France that summer and China's delegate to the League of Nations in October. He sailed from Shanghai with the members of the Lytton Commission and went to Geneva, where he cogently argued China's case before the League Assembly. Both China and Japan rejected the Lytton Commission's recomendations, and Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in March 1933.

In March 1933 Wellington Koo served as the Chinese delegate to the Conference on Reduction and Limitation of Armaments at Geneva; in May he was the Chinese delegate to the World Monetary and Economic Conference at London; and in July he helped T. V. Soong (q.v.), the minister of finance, obtain technical cooperation from the League of Nations in such fields as public health in China. He served as China's representative on the League Council until mid- 1934 and as a delegate to the League Assembly. In January 1934 he was appointed an assessor on the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In 1935-36 he was China's chief delegate to the League Assembly. These and other assignments left him little time for his duties as minister to France.

Upon returning to Paris in April 1936 after spending several months in China on home leave, Wellington Koo was raised to the rank of ambassador to France. After the Sino-Japanese war began, he served once again as China's chief delegate to the League of Nations and presided over the ninety-sixth session of the League Council. In November 1937 he attended the Brussels Conference of the Washington Treaty powers, convened to consider the Sino- Japanese conflict, as China's chief representative. He continued to work on China's behalf at the League of Nations sessions of 1938 and 1939, but with little success. His ambassadorial duties presented many problems, especially when, under Japanese pressure, the French authorities refused his requests concerning the free transportation of arms on the Indo-China- Yunnan railway. He negotiated and signed a treaty of friendship with Liberia in December 1937, and he presented China's claim to the Paracel Islands when French forces occupied them in mid- 1938. The following year, he took time off from his duties in France to serve as China's envoy to the coronation of Pope Pius XII.

The Koos were in Paris when the Second World War began. They soon moved to Bordeaux and then to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Koo represented China at the eight-hundredth anniversary of the founding o^"Pprtugal in 1940. By the time he returned to Sa!ht-Jean-de-Luz, it was under Nazi occupation. He spent a short time at Vichy before going to London to replace Quo Tai-chi (Kuo T'ai-ch'i, q.v.), who had been named minister of foreign affairs, as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Because he feared for his wife's safety, he sent her to the United States. Koo helped effect and signed a Sino-British agreement regarding Chinese seamen in 1942; he was prominent in the negotiations which led to the exchange of parliamentary missions at the end of 1942 and in late 1943, the relinquishment of British extraterritorial rights in China in 1943, and the Sino-British Lend- Lease Agreements of May 1944. He was the chief Chinese delegate to the second phase of the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations, held from 29 September to 7 October 1944.

In March 1945 Wellington Koo was named to the Chinese delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco. He represented China at the signing ceremony, held at the Veterans War Memorial Building in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, at which China was accorded the honor of being the first nation to sign the Charter of the United Nations. Subsequently, he served as the chief Chinese delegate to the United Nations Preparatory Commission.

Wellington Koo was transferred to Washington as Chinese ambassador to the United States in May 1946. He made strenuous efforts to secure American aid for the Nationalists during the civil war with the Chinese Communists. In addition to his ambassadorial duties, he served as chairman (1946) and then acting chairman (1947) of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations. In 1948 he played a prominent role in submitting the National Government's request for US S3 billion in American aid to be supplied over a three-year period. He also participated in the Nationalist effort of January 1949 to achieve a peace settlement with the Communists through American mediation, but this effort was completely unsuccessful. After the Communists won control of the mainland and the National Government moved to Taiwan, he continued his efforts to obtain American economic and military aid for the Nationalists. In 1954, after a trip to Taiwan for consultation with National Government officials, he accompanied George K. C. Yeh (Yeh Kung-ch'ao, q.v.), the minister of foreign affairs, to Washington and helped negotiate a Sino-American defense pact, which was signed on 2 December. In March 1956, after Koo had made another brief trip to Taipei, the National Government in Taiwan announced his resignation from the ambassadorship. Two months later, he was named senior adviser, residing in the United States, to Chiang Kai-shek.

In January 1957 Wellington Koo was elected to complete the term of Hsü Mo (q.v.), who had died on 28 June 1956, on the International Court of Justice. He assumed office at The Hague in mid-May, and he was reelected for a full ten-year term in October. He served as vice president of the court from 1964 until 1967. When his term expired on 5 February 1967, he returned to the United States to live in New York.

Wellington Koo and Oei Hui-Ian were divorced after the Second World War, and Koo "^?r- later married the widow of Clarence Kuangson Young. He had four children, two by his marriage to the daughter of T'ang Shao-yi and two, Wellington and Freeman, by his marriage to Oei Hui-Ian.

In addition to 77?^ Status of Aliens in China and the Lytton Commission memorandum, Wellington Koo wrote a number of articles during his long diplomatic career. An analysis by Wunsz King of some aspects of Koo's pre- 1931 career, V. K. Wellington Koo's Foreign Policy, was published in Shanghai in 1931. In October 1963 Koo presented his collection of diplomatic papers to Columbia University, including files of correspondence, telegrams, speeches, records of conversations with many world leaders and 35 dual-language diaries. He stipulated that the collection not be made available for use until his death and that copies of certain documents be deposited in the archives of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. In announcing the receipt of the collection Grayson Kirk, the president of Columbia University, said that it "provides an accurate and detailed account of a career filled with significant assignments, executed in a truly effective and distinguished manner." V. K. Wellington Koo's accomplishments in the field of international diplomacy won him many honors, including honorary degrees from such universities as Columbia, St. John's, Aberdeen, Birmingham, and Manchester. He made significant contributions to the formation and early years of the League of Nations and the United Nations, and he helped strengthen the international position of China, a particularly notable accomplishment in the pre- Nationalist era, when the power of the Peking government fluctuated greatly. He was known for his brilliance as a public speaker, and, although his methods and actions were criticized from time to time, even his enemies recognized that he was, above all, a patriot whose loyalty to China was unshakable.