[Then,
unrestricted by the confines of government and academia, he spoke out, a rare
act in a time of decreasing tolerance for those who dissent, colleagues said.
“He had the moral courage to speak out,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of
international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.]
By Jane Perlez and Yufan Huang
 |
|
Wu Jianmin, a longtime
diplomat who warned against rising nationalism in
China, in 2008. Credit
Imaginechina, via Associated Press
|
BEIJING
— From his start as an
aspiring diplomat in China’s Foreign Ministry in 1959 to his days as an
ambassador in Paris and Geneva, Wu Jianmin represented the best of his
country’s diplomacy: firm but reasonable, gracious but not unctuous.
In retirement, he became an unusually
outspoken advocate for China’s remaining open to the outside world, warning
that the nationalism that had grown under President Xi Jinping should be kept
in check.
Mr. Wu, 77, was killed in a car accident last
weekend, and his death has reignited a debate over how China should conduct
itself abroad.
At his funeral in Beijing on Friday, a
delegation of more than 20 officials from the Foreign Ministry, led by the
executive vice foreign minister, Zhang Yesui, paid their respects. The foreign
minister, Wang Yi, would have been there had he been in the country, a ministry
spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said.
“I have never seen a public figure whose
death made so many people sad and made so many people euphoric,” said Liu
Yawei, the director of the China program at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Mr.
Liu described Mr. Wu as a diplomat who could stand up to “the accusations that
he was a coward because he advocated peace.”
Mr. Liu was at a conference at Peking
University about China’s news media and its relations with the world when
participants were told that Mr. Wu had been killed in a crash after his driver
struck a median strip in Wuhan, in Hubei Province, last Saturday.
The sponsor of the conference was Global
Times, the state-run newspaper that Mr. Wu had criticized for its stridently
nationalistic views. Murmurs of shock rippled through the audience at the news
of his death.
Mr. Wu had been candid about his distaste for
the publication, saying editorials that urged the military to show more spine
and take more action in the South China Sea, where Beijing is embroiled in
territorial disputes with its neighbors, were wrongheaded.
In an interview last year, Wu Jianmin said that China does not seek domination of the South China Sea.
Video by BBC HARDtalk
Mr. Wu had taken on the newspaper’s editor in
chief, Hu Xijin, accusing him in a speech in March of making a “mess talking
about the world” and of not understanding how the world worked. In return, Mr.
Hu called Mr. Wua dovish diplomat who did not know what was good for China.
Soon after Mr. Wu’s death, hawks in the
debate flooded Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.
An Air Force senior colonel, Dai Xu, wrote
that the former ambassador was “ignorant, arrogant, bad mannered and grumpy.” Colonel
Dai, who teaches at the National Defense University, also criticized Mr. Wu for
being “like a pet dog to foreigners” but “like a wolf dog’’ when dealing with
Chinese.
Mr. Wu was a familiar figure to Americans
involved in China policy.
In 1971, after serving as an interpreter in
French for Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, Mr. Wu arrived in New York in the first
batch of Chinese diplomats assigned to the United Nations when China took the
seat previously held by Taiwan.
“He is the epitome of an excellent public
intellectual: deeply committed to his country, yet extremely thoughtful and
nuanced in his analysis of it,” said Jan Berris, vice president of the National
Committee on United States-China Relations, who knew Mr. Wu from those early
days.
Mr. Wu gradually moved up through the ranks
of the Foreign Ministry and after several ambassadorships became president of
the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, retiring in 2008.
Then, unrestricted by the confines of
government and academia, he spoke out, a rare act in a time of decreasing
tolerance for those who dissent, colleagues said. “He had the moral courage to
speak out,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin
University in Beijing.
At Mr. Wu’s funeral, a reporter for Phoenix
Television who was live streaming from outside the hall interviewed a man in
civilian clothes who said he was in the military.
The man praised Mr. Wu for understanding that
China was in danger of retreating to the closed mind-set of the Qing dynasty
and that it needed the outside world.
He added: “Don’t put that on the record.’’
Follow Jane Perlez on Twitter @JanePerlez.
