Tsiang Tingfu
蒋廷黻
The Nationalist diplomat whose presence at the Security Council table triggered the Soviet walkout
In January 1950, as Tsiang took the chair of the Security Council, Malik declared 'This is not a meeting, but a parody of a meeting' and walked out.
A historian of Qing diplomacy who became the Republic of China's most consequential Cold War diplomat. After a Columbia PhD and pioneering work in modern Chinese diplomatic history at Nankai and Tsinghua, he left academia in 1935 to serve the Nationalist government as ambassador to the Soviet Union and later as permanent representative to the United Nations. In January 1950, with Tsiang presiding over the Security Council, Soviet delegate Malik walked out rather than sit with a Nationalist Chinese representative, a boycott that left the Soviet veto unused when the Council voted in June to defend South Korea.
Career timeline
- 1923–1929Professor and Chair of History, Nankai University
- 1929–1935Chair of History and Dean of Arts, Tsinghua University
- 1935–1936Director of Political Affairs, Executive Yuan, Nationalist Government
- 1936–1938Ambassador of the ROC to the Soviet Union
- 1944–1946China Representative to UNRRA; Director, CNRRA
- 1947–1962Permanent Representative of the ROC to the UN and Security Council
- 1961–1965Ambassador of the ROC to the US (concurrent with UN post)