Lu was born on 12 June 1871 in
Shanghai,
Jiangsu, and was raised a
Protestant in religion and a
Confucianist in philosophy. His father, Lu Yong Fong, was lay catechist for a Protestant mission in Shanghai. He studied at home until the age of thirteen, when he entered the School of Foreign Language in Shanghai, specializing in French. He continued his education at the school for interpreters attached to the Foreign Ministry, and in 1893 he was posted to
Saint Petersburg as interpreter (fourth-class) to the Chinese embassy. At that time the diplomatic international language was French, but Lu also gained fluency in Russian. The ambassador, the reform-minded
Xu Jingcheng, took an interest in his career. Lu married a Belgian citizen, Berthe Bovy (1855–1926), in St Petersburg on 12 February 1899, and eventually converted to
Roman Catholicism. The couple had no children.
Diplomatic career His early years were marked by the
Boxer Rebellion, during which his mentor, Xu Jingcheng, was beheaded in
Beijing. Lu served the
Qing regime as Chinese delegate at the first and second
Peace Conferences in The Hague (1899 and 1907), as Minister to Belgium, and as Ambassador to Russia, but he never forgot the imperial government's betrayal of his "second father". When the
1911 Revolution broke out he was Ambassador in St Petersburg, and he took it upon himself, against the advice of his colleagues at other European capitals, to cable Beijing that there could be no hope of assistance from the Great Powers.
Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China At the proclamation of the
Chinese Republic in 1912, he joined the party of
Sun Yat-Sen, and served as Foreign Minister in the provisional government under President
Yuan Shikai, March 1912 – September 1912. In August–September 1912 he also served as Prime Minister, but his lack of political leverage forced his resignation, ostensibly for health reasons. He returned to the cabinet as Foreign Minister from November 1912 to September 1913, and reformed the Foreign Ministry: abolishing the complicated bureaucracy of the imperial commissions, requiring knowledge of foreign languages at all levels, and instituting modern civil service examinations for recruits. He managed to avoid being identified with any particular faction within the new government, but this relative political isolation meant that he was little able to influence policy, and he again resigned. On leaving office he became one of the founders of the
Chinese Society of International Law. From 27 January 1915 to 17 May 1916 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for a third time, in the
"northern" government in Beijing which enjoyed international recognition, undertaking difficult negotiations with Japan and Russia. He became Foreign Minister for the fourth time on 30 November 1917. He served until 13 August 1920, with deputy minister Chen Lu becoming acting minister during his absence for the peace talks in Paris (November 1918 to December 1919).
Paris Peace Conference Lu personally headed the Chinese delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Article 156 of the envisioned
Versailles Treaty transferred the
German treaty territory in Shandong to Japan rather than recognise the sovereign authority of China. On 6 May, with the Japanese delegation insisting that they would only continue to support the conference's aims if Germany's colonial rights in China were transferred to Japan, Lu read the following declaration to the assembled delegates: When it transpired that the Great Powers would not countenance a signature with express reservations against any article, Lu ultimately refused to sign at all. This made China the only participating country not to sign the Versailles Treaty.
Benedictine monk and priest in Belgium From 1922 to 1927 Lu was China's envoy to the
League of Nations in
Geneva. At the death of his wife he retired from an active life, and in 1927 became a postulant, under the name Dom Pierre-Célestin, in the
Benedictine monastery of Sint-Andries in
Bruges,
Belgium. He was ordained a priest in 1935. During the Second World War he gave lectures about the Far East in which he propagandized for the Chinese war effort against Japan; German security agents noted the names of those attending but took no further action. In August 1946
Pope Pius XII appointed Lu titular abbot of the
Abbey of St Peter in
Ghent. In his final years he hoped to return to China as a missionary, to fulfill the instructions Xu Jingcheng had given him at the beginning of his career: His planned departure was postponed during the
Chinese Civil War, and Dom Lu died in
Bruges,
Belgium on 15 January 1949. == Publications ==