Once the authorities in Manchuria had secured a firm handle on the plague outbreak in Heilongjiang, Kirin and Fengtian provinces by February 1911, little time was wasted calling for a conference of international medical specialists to enquire into all aspects of the epidemic and promote the advancement of future disease control. Scientists including disease specialists from many countries were invited to attend the location chosen for the conference, Mukden (Shenyang), which was one of the cities in North-East China hardest hit by the pneumonic epidemic.
Despite the pressingly urgent need to canvas expert international input into the dire health catastrophe, China must have had some reservations about what it was doing. Both Russia and Japan with undisguised Manchurian ambitions already held firm footholds in N.E. China (control over railway lines, ports, territorial concessions, etc), plus other Western powers controlled Chinese treaty ports further south. But with no politicians taking part in the conference and all attendees pledging that it’s focus was to be on scientific investigation and not about imposing any further external controls on China, the central government pushed on with it [‘In 1911, another epidemic swept through China. That time, the world came together’, (Paul French), CNN, 19-Apr-2020, www.cnn.com]. Dr Wu Lien-teh, the “plague fighter-general” of Harbin, was appointed conference chairperson. There were a few “nationalistic frictions” with the Japanese mainly resulting from some anti-Chinese remarks injudiciously made by the Japanese delegate, Professor Kitasato, before leaving Tokyo for the conference, but this did not impede the cohesion of the conference [Eli Chernin (1989). “Richard Pearson Strong and the Manchurian Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague, 1910—1911” (PDF). Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 44(3): 296–319. doi:101093/jhmas/44.3.296. PMID 2671146].
🔻 Safety precautions at Harbin plague site
A congress of international disease experts
The International Plague Conference (IPC) was a ground-breaking series of ‘firsts’, the first international scientific symposium held in China, the first time in modern history of a multi-nation approach focusing on disease control. The conference also anticipated the purpose of later world bodies dedicated to international health maintenance, the League of Nations’ Health Organisation (LNHO), established in 1923, and it’s successor, the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO), created after the Second World War.
Scientists from ten countries joined host China at the Plague Conference in the repurposed Shao Ho Yien palace – the US, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Netherlands and Mexico, an indication of how seriously the international medical community took the Manchurian outbreak and its implications. The delegates were drawn from several relevant and related fields including epidemiologists, virologists, bacteriologists, tropical medicine specialists and illness consultants.
🔻 Contemporary coverage of the conference in ‘The Lancet’
The conference, getting into the “nitty-gritty’
High on the conference’s agenda was the question of aetiology, what were the Great Manchurian Plague’s causal factors? American delegate Richard P Strong, who arrived prior to the conference, undertook pathological experimentation which verified the infectious role played by tarbagan marmots in the plague (which he published in the Philippine Journal of Science, 1912). The experts had to sift through a raft of unhelpful faux-scientific beliefs and assumptions to get to “the scientific root of the bacteria”, again underlining the IPC’s emphasis on science and medicine. Containment was another key issue at the conference. The discussion was around what worked best in the plague? Measures like ‘blanket’ quarantines, travel bans, face masks and ad hoc plague hospitals (swiftly assembled to isolate the infected from the healthy), all got a big tick…an endorsement of Dr Wu Lien-teh’s positive measures in the war against the pneumonic epidemic, deemed by the conference delegates as essential tools in the fight against future outbreaks and waves of plague (French).
🔺 The admirable Dr Wu
Seeds of a nationwide public health service
One of the conference’s finest and far-reaching achievements was to establish the Manchurian Plague Prevention Service (under the helm of Dr Wu). The MPPS and Wu identified medical education as the “holy grail”, the service’s role was to disseminate materials to the public, promote the efficacy of sanitary conditions and health in the community, and overall playing a leading role in adopting Western medicine (Xīyào) and methods of disease control in China. MPPS provided the model for a future Chinese national health service (French).
The follow-up to the three-and-a-half week International Plague Conference put Chinese medicine on the path to modernisation. Many of the country’s medical advances began here …. the IPC laid down a blueprint for handling future plagues which included the use of autopsies, instructional dissection and cremation, all of which became institutionalised practice afterwards (Chernin).
