Talk:Wellington Koo

When is he born?

OK, so the biographical info in the beginning of the article says that he was born in 1889, and then a couple of paragraphs later it says that he was born in 1904. And then again, towards the end of the article, it says that he died at the age of 89 in 1985, which once again implies a year of birth of 1889. 1889 is probably right, but I don't know what's correct. Someone check up and amend, please. Perhaps he left school in 1904 (at the age of 15) or something similar. David ekstrand 23:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I take that you mean 1887 instead of 1889, as that is the year mentioned in the article. I believe that what the text is trying to say is that he moved to the US in 1904. Which also matches his being 98 years (not 89 years) of age when he died. --Kesal 11:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Wives

Someone has changed the order of the wives, as well as citational links that make it very clear who is who (or whom is whom). In any case, if further citations can be noted re more information about Koo's wives (and their legal marital status, plus children), please note. According to a 1975 interview that Juliana Koo gave to Things Asian (link cited), she and her husband had separated in the 1950s; that interview and article, about her memoirs, actually, states clearly who her father was, which at least gets her identity correct.Kitchawan 23:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Did Koo have two concurrent wives?Kitchawan 15:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

His first wife died in 1918, and Koo remarried two years later.204.126.251.129 21:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Rename?

I've used the entry in Boorman's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY to make some minor changes. I wonder if the Wikipedia article should be renamed "V.K. Wellington Koo," since that was his own chosen name in English. But I'll wait to see if there are other opinions. ch (talk) 07:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)suggests "The encyclopedia should reference the name more familiar to most English readers." So I will plan go ahead with the change after a couple of weeks for comments. ch (talk) 05:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the move ch (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Head of State

I wonder if these conditions - "acting premier and Foreign Minister" - constitute his being head of state as mentioned in the first paragraph.

teneriff (talk) 22:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

In 1924, under Duan Qirui, the positions of head of state and head of government were merged into the "Provisional Chief Executive of the Republic of China". The ROC presidency was nominally restored in 1926 under Yen Hui-Ching, not as an independent office, but in the form of "Premier and Interim President" (國務總理攝行大總統 guowu zongli shexing dazongtong). Koo inherited this office as "Acting Premier and Interim President" (代國務總理攝行大總統 dai guowu zongli shexing dazongtong) between 1926 and 1927, serving both as the head of government and head of state.

eofreedom (talk) 6:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.134.128 (talk)

English name

The article states that Wellington Koo was the only Chinese head of state known to use an English name publicly. However, Puyi - the last Emperor - publicly used the name Henry (his autobiography was published in English under the name Henry Pu Yi, I believe). I don't know if he ever used this name while in power, however. So perhaps this needs to be modified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.45.52.8 (talk) 03:33, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe that Puyi started using the name Henry under the influence of his Scots tutor, Sir Reginald Johnson, who arrived in the Forbidden City in 1919 to teach him English and the ways of the West in general. And likewise, Puyi's ill-fated "number one wife", Wanrong, started calling herself Elizabeth under Johnson's influence. The "Great Qing Empire" came to an end in 1912, but remarkably it had no impact on Puyi, who continued to live in the Forbidden City with his 3, 000 or so eunuch slaves in precisely the same manner that he had done before the revolution of 1911-1912. Indeed, Puyi was not even aware that he been deposed as emperor of China in 1912 as he continued to be referred to as the emperor by his eunuch slaves and the other staff at the Forbidden City. It was not a few years later that Puyi finally learned that China had become a republic in 1912 and that his reign had ended. It was only in 1924 when Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City by the troops of General Feng Yuxiang, the warlord who happened to control Beijing at that moment, that really finally caught up with Puyi. So Puyi was not actually known as Henry Puyi during his reign as China's last emperor from 1908 to 1912.

However, Puyi did reign as the emperor of the sham state of Manchukuo. However, Manchukuo had all the outward trappings of a sovereign state such as its own flag, national anthem, cabinet, police force, courts, civil service, postage stamps, military, and so on (it even had a few embassies as nations such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy recognized Manchukuo), but it was all just an elaborate act. Manchukuo was a Japanese colony masquerading as an country. It is telling that all of the ministers in the Manchukuo cabinet were always Manchus or Han Chinese, but the deputy ministers were always Japanese civil servants, who were the ones who had the real power. Puyi lived under virtual house arrest in the Salt Tax Palace in his capital of Hsinking (modern Changchun), never being permitted by the Japanese guards to leave the palace grounds without the express permission of the commander of the Kwantung Army, which shows you how much power Puyi really had. It also says much that Puyi wanted the capital of Manchukuo to be Mukden (modern Shenyang), which had been the Qing capital before the Manchus conquered China in 1644, but the Japanese insisted on Changchun. The only people Puyi had power over was his staff at the Salt Tax Palace, where he indulgenced in his sadism by having his servants canned for minor reasons or no reasons at all while also spending much of his time sodomizing his pageboys. One of the pageboys who resisted Puyi's advances was canned so brutally that he died of the canning. Puyi had a nasty, sadistic streak and he enjoyed inflicting pain on other people. Wanrong had a torrid affair with Puyi's chauffer, witnessed her newly born daughter by the chauffer murdered right before her eyes by the doctors just after she gave birth, which caused her to become hopelessly addicted to opium as it was the only way she could go living on after that. Life at the Salt Tax Palace was not a happy one as one might imagine, but that was about the only power that Puyi had during all his time as emperor of Manchukuo.

