In China he met the future American president Herbert Hoover during negotiations concerning the granting of the Hankow-Canton railroad concession in China in 1901.
Various peregrinations through China followed, including Canton and Hankow, the latter of which was the centre of Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation.
Tongji Hospital, founded in Shanghai in 1900 by Erich Paulun, a German, and Wuhan Union Hospital (formerly Hankow Mission and Hankou Union Hospital) founded in 1866 by Griffith John, a British man, were attached to Tongji College as its university hospitals.