Wu Ting-fang (; 30 July 184223 June 1922) was a Chinese calligrapher, diplomat, lawyer, politician, and writer who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and briefly as Acting Premier during the early years of the Republic of China. He was also known as Ng Choy or Ng Achoy (). Education and career in Hong Kong Wu was born in the Straits Settlement, now modern-day Malacca, in 1842 and was sent to China in 1846 to be schooled. He studied at the Anglican St. Paul's College, in Hong Kong where he learned to read and write in English. After serving as an interpreter in the Magistrate's Court from 1861 to 1874, he married Ho Miu-ling (sister of Sir Kai Ho) in 1864. He studied law in the United Kingdom and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn (1876). Wu became the first ethnic Chinese barrister in history. He returned to Hong Kong in 1877 to practise law. He was admitted as a barrister in Hong Kong in a ceremony that May before Chief Justice John Smale who observed: I am glad to see a Chinaman running in the race the most highly intellectual in the world. I am glad to see that a Chinaman ... has become a member of the English Bar. In England, every office becomes open to talent without favour or affection. A distinguished American statesman has become, and now is an ornament of the English bar, and all the Bar will gladly hail the time when a Chinaman shall distinguish himself as much as the eminent counsel to whom I refer. I have seen stranger things happen. In 1880, Wu became the first ethnic Chinese Unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and was appointed acting Police Magistrate. Service under the Qing Dynasty He served under the Qing dynasty as Minister to the United States, Spain, and Peru from 1896 to 1902 and from 1907 to 1909, having started out as legal adviser and interpreter to powerful diplomat and viceroy Li Hongzhang. As the minister, he lectured widely about Chinese culture and history, in part working to counter discrimination against Chinese emigrants by increasing foreign appreciation of their background. To further this end, he wrote America, Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat in English in 1914. Wu is mentioned several times in the diaries of Sir Ernest Satow who was British Envoy in