Section 2 Formal Accession to the UPU

After the 6th Congress, the relationship between China and the UPU became further developed. In the following years, the postal services in China made constant progress. The number of postal offices increased and the delivery of mail was quick and reliable. The postal staff handling the international mail became quite experienced after much training. When the 7th UPU Congress was held in Madrid, Spain, in 1914, the government of the Republic of China issued a note to the Swiss government, requesting it to forward the message to the member countries of the UPU that China would join the UPU on March l, 1914. On March IO, the General Postal Service issued a circular order f "According to the telegraph from the Chairman of the UPU on March 6, the requirements from China to join the UPU has been accepted, and as was required before, the date of accession is March I ." Because of the influence of the First World War, the delayed 7th Congress was held in Madrid in 1920. China sent the plenipotentiary representative, Liu Fucheng, the Director of Postal Department of the Ministry of Communications and concurrently the Director General of Post Office, to participated in the Congress.

That was the first time China took part in the UPU Congress, which attracted the attention of the UPU. Chinese delegates participated in the various activities in a very active manner, and all of the proposals from China were approved. At that Congress, China made a speech on the abolishment of the "guest post", and read the document from the US indicating the agreement to the Chinese position. His speech won warm applause from all of the participants. China had quite a sympathy from representatives of various countries. That Congress laid a foundation for the abolishment of the "guest post" in China at the Pacific meeting in 1922.