Yan Huiqing

Yan Huiqing (Wade-Giles: Yen Hui-Ching, (also known as W.W. Yen) 顏惠慶 (1877-1950)) was a Chinese writer, politician, and diplomat from Shanghai.

Biography

A graduate of the University of Virginia, he taught the English language at Saint John's University, Shanghai in a short time after coming back from the United States and then went to Beijing to start his political career. It was in the US he became a Freemason.

He served as premier five times and simultaneously as acting president on his last premiership in 1926. Wu Peifu handpicked him for the acting presidency to pave the way for Cao Kun's restoration but he was unable to take office due to Zhang Zuolin's objection. When Yan finally took his post, he immediately resigned and appointed navy minister Du Xigui as his successor.

He was also China's first ambassador to the Soviet Union and he was a delegate in the League of Nations. During World War II, he translated and compiled "Stories of Old China" in Hong Kong while under Japanese house-arrest in 1942. He took his first plane trip in 1949 to Moscow in hopes of resolving the Chinese Civil War.