First resonances of Modern China in Europe.
The Frederic Dahlmann’s Saga.
1921-2021: 100 years since the birth of the CCP
1971-2021: 50 years of friendship between Belgium and China
LHCH was fortunate to meet the grandson and secretary of Chinese-loving businessman Frederic Dahlmann (1908-1998). This pragmatic idealist, of German origin, was at the heart of Europe’s first rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China. In Shanghai, the ACEC, a company where he was the only Western employee, had helped certain Communists to act in the midst of the Japanese occupation. Later, he will play an essential role in this colorful Belgium of Queen Elisabeth and the Universal Exhibition at the end of the 1950s. Surrounded by artists, future engineers, activists, financiers and members of the nobility Belgian, he will actively participate in the creation of the legendary Association Belgique Chine, —l’ABC, of which he will be the director of the economic section. A Belgian story, a little surrealist, but above all “zinneke”: all social classes and cultures will have crossed paths there!
LHCH had the chance to meet the son and grandson of Frederic Dahlmann, – all named Frederic -, as well as his relatives.
“My grandfather’s business was at the service of his political ideals”
LHCH: It was only when the UN officially recognized Mao’s China in 1971 that Belgium followed in diplomatic relations. But the story of friendship with China began much earlier in Belgium.
Frederic Dahlmann junior: My grandfather, of Belgian origin, born in Schaerbeek, indeed had very early relationships with this new China of 1949. It will also be necessary to tell the story of my great-grandfather, who was already working the time in Hong Kong for the Belgian company ACEC… But that will be for another interview. The Frederic Dahlmann who concerns us here was a commercial engineer who also worked for the ACEC or Electrical Construction Workshops in Charleroi. This company from Charleroi had won contracts in the field of electrical machines and therefore opened an office in China in 1936. He quickly surrounded himself with Chinese passionate about socialism like himself. He lived in China for a key period, from 1936 to 1950, first in Shanghai then Tianjin, to be closer to Beijing after the liberation. Returned to Belgium with wife and child in 1954, after two years in Switzerland, he will share his knowledge and his love for this country with such an exciting destiny!
Chile Deman, secretary: This pioneer would have had in particular a chef coq, secretly militant Communist, who would have become minister of the Chinese government! In 1949, when the Communists took power in Shanghai, all foreigners fled the Chinese city, except Fred Dahlmann, who on the other hand jumped on the last Beijing-Shanghai flight to stay there for a year! The future leaders that Fred Dahlmann had taken under his wing paid him all the honors. With his contacts and friends there, he started his own business, but always with the concern for the development of socialist China and that of his adopted country, Belgium.
Frederic Dahlmann senior: More research should be done on what happened to the Chinese who may have been helped by the ACEC in Japanese-occupied China. “Helped”, I mean that Belgian society has allowed these early socialists to enjoy a somewhat “official” position as employees by acquiring certain papers, with complete discretion. The ACECs have sometimes acted as a benevolent “screen” for them. I also recall the essential book on the three sisters “Soong” which illustrates this time when expatriates collaborated with Chinese “compradors” who did the real work. My father then did what is now called “networking” in trade fairs, golf courses, in short, social circles.
“Don’t underestimate China, one day she…”
LHCH: The memory of a whole era!
Frederic Dahlmann senior: Oh, it was my mother who was the real dictionary of this saga.
LHCH: How did Frederic Dahlmann mix business with concern for China’s development?
Leona van Gansberghe, daughter-in-law of FD: He was gifted in finance and law. In 1961, he fought so that then-China could recover money blocked in Belgium following political sanctions. I still have the documents. He didn’t like people denigrating China in Europe. He always said: Don’t underestimate China one day… ”
LHCH: A brilliant engineer, a clever businessman, a financier, but really… a socialist at heart?
Leona van Gansberghe: Yes he had been a Communist student at Humboldt University in Berlin. He was a staunch opponent of all types of fascism and colonialism. His brother was a real resistance against Nazism. Later, Frederic Dahlmann did has never had any complex in doing business because it promoted the development of countries considered to belong to the “Third World”. While traveling in Africa, Mao liked to say that China was also a poor country and that there was a need to show solidarity in this daily struggle for development. With this in mind, Fred Dahlmann started working in Tanzania and Zimbabwe on the advice of the family. My husband, his son therefore, of the same name, like my son here elsewhere (laughter) will collaborate a lot with Africa and China, in a single movement.
Frederic Dahlmann junior: My grandfather was a friend of the controversial politician here but adored in Africa for his fight against Western imperialism: Robert Mugabe. Important historical reminder: As early as the 1960s, the Chinese Communists had supported Mugabe’s ZANU-PF independence movement, and in April 1980, China was the first country to recognize the victory of this party. It was the Chinese who had taught the pro-independence tactics of the “guerrilla”.
LHCH: Let’s come back to Belgium. The immense personality of Frederic Dahlman will connect with a brilliant and heterogeneous background to form the Belgium China Association in 1957.
