50 Foreigners Influenced China

The Global Times is a peripheral publication with the China's official Renmin Daily. They recently ran a series of articles on 50 foreigners who had influenced China.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Earl Macartney (1737-1806), led a voyage from London to China in 1792. He asked the emperor to open Ningbo, Zhoushan and Tianjin as ports for trading. The request was denied;

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), all by coincident, an academic debate on Malthus's theory on population was turned into a political turmoil, and as a result, the Chinese population was doubled within 20 years;

Charles Elliot (1801-1875), British knight, admiral who launched the notorious Opium War

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Frederick Engels (1820-1895)

John Glasgow Kerr (1824-1901), missionary of the Presbyterian Church in America, who established the first church hospital in Chinese history in 1859 in Guangzhou. He treated over 700,000 Chinese patients, including over 50,000 surgeries. He trained 150 doctors;

William Alexander Parsons (1827-1916), Protestant missionary to China. Headed Beijing University and imperial academy (Tong Wen Guan). He was seen by many westerners a traitor to God because he bowed to the statue of Confucius.

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Alfred Graf von Waldersee (1832-1904), Prussian General Field Marshal, supreme command of the joint invasion of China by eight european countries; hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were slaughtered, and the Chinese government was forced to grant unfair treaties;

Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911), Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs from 1863-1908. He got involved in Chinese customs since 1859 when named the deputy chief of Guangzhou Custom;

Prince Itō Hirobumi (1841-1902), the first prime minister of Japan, whose cabanet attacked Korea and China. He signed the Shimonoseki Treaty with Li Hongzhang of China after China lost the War of 1895. China lost suzerainty over Korea, also gave Pescadores Islands, Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan.

Timothy Richard (1845-1919), Baptist Missionary, set up the earliest foreign publish agency in China, which was the largest and most influencial publisher in China from 1891 to 1915. Set up the Shanxi University, assume a highest ranked official position of the Chinese government.

Arthur H. Smith (1845-1932), American Congregationalists missionary, helped pushed for the return of half of the war settlement of 1900 as foundation for sponsering Chinese students study in the U.S.;

Silas Aaron Hardoon (1851-1931), Jew and real estate tacoon in Shanghai. Hardoon was born in Baggdad, and lived in Bombay before arrived in Hongkong in 1872. He took a trading company job in Shanghai in 1873, and married a prostitute in 1886. In 1901 Hardoon created his own company conducting real estate business, which was a huge success. He owned 44% of the most prosperous segment of Shanghai. Hardoon built a biggest private garden in Shanghai, and a university.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939);

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941);

Sir Henry McMahon (1862-1949), foreign secretary for India and the chief British negotiator of an unauthorized talk between Indian and local Chinese officials. A McMahon Border Line was drawn far into the Chinese terriroty by over 90,000 saqure kilometers. The Line was not approved by then Chiense government, and not recognized by all following Chiense government.

Marie Curie (1867-1934);

Maksim Gorky (1868-1936);

Vladmir Illyich Lenin (1870-1924);

John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960);

Albert Einstein (1879-1955);

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940);

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945);

Okamura Yasuji (1884-1966), general and commander of the invasion force of the Japanese Imperial Army in China;

Michael Markowich Borodin (1884-1952), came to China in the fall of 1923. Russian Consult to the CCP and the KMD government;

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), put forth the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (also spelled as Panch Sila or Panchsheel), which was drafted by then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in June, 1954.

Norman Bethune (1890-1939), Canadian doctor. Died on duty when treating wounded soldiers of the communisim army in fighting the Japanese invasion.

Harland Sanders (1890-1980), founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC was the No.1 of a Top 10 international trademarks in China according to a 1999 survey;

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971);

Konosuke Matsushita (1894-1989), founder of the Matsushita Group;

Armand Hammer (1898-1990), the 'red capitalist' who was invited by Deng Xiaoping to draw a blueprint of the Chinese economic reform and development;

Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989), Japanese emperor who was ultimately responsible for the war and war crimes launched by the imperial army to its neighbor countries;

Otto Braun (1906-1974), millitary consultant to the CCP from the Communist International;

Alsebof (1907-1998), deputy chair of the ministers conference. Led the USSR expert delegation to China in 1950 to 1958. General consultant to the Chinese state department;

Kim Il-sung (1912-19924);

Richard Nixon (1913-1994), visited China in February 1972, an act changed the course of the cold war;

Kakuei Tanaka (1918-1993), prime minister of Japan. Visited China in July 1972, and established the normal diplomatic relation between the two countries;

Juan Antonio Samaranch (1920-), president of the International Olympic Committee. During his tenure Beijing was voted as the host for the 2008 Summer Olympic Game;

Henry A. Kissinger (1923-), National Security Advisor and Secretary of State with Nixon administration. Kissinger's secret trip to China in 1972 paved the summit between Nixon and Mao, as well as the normalization of diplomatic relations. Kissinger has broad influence among Chinese scholars, politicians and generals;

Alvin Toffler (1928-), writer and futurist, author of 'The Third Wave';

Takakura Ken (1931-), Japanese actor

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-)

Steven Spielberg (1947-)

Bill Gates (1955-)

Michael Jordan (1963-)