New | First Chinese government delegation to commemorate China’s WW1 dead in France

In a landmark visit, senior Chinese diplomat Li Zhaoxing is set to travel to France to attend a first world war memorial event, ending a century of oblivion about the fate of thousands of Chinese labourers sent to Europe during the conflict.

The former foreign minister and spokesman of the National People’s Congress is leading the nation’s first official delegation to attend a war memorial, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Tuesday.

The event is set to mark the anniversary of the war's outbreak one hundred years ago this month.

The first world war began on July 28, 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, triggering a series of war declarations around the continent and ushering one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.

While China remained neutral in the war until 1917, Chinese government front companies and private recruiters hired hundreds of thousands of workers to work for Russia, Great Britain, France and the United States – in work sites in Europe and the Middle East – starting in 1915.

Thousands died and little remains known about those who went to work for Tsarist Russia and for Britain in the Middle East. Over the last years, however, the 140,000 Chinese workers who worked for France, Britain and the US on the Western front have been rediscovered by historians as well as the Chinese government.