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An American Missionary’s Days of “Liberation” at Yenching University
YANG Kui-Song
2015, 47 (5):
30-52.
doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5579.2015.05.005
When People’s Liberation Army occupied the areas near Yenching University in the west of Peiping, there were over 30 American professors, students and faculty members at the university with Bliss Wiant as the leader. Wiant was entrusted by the Affair Unit of China Christian University Joint Board of Directors to be temporary president of the university and also functioned as Chief Financial Officer. Wiant was a missionary from the Methodist Church in the U.S. In 1923, he came to work for Yenching University in China with his newly married wife and founded the music department. As one of the professors who had worked for the longest time at Yenching, he had worked at the university for nearly 20 years (1923-1927，1929-1935，1936-1941，1947-1951). He was in charge of the music department constantly and also worked for administration at the university, where he got his major achievements in life. Even when the Army of the Communist Party of China occupied the area where Yenching was located in the end of 1948 and later Peiping and the whole China, and even when the war between China and the U.S. broke out in Korean Peninsula, the Wiant couple always hoped to stay at Yenching. This was the common wish shared by other 20 foreign Christians and some missionary societies. From 1948 to 1951, this kind of possibility was extraordinarily real. Like many Americans at that time, they believed that the Communist Party of China was different from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, so what happened in the Soviet Union would not happen in China. The Communist Party’s liberating Peiping and the early stage of the new political system they witnessed made them confident in the new condition and social atmosphere created by the new political power. Many students from Yenching became senior cadres and the new government offers important positions for many leaders at Yenching. Therefore, although they faced many difficult challenges, they still anticipated highly for the future. It turned out that their wish was too optimistic. When Korean War broke out unexpectedly in 1950 and the American government adopted the intervening policy, the political situation changed dramatically in a few months, which originally needed a long time to take place. The American and Chinese governments declared one after another to freeze the properties of the opposite side. Only 6 weeks later, Yenching University, which was formerly sponsored by American church, was completely confiscated by the new government. Since then, Christian missionary work had been prohibited completely at the university. Missonary Wiant and other foreign professors and their families had to leave Yenching University even though they were reluctant to do so.
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