Lu Cheng-hsiang (1871-15 January 1949), diplomat and cleric, entered the Chinese foreign service in 1 892 as an interpreter assigned to the legation at St. Petersburg. He became minister to the Netherlands in 1908 and minister to Russia in 1911. After the republic was established, he served the Peking government at various times as minister of foreign affairs, premier, and minister to Switzerland. Following the death of his wife in 1926, he left Switzerland and went to Belgium, where he became a Benedictine monk.

Shanghai was the birthplace of Lu Chenghsiang. His father, Lu Ch'eng-an, who was an assistant in the London Missionary Society, raised him as a Protestant. His mother, nee Wu Chen-chih, was striken with dropsy soon after her son's birth; she died in 1878. Lu was a sickly child, and he did not begin to receive a traditional education in the Chinese classics until he was 1 1 sui. Two years later, his father secured a place for him in the Kuang-fang Language School, which was associated with the Kiangnan Arsenal. Lu then began to study French language and literature under the direction of Alphonse Bottu. In 1888, at the age of 17, he was forced to withdraw from school for a year by ill health. After returning to school and completing his studies, he went to Peking and enrolled at the T'ung Wen Kuan, the language institute of the Tsungli Yamen, where he pursued French studies under Charles Vapereau and learned the elements of diplomacy and foreign relations.

In 1892, having been graduated from the T'ung Wen Kuan, Lu Cheng-hsiang was assigned by the Tsungli Yamen to St. Petersburg, where the Chinese minister to Russia, Germany, and Austria, Hsü Ching-ch'eng (ECCP, I, 312-13), had urgently requested an interpreter. In July 1893 Lu received a formal appointment as an interpreter, fourth grade. Hsü Ching-ch'eng took an interest in his new staff member and helped him prepare to become a career diplomat. Lu began to study Russian and English in his spare time, and, under Hsü's direction, he studied European diplomatic history of the nineteenth century. According to Lu's later account, Hsü Ching-ch'eng was "anguished by the corruption and decay of the Manchu government" and earnestly bade Lu to become "Europeanized" in his vocation: "Do not be afraid to become over-Europeanized, only be afraid that what is quintessential in Europe is not grasped." Lu became Hsü's protege, and his colleagues began to refer to him as "Hsü Junior." In March 1895 Lu Cheng-hsiang gained the rank of interpreter, third grade; later that year, he also became secretary of legation, in which capacity he served as charge d'affaires during Hsü Ching-ch'eng's temporary absence from Russia. When Li Hung-chang (ECCP, I, 464-71) was appointed envoy extraordinary to the coronation of Nicholas II in the spring of 1896, Lu served as his interpreter and participated in Sino-Russian negotiations which led to the signing of a secret treaty of alliance in June. Lu then acted as Hsü Ching-ch'eng's interpreter in the negotiations which led to agreement on arrangements for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railwav across Manchuria.

After Hsü Ching-ch'eng was succeeded as minister to Russia by Yang Ju late in 1896, Lu Cheng-hsiang served as Yang's interpreter at the negotiations that resulted in the lease of Port Arthur and Dairen in 1898 and accompanied Yang to the First Hague Conference in 1899. On 12 February 1899 Lu married Berthe Bovy, the daughter of a Belgian general and a relative of the Belgian minister at St. Petersburg. Lu's superiors frowned upon the marriage because his wife was both a Catholic and a foreigner, but his career suffered no apparent ill effects. In 1900 he again served temporarily as charge d'affaires at St. Petersburg and participated in negotiations concerning the evacuation of Russian troops sent into Manchuria during the Boxer Uprising. When his father died on 26 January 1901, Lu Cheng-hsiang requested home leave, but he was given a minor promotion instead. After Wu Wei-te succeeded Yang Ju as Chinese minister to Russia in 1902, Lu was made counselor of legation, third grade. About this time, he cut off his queue, the traditional symbol of loyalty to the Manchus. He was granted home leave late in 1903, but was recalled to St. Petersburg when the Russo- Japanese conflict broke out in 1904. After serving a third time as charge d'affaires in 1905, he was appointed Chinese minister to the Netherlands in 1906. Tsar Nicholas H granted him a special audience and awarded him a medal in recognition of his 14 years of service at St. Petersburg.

