Author and wife of diplomat celebrates 110th birthday

Juliana Young Koo (Mrs. V.K. Wellington) celebrated her 110th birthday with 220 friends and family members at the Pierre Hotel in New York City on Sunday night. Koo was born in Tianjin, the second-largest city in North China, located east of Beijing, in 1905, the year that Theodore Roosevelt began his second term and the Russo-Japanese War ended.She survived World War II, during which her first husband, Clarence Kuangson Young, then consul general in the Philippines, was executed by Japanese occupation forces. She moved to the US with her​ ​daughters; Koo was present during the founding days of the United Nations, where she was one of its early hires, serving as protocol officer for more than 13 years. In 1959, she married Wellington Koo, Chinese diplomat, who played a major role in expanding China's relationships with the West. Founder of the modern Chinese foreign service, Mr Koo was instrumental in negotiating the end of the "unequal treaties", a series of agreements China had signed with Western powers under threat of force in the mid-19th century. He was China's delegate to the Paris peace conference of 1919, and served as acting prime minister from 1926 to 1927. As described in her recently published memoir, 109 Springtimes: My Story, Mrs Koo has been witness to many historic events whose anniversaries are being marked this year. HONG XIAO / FOR CHINA DAILY