History of Chinese Communities in
International PEN
By Chen Maiping and Zhang Yu
The first Chinese affiliate of International P.E.N was chartered in 1927 under the name of Zhonghua Minguo Bihui (Republic of China PEN Centre, or RCPC). Thefounding president was Mr Cai Yuanpei (T’sai Yuan-pei, 1867-1940), the President of Universities Academy and the first Education Minister of the republic founded in 1912. After the death of Mr. Cai, Dr. Hu Shi (Hu Shih, 1891-1962), philosopher and leading liberal intellectual in modern China, had served as the president, and was also elected one of the co-presidents of International P.E.N during the period of 1941-1947. In 1949, the RCPC moved to Taipei, along with Dr. Hu and its other leading figures. In 1962, Dr. Lin Yutang (Lin Yu-tang, 1895-1976) succeeded Dr. Hu as the president and became the vice-president of International PEN in 1975. The RCPC continued under this name until 1980.
After the PRC displaced the ROC in the UN, the Beijing government succeeded in forcing the RCPC to change its name to the Chinese Taipei PEN Centre (CTPC). The new PEN center in Beijing was founded in 1980 and named itself the China PEN Centre (CPC), with Mr. Ba Jin (1904-) as its president and Wang Meng and Liu Baiyu as vice presidents. These writers attended International PEN congresses in the 1980s. China evidently thought of International PEN as a literary UN, a kind of world writers union, and thus an arena in which it was important to push Taiwan aside.
International P.E.N in fact allows individual countries, for a geographical or linguistic reason, to have up to 5 centers. For example, in the U.S., there are American PEN and USA PEN West Centre. Switzerland has three centres: Italian, French and German PENs while Australia has five centers: Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney PENs. Hong Kong has both an English and a Chinese PEN Centres. The PRC too has a Shanghai PEN and a Guangzhou PEN, both still listed on the International PEN membership roster as valid PEN Centres.
The PRC chapters have not paid International PEN dues since 1997, and have stopped sending delegates to the annual PEN congresses (with only one exception the 2000 congress held in Moscow). This is mostly because they found out that International PEN is actually a kind of human-rights organization defending freedom of expression, and at almost every congress there have been resolutions condemning abuses by the Chinese government. Since CPC regards itself as representing the government, it decided not continue to attend.
In the 1970s, a group of Chinese writers, mostly from Taiwan, also ounded a Chinese PEN Centre tah named as Chinese Writers in Exile, with New York City as its base. The first presidents included C.T. Hsia. It renamed to the Chinese Writer Abroad in 1990s.
The Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC) was founded in 2001 by a group of writers in exile along with some in China. ICPC was chartered that year at International PEN’s London Congress, in October 2001. The first slate of officers included the president Liu Binyan, vice-president Zheng Yi, and executive director Bei Ling. Two years later, in October 2003, in accordance with the organization’s by-laws, the ICPC membership elected a new board. Dr. Liu Xiaobo (China) was elected as president and Cai Chu (USA) and Wan Zhi (Chen Maiping, Sweden) as vice-presidents. Other board members include Yu Jie and Liao Yiwu in China, along with Meng Lang and Ma Jian abroad. Wan Zhi was appointed by the board as Secretary General.