Medicine and health before politics
The Mukden IPC in April 1911, conducted in an atmosphere free of politicising, demonstrated the cooperative humanitarian efforts of a group of medical professionals…when left to it by the politicians, they showed single-minded unity of purpose, what could be achieved, collectively and internationally, to counter the danger of a disease with immediate and future global ramifications for public health. I need not emphasise the stark contrast with the management of the world’s current pandemic in which some of the major powers, distracted from the only really important priority, are happy to engage in a ”political blame game” over the coronavirus‘ origins, instead of co-operating with each other to meet a pernicious and deadly health risk to the planet head-on and in unison.
Endnote: Lessening future shock
The gains in medicine and public health protection coming out of the conference were soon put to use in China. Disease re-emerged in the 1919 malaria epidemic and the 1921 plague (again in Harbin) which was to test China’s embryonic national quarantine system. Dr Wu again took charge to guide China through these medical crises. The improvements in public health since 1911, it is estimated, reduced casualties in the second outbreak of pneumatic plague by four-fifths [‘Portraits of a plague: the 19th-century pandemic that killed 12 million people’, History Extra, 21-Jul-2015, www.historyextra.com].
The plague was first noticed in the Inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli on the Chinese-Russian border, where Russian doctors began treating patients with fever and haemoptysis symptoms. Thus began the Great Manchurian Plague which eventually took up to 60,000 lives in less than six months – with a mortality rate very close to 100 per cent [William C Summers, The Great Manchurian Plague: The Geopolitics of an Epidemic Disease, (2012)].
In the disease’s wake mortality proceeded at an alarming rate, Harbin in the far north was the initial epicentre. In November 5,272 died in the city. It then spread along the tracks to cities further south, Mukden recorded a death toll of 2,571 by January 1911, and Changchun was losing over 200 a day to the plague (Meiklejohn). The plague was sustained and promoted by the prevailing conditions it encountered – dense population, high human mobility and poor hygiene environments (Cornelia Knab, cited in Meiklejohn). Eventually the plague reached Peking and as far as central China
Our ultimate day in Harbin, what to do? My own leaning, on surveying the options, nudged me towards a trip to Unit 731 (AKA Detachment 731), a museum established in a multi-building complex which was used by the Japanese military and scientists to carry out heinous biological experiments on the local population during the Thirties and Forties. My travelling companion’s inclination however was for spending a less sombre and more genteel day at Tai Yang Dao (Sun Island). In the end what swayed it for Sun Island was proximity, it being a short boat distance from Central (Z.Y.) Street, compared to Unit 731 which was located in the city’s back blocks, requiring a long train trip from the centre.
We decided crossing the river by boat would be the optimal way to get to Sun Island. The other but considerably more expensive way to get to Sun Island is by cable car, which certainly provides a bird’s-eye level vantage point during the crossing (you can also get there circuitously by taxi, crossing a series of bridges). There is no charge to visit Sun Island but access to amusements, rides, activities, etc attract a charge.
The water transport to Sun Island departs from the wharves at Sidalin Park
As the ageing journeyman ferry chugs across the water we take videos of the approaching island and the cable cars being pulled back and forth. I remind myself that in just a few months time this trip won’t be possible…the clear aqua-turquoise surface of the river will become solid frozen with the onset of Harbin’s winter. Amusingly, we pass a line of swimmers in single file. These, older men mainly, are slowly swimming, or more accurately half swimming, half dog-paddling, their way from an island to the mainland. Each of them is carrying a rucksack of belongings attached to them by rope like an umbilical cord
As the boat approaches the island wharf, one or two landmarks catch the eye from the river. The first, from a distance looks like a light-hearted sculpture of a very large white swan or is it a goose? When we got to the wharf we realised it wasn’t a pop culture artwork, but the comical masthead on a pleasure vessel for visitors (and especially children) to ride on.
The second, much more visible landmark getting the attention of the boat passengers looks like a historic European castle rising up out the treetops, something you might find on the Danube – in Budapest for instance. Once ashore, on closer inspection, it’s historical pedigree is found wanting. It is of more origin and seems to be inspired by the logo figurehead castle you see at Disneyland! The ‘castle’ turns out to be the central administrative and amenities building for the island’s commercial operations. 
