Background
Mr. G. Zay Wood, popularly known in Peking as “General Wood,” was born at Tsa-Bridge, Shanghai, August 27, 1895.
Mr. G. Zay Wood, popularly known in Peking as “General Wood,” was born at Tsa-Bridge, Shanghai, August 27, 1895.
Mr. Wood received his preliminary education in the Sung-kiang Middle School and the Nanyang Middle School. After his graduation from Nanyang in 1913, he went to Tsinghua College, where he remained but two years before he was sent by the government to the United States for advanced education.
In 1915 Mr. Wood entered Yale as a Junior. In 1917, after his graduation from Yale, he entered Harvard to take his post-graduate work. Political science was the subject of his special study. He took his Master Degree in one year. In 1918, he studied international law at Columbia University.
Mr. Wood was appointed by the University in the following year “Curtis Fellow in International Law” and was reappointed in 1920. During his student days, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Chinese Students’ Monthly and of the Far Eastern Republic.
Mr. Wood was twice elected president of the Chinese Political Science Association. Besides, he was a frequent contributor to the American newspapers and magazines. In 1921 he was asked by Dr. Sao-ke Alfred Sze, the Chinese Minister at Washington, to be temporarily attached to the Chinese Legation there. Later he joined the Chinese delegation to the Washington Conference. He served as an assistant in the Press Bureau attached to the Chinese delegation. In 1922 he returned to China.
Upon the arrival in Peking, Mr. Wood was invited to take charge of the Peking Daily News as its chief editor. In the meantime, he was appointed secretary to the Commission on National Financial Conference. In 1923, at the end of January, he left the Peking Daily News to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as its secretary. In June of the same year Mr. Wood was appointed Secretary to the Cabinet.
Mr. Wood was the author of many books, the best known of which include The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, The Twenty-One Demands, The Chino-Japanese Treaties, The Shantung Question, A Study in Diplomacy and World Politics. He was also the author of China and Japan, a booklet of about 100 pages privately printed for distribution.
Mr. Wood was the editor and publisher of the Evening World of Peking, which was said to be the only foreign language evening paper in China that was published every day in the year.