21 June 2009
Michael Crook, Vice Chairman
International Committee for the Promotion
of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Dear Michael,
Please convey my hearty congratulations to all those celebrating the 70th anniversary of the original founding of the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives in 1939. So many of you have worked hard and loyally for the co-operative movement over many years.
What a long and glorious history you are celebrating today! The Gung Ho movement, under the leadership of Madam Soong Ching Ling and directed by a group of splendid Chinese and foreign leaders, made a major contribution to the war effort in defeating Japanese imperial aggression during the 1937-45 occupation of eastern China. I am also delighted that my fellow countryman Rewi Alley played a heroic role in that movement, and that late in his life he took the initiative to reassemble the leadership and resurrect the movement to once again contribute to the betterment of Chinese society—and in such different circumstances.
As a former member of the ICCIC executive and a recipient of the Rewi Alley Award for Honorary Promoters and the Gung Ho Award two years ago, I am proud to have been associated with this great movement. Long may it continue to build genuinely democratic co-operatives that will be models for socialist organisation at the grass-roots level in the modern development of China.
With best wishes to all,
Professor Bill Willmott, Friendship Ambassador
Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