Chile Deman, secretary: Yes, he returned to Belgium around 1954. An intellectually brilliant Belgium which was gradually preparing its Universal Expo in 1948. Mr. Dahlmann frequented artists’ circles, where he notably met Marthe Huysmans, the daughter of Camille Huysmans, the founder of the Socialist Party who will accompany Queen Elisabeth in China in 1961! Camille will be the 1st secretary of the ABC, from 1957 to 1961. He will also meet Frans Masereele, a painter and engraver, also of Flemish origin and great anti-fascist at heart. Finally, the famous Baron Allard, nicknamed the Red Baron, also a fervent communist painter who will be formed thanks to the help of Fons Moerenhout, member of the Belgian Communist Party, PCB. There will also be the famous financier Lederhandler who will also manage, in parallel with Frederic Dahmann, the financial aspect, but through a kind of “branch” of the ABC, Sodexim. We also saw university professors. Ah yes and of course, members of the PCB who will have followed the split of the party towards a pro-Chinese entity: the communist party of Jacques Grippa, therefore.
LHCH: A fairly heterogeneous, almost surreal community! Did everyone get along? What was the mission of the ABC?
Chile Deman, secretary: The mission was as cultural as it was linked to business development. China had to be built. Belgium was a wealthy country at the time. There were huge opportunities. But many cultural and intellectual exchanges were necessary to ensure the best understanding between the two countries.
LHCH: Were there different trends? We interviewed Fons Moerenhout in our pages. He clearly presented himself as an idealistic worker at ABC. While others …
Chile Deman, secretary: Oh indeed, there was a good atmosphere during the elections! Between, to put it simply, idealists like Fons and financiers like Lederhandler. Different trends existed. But I was only secretary of the ABC from 1971. Before that, I was Frederic Dahlmann’s private secretary. I mainly had to translate from French to Dutch and publish our magazine “China Vandaag”. I went to China in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, in 1970. It was actually our first trip to China with the ABC since the start of the Cultural Revolution.
LHCH: Coming back to the great Frederic Dahlmann, what was his role within the ABC?
Frederic Dahlmann junior: I allow myself to answer because for me in my family it has always been a question of creating links, of building bridges between Belgium and China, and later, between China and Africa. My grandfather had the genius to connect positive people with many talents.
Leona van Gansberghe: Yes, for example, he knew the great Chinese-Belgian writer Han Suyin. Thanks to him, the ABC organized lectures from the famous novelist who called him Frederic Dahlmann “The man of her life”! I often went to Switzerland to see her with my husband and my father-in-law. Fred Dahlmann, Han Suyin and her Indian husband loved to play the card game, bridge.
Frederic Dahlmann senior: Han Suyin had remarkably communicated in the world on the specificity of the Chinese revolution. By virtue of her aura and her notoriety, she was able to explain to viewers of French and Belgian television channels the extraordinary energy of modern China. My father helped him several times with his formalities to go to China to experience the great changes in history firsthand.
Chile Deman, secretary: Outside Belgium, he also helped a Hong Kong family he met in China to become the kings of flour at home! I had been the secretary of a foundation that bore their name, Sun Lin Fang.
LHCH: We’ll see each other again. But to finish we would like to know how the grandson extends the work of Frederic Dahlmann? How to be within this real dynasty?
Frederic Dahlmann junior: I went to study Mandarin in China, near Shanghai. Not far from where my father was born, in Tianjin. Then I lived there for a year and a half. I mainly organized conferences on the relationship between Africa and China. I have invited the great expert on the subject Deborah Brautigam several times. But to respect the memory of my grandfather, I am going with my mother and Chile to start scanning the many documents of this prosperous time!
“Mao said in 1949, ‘China is standing now'”
LHCH: Congratulations! We can still communicate on this Belgian-Chinese saga! But could we have a few words from Frederic Dahlmann senior for the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party at the beginning of July 2021?
Frederic Dahlmann senior: As an introduction to this big question, I would like to say that my father sent me to China in 1970, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, to draw inspiration from the wisdom of workers and peasants. This idealist, inspired by socialist values, did not find me morally committed enough at the time. I was no longer the same when I returned to Belgium, it is true.
So, the 100 years of the CCP. The Chinese Communist Party is certainly one of the most important communist parties in the world. He unified not a country but a continent! His seizure of power, his victory in 1949 is one of the greatest deeds in history. It is an event beyond measure. A titanic job. Bring China out of unimaginable chaos that lasted 38 years. The warlords, the Japanese invasions… As Mao said in 1949: “From now on China is standing”. Secondly, for many “less developed” countries, China represented the example of a revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle. Even today, China, by gaining its essential position within the great powers, gives a lot of hope to the small countries by supporting them financially or logistically. Finally, it is a benchmark in lifting hundreds of millions of Chinese out of extreme poverty. A unique fact in human history, again. Today, its standard of living, its level of education are conquests that make people dream or cringe all over the world.
