Fu Bingchang

Fu Bingchang was born to a well-off family in Foshan, Guangdong, in 1895. He studied civil engineering at Hong Kong University and married Kitty Ho, the daughter of a famous Hong Kong physician and mentor of Sun Yat-sen. He joined the revolutionary cause and became an attache for the Canton Delegation of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He then served as a secretary to Sun Yat-sen and later as a vice-minister for foreign affairs of the Nationalist Government. He was a prominent member of the Prince's Clique, a political network headed by Sun Ke, the son of Sun Yat-sen. He held various positions in the Foreign Ministry and the Legislative Yuan, and was a principal drafter of the Chinese Civil Code. He was also an avid amateur photographer who took informal photos of leading politicians and their families, making his collection especially significant. In 1943, he was appointed as the ambassador to the Soviet Union, a post he held until 1949. He witnessed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, the Yalta Conference, and the end of World War II. He also tried to mediate between the Nationalists and the Communists, but failed to prevent the outbreak of the civil war. He retired to Paris in 1949 and lived there until 1956. He then returned to Taiwan and worked for Chiang Kai-shek as the president of the Anti-Corruption Board and the vice president of the Judicial Yuan. He died of a heart attack in 1965 and was given a state funeral.