Lu Cheng-hsiang's first diplomatic task at The Hague was to negotiate an agreement for the establishing of Chinese consular offices in Dutch colonies, but he had no success. From June to October 1907 he represented China at the Second Hague Conference. He then went to Egypt for a vacation and remained there for several months. He returned to The Hague and resumed negotiations for a consular convention, but he was unable to make any progress. In 1908, on his recommendation, he was recalled to Peking as a protest. In Peking, Lu Cheng-hsiang became acquainted with Yuan Shih-k'ai, then head of the Board of Foreign Affairs. Yuan strongly recommended that Lu be reappointed minister to the Netherlands, citing Lu's eloquent presentation of China's case at the Second Hague Conference. Lu's appointment was renewed in 1908, and he again attempted to negotiate a consular convention, this time with Beelaerts van Blokland, the Dutch minister at Peking. A Sino-Dutch consular convention finally was signed at Peking on 28 July 1911. Lu then went to The Hague and exchanged ratifications with" the Dutch authorities. He then was ordered to St. Petersburg to negotiate a revision of the Sino-Rüssian treaty of 1881. Soon afterwards, he was appointed Chinese minister to Russia. On 23 October 1911 he joined the Roman Catholic Church.

When it became clear that the republican revolution in China would succeed, Lu Chenghsiang and other Chinese diplomats stationed abroad issued a joint telegram, received at Peking on 3 January 1912, urging the abdication of the Hsuan-t'ung emperor, P'u-yi (q.v.). On 13 February, the day after the abdication, Lu cabled his congratulations to Yuan Shih-k'ai and placed himself at the disposal of the republican government. In March, Lu was appointed minister of foreign affairs. Lu Cheng-hsiang arrrived at Peking in May 1912 to assume office. He immediately began to transform the unwieldy foreign affairs structure into a modern ministry. He dismissed many beneficiaries of past nepotism, including one of Yuan Shih-k'ai's nephews, and caused the revision of a prior presidential mandate establishing an organic law for the ministry so that he could create a national foreign service based on merit alone. After T'ang Shao-yi (q.v.) resigned the premiership, Lu succeeded him on 29 June. He endeavored to form a nonpartisan cabinet, but he encountered considerable opposition from the Parliament, then controlled by members of the T'ung-meng-hui. On 29 July, three days after the Parliament finally had approved the new slate of ministers, T'ung-meng-hui members introduced a bill impeaching Lu Cheng-hsiang for the delay and for alleged subservience to Yuan Shih-k'ai. The bill was not passed, but on 19 August Lu went on sick leave. On 18 September, he resigned as foreign minister in favor of Liang Ju-hao, and on 21 September, he resigned as premier.

Liang Ju-hao, faced with a Sino-Russian crisis centered on Outer Mongolia, resigned as minister of foreign affairs on 13 November 1912, and Lu Cheng-hsiang was reappointed to that office. Russia had signed an agreement with Lu Cheng-hsiang Outer Mongolia and had recognized its autonomy. Lu began negotiations, and on 20 May 1913 a Sino-Russian agreement was signed which included recognition of Outer Mongolia as an integral part of China. Lu continued to serve as foreign minister after Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.) assumed the premiership in July 1913, but he suffered a new disappointment when the Senate, on 24 July, refused to ratify the Sino-Russian agreement. He resigned from office in September and accepted a sinecure post as adviser on foreign affairs in the presidential office. When Yuan Shih-k'ai, who had been serving as provisional president, formally assumed the presidency in October 1913, Lu acted as master of ceremonies at the inauguration. Soon afterwards, a new foreign minister. Sun Pao-ch'i (q.v.) negotiated a new agreement with Russia. In this agreement, signed on 5 November 1913, Russia recognized China's suzerainty over Outer Mongolia, and China recognized Outer Mongolia's autonomy. In May 1914 Lu Cheng-hsiang became a member of the state council at Peking. Soon afterwards, he went to Switzerland. He returned to Peking in January 1915, just at the time when Japan presented Yuan Shih-k'ai's government with the Twenty-one Demands. Sun Paoch'i resigned, and Lu resumed office as foreign minister, this time in the cabinet of Hsü Shihch'ang (q.v.). Although Yuan Shih-k'ai and Ts'ao Ju-lin (q.v.), the vice minister of foreign affairs, conducted the ensuing negotiations with the Japanese, Lu was required to sign the final agreement on 25 May 1915. He protested to Yuan Shih-k'ai that the signing was "tantamount to signing my own death sentence" with respect to his place in Chinese diplomatic history. June 1915 was marked by the signing of the tripartite—China, Russia, and Outer Mongolia—Treaty of Kiakhta (for details, see Ch'en Lu) and by the launching of Yuan Shih-k'ai's campaign to become monarch. After Hsü Shih-ch'ang retired to Hunan, Lu Chenghsiang succeeded him as Kuo-wu-ch'ing [secretary of state], a new office that was equivalent to the premiership. Although Lu later stated that he had not supported Yuan's ambitions, in 1915 he countersigned the letters of patent endowing titles of nobility that Yuan issued to various Chinese dignitaries. When Yuan abandoned his monarchical plans in March 1916, Hsü Shih-ch'ang resumed office as Kuowu-ch'ing. In May, a month before Yuan -Shih-k'ai's death, Lu resigned as minister of foreign affairs.

