James Gareth Endicott (December 24, 1898 – November 27, 1993) was a Canadian Christian minister, missionary, and socialist. Family and early life Endicott was born in Sichuan Province, China, the third of five children to a Methodist missionary family and became fluent in Chinese. His family returned to Canada in 1910. His father, James Endicott, was elected the second Moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1926 to 1928. Endicott enlisted in World War I as a Private. After the war he was educated at the University of Toronto's Victoria College where he was president of the student council and a founder of the university's Student Christian Movement. Endicott earned a master's degree and was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Canada. In 1925, Endicott returned to China as a missionary remaining there for most of the following two decades. Missionary in China While Endicott was a missionary in China, he taught English in China and became professor of English and Ethics at West China Union University. He became social advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and political advisor to his New Life Movement and served as an advisor to US military intelligence from 1944 to 1945 as a liaison between the American military and the Chinese Communist forces fighting against the Japanese in World War II. Initially a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, he once compared Chiang to Abraham Lincoln and described Madame Chiang as a combination of Helen of Troy, Florence Nightingale and Joan of Arc. He became disillusioned after seeing Chiang's officers starve their troops and by the Kuomintang's corruption. Endicott was impressed by the Communists and became friends with Zhou Enlai as the Chinese Civil War resumed, and he became a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. During the war he provided an underground network where pro-communist forces could meet and exchange ideas. After the war, he spoke at student demonstrations, urging opposition to the Nationalist government and provoking criticism from the church in Canada. This led to his resignation from the ministry and the mission on May 5, 1946 after the United Church of Canada gave him an ultimatum to either modify his public statements or quit. In August 1946 Endicott was invited to help write a constitution for the new League for the Protection of Human Rights in China. Paul Yen, Talitha Gerlach, Y. T. Wu and other liberals were