Israel Epstein was an internationally renowned journalist and writer. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he worked hard to report to the world about the heroic resistance of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people. He returned to China in 1951 to participate in the founding of the magazine China Reconstructs (now China Today). He became a Chinese citizen in 1957 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1964.

"I love China and the Chinese people. China is my home. It is this love that has tied my personal life to the destiny of China." Epstein had a sincere affection for China and dedicated his life to the cause of Chinese foreign communication, making important contributions to the enhancement of mutual understanding and friendship between China and abroad.

Choice of a Lifetime

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in April 1915, Epstein came to Harbin, China, with his parents in 1917 at the age of two, and later moved to Tianjin in 1920, where he spent his adolescence. He felt deeply that Tianjin became the most vivid example of how the great powers eating China mouthful by mouthful like a pack of vicious wolves. A main road of the city, passing through the concessions of three countries, took three different names: the section through the French concession was called "Great French Road," the one through the British concession was named "Victoria Road" after the Queen of England, and the one through the German concession was named "Wilhelm Street" after the German Emperor. The one through the German Concession is named "Wilhelm Street" after the German Emperor. Other streets were named after generals of the great powers' invasion of China or diplomats who forced the Chinese government to sign unequal treaties. According to Epstein, "These road names are constantly humiliating and injurious to China."

Living in China, Epstein was educated in Western English from an early age, and Chinese works were not part of the scope of his reading and study. But outside of books, he witnessed firsthand the atrocities of the imperial powers as they encroached on China's land and oppressed the Chinese people at will; he saw China at that time in a divided warlord situation, with social chaos and the people's livelihood in shambles. One cold winter morning, ten-year-old Epstein was on his way to school when he saw a child of his age huddled up in a doorway, frozen to death by the biting winter wind. As a result of years of war and famine, many refugees, thin and ragged, poured into Tianjin, starving, freezing, and without food or clothing. As the reality of the situation continued to hit Epstein, a strong sympathy for the Chinese people gradually emerged in his young mind.

This sympathy against colonialism prompted Epstein to learn to choose his own position. His parents who adhered to socialist beliefs had a profound impact on the formation of his worldview. He sided with China and the Chinese people on an increasing number of matters. When he was still in elementary school, Epstein and his family agreed that the Great Revolution led jointly by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, which swept through China, was just and necessary, a rarity among foreign families in Tianjin at the time. He wrote in his memoirs: "The Japanese encroachment on China in the 1930s and all the accompanying horrors — which happened around me and which I heard and saw — awakened me and I became increasingly sympathetic to the wave of national revolution being waged by the Chinese people."