First American to become a Chinese General

Who is the first naturalized Chinese American to become a general of the U.S. Armed Services? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know who was the first American to become a naturalized Chinese citizen and became a general of the Chinese army, a personal appointment bestowed by the emperor.

His name was Frederick Townsend Ward, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and this happened over 130 years ago. Ward was a soldier of fortune who ended up in Shanghai at the time of Taiping rebellion (and about the same time as the American Civil War). He organized and trained an army to defend the city from the encroaching rebels and his deeds were recognized by the imperial court in Beijing. He was appointed a mandarin official of the third rank and a general of his army, named Ever Victorious Army or Chang Sheng Jun (in pingyin). He was mortally wounded in battle and died within a year or two of his appointment, and a Briton by the name of Charles Gordon assumed command and the troops played a prominent role in rolling back the Taiping rebellion. Gordon was so successful that he picked up "Chinese" as his moniker. Charles "Chinese" Gordon's name was to become world famous some twenty years after his campaign in China when he died defending Khartoum in Sudan.

Anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating chapter of history along with a colorful description of colonial Shanghai will want to read The Devil Soldier by Caleb Carr, Random House, 1992.

Ward was the first to demonstrate that Chinese soldiers when properly organized and trained were equally adept at firing western guns and can become as effective a fighting force as, say, westerners. After his death, his followers buried him in Songjiang, a village south of Shanghai where he had his headquarters. The people at the time honored him by erecting a small temple by his tomb. Alas, he did not realize that by fighting on the side of the Manchu court, he was to become politically incorrect. After the 1949 Liberation, his tomb and temple was leveled and paved over into a park and no trace can be found today. (Recently, when I made a special trip out to Songjiang, I couldn't find anybody there that knew of Ward.)

Take our money but keep your stock

A Silicon Valley company owned proprietary technology that would allow a multinational Japanese company to catch up to the leader, another Japanese company, in the consumer electronics business. Every discussion and meeting went smoothly and mutual agreement on the basis of cooperation and contribution from each side was reached reasonably promptly. The only sticking point came up when the American company wanted the Japanese company to invest in the American company. This issue took some time to resolve. Eventually, the Japanese company injected the cash demanded and needed by the American company but as fee for a license agreement. In effect, the Japanese company said to the American entrepreneurs: "Here is the money, but you keep the stock." In a casual setting outside the meeting room, the Japanese executive explained to me that a license agreement can be committed at the division level while equity investments required board level approval. While the American company looks at the equity investment as a potential upside kicker in a strategic alliance, the Japanese company looks at equity investment as a potential source of embarrassment when and if the invested company goes down the drain.

Lesson for privately held companies looking to partner with Japanese companies: Do not assume that stock in your company is useful as negotiating chips.

P and G Rejoice in Prell

Proctor & Gamble's "Prell" shampoo is arguably one of the most talked about entries of western consumer products into China. There were at least three ingredients in its formula of success. P&G found a local partner to manufacture the product inside China and change the brand name to "Rejoice," a real word instead of "Prell," a made-up word that might confuse customers with limited English vocabulary. Most importantly, the company introduced the product in single-use, foil packs instead of just packaging them in large containers. Chinese women can afford the "luxury" of washing their hair with the P&G shampoo every so often but a bottle or tube would have been too expensive. Of course they will become loyal customers for larger containers when their income rises. In the meantime, it seems every stall and street vendor carry the little packets of shampoo and P&G is making a nice profit while watching the business grow.

Lesson: Adjust your product according to the local standard of living.

Asian Views of the American Dream

"Since 1960, the US population has grown by 41%. In the same period, there has been a 560% increase in violent crime, a 419% increase in illegitimate births, a 400% increase in divorce, a 300% increase in children living in single-parent homes, a more than 200% increase in teen suicide, and a drop of almost 80 points in Scholastic Aptitude Test scores.

"A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme also ranks the U.S. number one among industrialized countries in intentional homicides, reported rapes, and percentage of prisoners.

"The number of prison inmates has risen from 329,821 in 1980 to 883,593 in 1992. Hunger in the United States has increased by 50% since 1985.

"Asian and American reactions to these statistics can be strikingly different.

"Americans assume that the figures merely reveal that either economic growth has stalled in the United States or that its law order mechanism has broken down.

"By contrast, many Asians see the figures as evidence that something fundamental has gone wrong in American society"

The above excerpt is from May 30, 1994 issue of China Daily which in turn was an excerpt of an article that appeared in spring issue of Washington Quarterly. The author, Kishore Mahbubani, is Permanent Secretary of Singapore's Foreign Ministry.

By contrast, earlier in May, I accompanied a group of executives and engineers from Shanghai as they travelled to Tennessee, New York, Boston, Tampa, Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S. This was a group of seasoned travellers who have been to Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Germany but, except for one, were visiting the U.S. for the first time.

They were genuinely awestruck. They said that they could not imagine how close to a paradise is the United States. They loved the fresh air and beauty of Knoxville countryside, the sights and sounds of New York, the courtly culture atmosphere of Boston... They were impressed by the cleanliness, orderliness, openness and the casual friendliness wherever they went. They marvelled at things that we tend to take for granted.--Exchange visits of this kind will build mutual understanding and liberate attitudes far more than geopolitical harangue and threats, but that's another story.

More importantly, their fresh perspective of America made me proud to be an American but also very sad. Sad because Minister Mahbubani's statistics are not refutable. I was fortunate to have grown up in the U.S. during its golden era and perhaps my children did also. But will their children and their children's children? I think not, unless this generation starts to reverse some of those grim statistics. The responsibility does not rest with the President, the Congress, the police, the teachers and the parents. It rests on us all.