Early in 1917 Lu Cheng-hsiang became a member of a special foreign-affairs committee established by Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.), then the premier, to handle matters pertaining to the First World War. Lu represented Tuan in negotiations with foreign representatives at Peking in February concerning China's entry into the war on the side of the Allies. China declared war on Germany in August. After Feng Kuo-chang (q.v.) became president, with Wang Shih-chen (q.v.) as premier, Lu resumed office as minister of foreign afTairs. He continued to hold office until December 1920, despite several upheavals in the Peking government. Lu Cheng-hsiang headed the composite Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919. Because of the Shantung settlement, this delegation, which also included C. T. Wang (W'ang Cheng-t'ing, q.v.) as a Canton representative, refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This refusal greatly enhanced Lu's reputation in China, where he had been unpopular since the signing of the Twenty-one Demands in 1915. On 4 May 1919, the day that Lu presented China's formal protest regarding the Shantung settlement to the Council of Three, the May Fourth Movement (see Lo Chia-lun) began in China. On 10 September, Lu and C. T. Wang signed the Treaty of St. Germain. With the ratification of that instrument, China became a member of the League of Nations. Lu then returned to China and resumed charge of the ministry of foreign afTairs, which had been administered by Ch'en Lu in his absence.

Tuan Ch'i-jui and his supporters were toppled from power in August 1920, and W. W. Yen (Yen Hui-ch'ing, q.v.) became acting minister of foreign afTairs in the new cabinet of Chin Yün-p'eng (q.v.). In October, Lu Cheng-hsiang assumed the nominal co-chairmanship of the National Famine Relief Commission. He addressed himself to family afTairs in November and moved the coffins of his parents and his grandmother to Shihmen, on the outskirts of Peking. Then, in December, he formally resigned from office.

In May 1921 Lu was appointed chairman of the National Famine Relief Commission. By this time, his wife had become seriously ill; and in 1922, acting on her physician's advice, he took her to Switzerland and established residence at their vacation home in Locarno. The Peking government offered Lu the post of minister to France. At his request, he became minister to Switzerland instead. He also represented China at the League of Nations Assembly in October 1922 and at several sessions of the International Labor Conference in 1922-24.

As his wife's health declined, Lu Chenghsiang increasingly sought solace in religion. He was granted an audience with Pope Pius XI in 1925. His wife died in April 1926, and on 5 July 1927 he entered the abbey of Saint Andre in Lophem-les-Bruges, Belgium, as a postulant in the Order of St. Benedict. He took the name Pierre Celestin. He was ordained in June 1935, at the age of 64. After the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese war in 1937, he collaborated with Bishop Paul Yu Pin in an attempt to win support for China's war effort. During the Second World War he preached to wounded Belgian soldiers. To the end of his days, he maintained contact with prominent Chinese officials, virtually remaining, as his abbot had remarked upon his entry into the abbey, "an envoy of China now as then." He assisted in the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Vatican in 1943. In May 1946, at the age of 75, Father Lu was made titular abbot of St. Peter's of Ghent. He found time to publish memoirs and essays, including Ways of Confucius and of Christ, which reflected the syncretism of his later thinking. Late in 1948 he became ill, and he died in the Clinique des Soeurs Noires at Bruges on 15 January 1949. His last w'ords w'ere recorded as being "All for China!"