Besides for the fact that Manchukuo was not a real country, there is the issue that Manchukuo did not claim to be the government of China. Manchukuo was always portrayed as this Pan-Asian paradise where the "five races" of the Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Koreans and Japanese had all come together to live in harmony, peace and prosperity. The reality was the precise opposite as Manchukuo was a place of brutal exploitation, slavery and degradation, where hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Koreans worked as slaves in its factories and mines while out in the countryside thousands of Chinese and Korean farmers were evicted to make way of Japanese settlers. Leaving all that aside, Manchukuo was never portrayed as being a government for China, but instead as this novel experiment in Pan-Asian co-operation, so it is questionable that Henry Puyi could be considered as a Chinese leader in any meaningful sense of the term during his reign as the emperor of Manchukuo. It is true that Puyi had hopes that the Japanese would ultimately restore him as the emperor of China, allowing to once again sit atop of the Dragon Throne as the ruler of a restored Qing empire, but nothing ever come of this. Puyi's own father told him in 1931 that he was a fool if he really thought the Japanese were going to restore him as the emperor of China, and it turned out that he was right. Puyi's ghost-written autobiography From Emperor to Citizen, was published in English in 1964 under the name Henry Puyi, which is how he came to be known by that name in the English-speaking world. However, by the time From Emperor to Citizen was published, he had not been a real emperor for the last 52 years. --A.S. Brown (talk) 06:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Choosing a picture

• 
  Black and white picture
• 
  Colour version

I have reinstated the black and white picture above left instead of the colorized version, now for the third time. My motives are very simple : the original picture, taken in 1912 is obviously in black and white, and the colour version is due to an editor at Commons and is of no historical significance. The picture as it could be seen by contemporaries of Wellington Koo is obviously the right one in this article.

Please, if you revert me one more time, discuss your motives on this talk page. Touriste (talk) 14:01, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Freedom of the city of Aberdeen

He was awarded Freedom of the City of Aberdeen in 1943 as a special council meeting on the 27th of July 1943. Whilst he was the Ambassador to Britain. Would it be relevant to include it? I don't know how to reference the Source but it's in the councils archives and from the Minute of the meeting of the Town Council of Aberdeen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.161.210 (talk) 15:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

It would be relevant to include it if you have a RS supporting it. Was it reported in the local newspapers? I would cite a newspaper amount with the name of the journalist, article title, newspaper title, date and page number. One could also trying citing the minutes by just including with the date, title and other information included. I hope this helps. A.S. Brown (talk) 06:12, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 21 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 14:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

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V. K. Wellington Koo → Wellington Koo – almost all the other Wikipedias use just "Wellington Koo", see [1]. Also see references and sources on the page; many use just "Wellington Koo". Timmyshin (talk) 06:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Many of the sources for this article use "V. K. Wellington Koo". Any other evidence? —  AjaxSmack  17:27, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support, per this ngram. Gulangyu (talk) 09:54, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Clarification needed

Can it be clarified in the article whether Koo switched from working for the government of the Republic of China to the government of the People's Republic of China in 1949 (rather than fleeing to Taiwan)? 76.189.141.37 (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

The Infobox Image

Let's talk about the infobox image. What we see today is the user-colored image of Mr. Koo from above (see "Choosing a picture", above). That's not the original image, and I can't say I'm entirely happy with the new trend of colorized images, especially as they have the possibility to distort the images of the individuals, times, and places in question. But that's a personal matter. On a Wikipedia level, moreover, I still don't think they're fully representative of the persons, things, events in question. Pinging Touriste, Filmssssssssssss, and Militaryace, though all others are welcome to join in. Thoughts? — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I believe the consensus heavily favors using the original BW image instead of the colorized version for the purpose of historical accuracy. PenangLion (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Continual use of "through" when though is meant

In much of the text dealing with his career, "through" is used when "though" is meant. 2600:6C40:1C00:DF:D495:22AA:B7B:97D0 (talk) 16:49, 2 May 2024 (UTC)