W.H. Donald and the Xi’an Incident

Has anybody in Australia even heard of William Henry Donald—W.H. to the public, Will to his family, Bill to those who thought they were his friends and Don to those who actually were his friends? Donald is one of the two Australians who strode through Chinese history of the twentieth century and whose opinions and advice were sought and listened to at the highest levels. The other, George Ernest Morrison, legendary Times of London correspondent of the Boxer Rebellion period and trusted adviser to the first President of China, Yuan Shikai, is reasonably well known in Australia. By contrast, Donald, who was a towering figure in Chinese politics of the Republican era, remains largely unknown here. If you go into bookshops all over China, you will find many books in Chinese about him, but I know of only three in English which do him justice. They are Donald of China, his memoir as told to the Hawaiian journalist Earl Selle in a Honolulu hospital shortly before his death, Craig…