Getting around the island by foot is possible but it covers a large expanse of land and the attractions are quite spread out. So from the wharf we decided to use the “people mover” or the mini-bus to get-about (¥20 each). This made logistical sense but our experience was that it proved a very poor service provider. I was expecting it to operate as a flexible “hop-on, hop-off” arrangement (a lá the Big Red Bus in capital cities globally), but we were not able to hail down one of the many vehicles continually circling the park (every though we had purchased tickets). Each time we tried the bus driver refused to stop for us even when the vehicle was virtually empty (great PR Sun Island!). Apparently our ticket permitted us to use certain passenger service vehicles only (not explained at point of sale). 
That said, the island park did not lack for attractions and points of interest. The various, quaint bridges around the ponds makes for nice “eye-candy”. A Russian-style village garden added to the theme park feel of Sun Island. The section containing the waterfalls and accompanying rock caves were a real highlight for photography mani
Many of the island fixtures are well worth a close-up inspection. The mega-scale, modernist monument (a combination of white ovals and arches) near the Greenway is an interesting feature in itself. Another white structure with two storey viewing towers of the water is similar appealing in its design. I was also taken by the supersized “organic sculpture” that we stumbled upon. This creation was another popular point for visitors to mill round and snap endless selfies. The mainly green and red bird (of paradise?)◙ is entirely a floral construction in the familiar style of Jeff Koons (the gigantic floral puppy that once graced Sydney’s Circular Quay, now in Bilbao, Spain). 
And if nature encounters with fauna are your bag, then Sun Island will not disappoint. You can visit a section of the park with fenced off animals of the more gentle kind like deer and caribou. Here for a fee you can pat and feed members of the Cervidae family inside an enclosure. I noticed that with the deer, familiarity brings a singular expectation on their part. Far from being reticent and shy, the creatures can sniff out a food-toting human from 60 feet.
But the one member of the animal kingdom that seems most at home on Tai Yang Dao are small rodents from the Sciuridae clan. The island abounds with the common acorn-addicted squirrel, plentiful on the ground and in the trees. So numerous they are, they have been designated their own section, “Squirrel Lake”, but you don’t need to go here to find them, they inhabit the entire wooded area of Sun Island. While walking around the island, at the back of the Russian model gardens, I spotted a ginger cat in hot pursuit of a squirrel, desperately but hopelessly trying to diminish the fleet-footed Sciuridae population by one.
From Harbin’s tourism centro, Zhongyang Jie, you can find your way to Zhaolin Park by heading north one block. This succulently lush green park with its verdant plant life is a great place to retreat to, getting away from all the people, all the hustle and bustle of Zhongyang Street. And it’s very reachable via a short walk down Shangyou Street from Z.Y. Street. 
Zhaolin Park, attractively set on a large block of public land (more than 8 hectares), is roomy yet it is also compact…it fits quite a lot of things into its space while still allowing you the freedom to roam around. What defines the essence of the park is the canal that snakes it’s way through the park and gardens. It is the thread that connects the various parts of green Zhaolin. By walking in concentric circles around the park you can acquaint yourself with the various quaint and charming bridges which cross the canal at different points. 
Zhaolin Park is well resourced, little wonder then that families tend to flock there. It especially caters for the juvenile visitor. Exotic birds in large cages in one part. Several different amusements for children are contained within the park perimeter, plenty of gentle rides for the younger child. For the family as a whole, the most popular element are the paddle boats. You can hire a colourful boat and paddle a course up and down the canal. 
Being on the lookout for traces of the Russian presence that once pervaded Harbin, I particularly noticed the old entrance gates and buildings on my way in and out (in Senlin and in Shangzhi streets). The structures project a distinctly Russian dome character in the design. It is refreshingly and perhap surprising to report that Zhaolin Park is adequately equipped with toilets, but if I had one quibble it is the same one I have with most many public parks. Given the constant and steady stream of visitors Zhaolin receives, it could do with a lot more seats for the punters distributed right across the park.
