19th-century Belgian civil servants

Émile Theodore Joseph Hubert Banning (12 October 1836 – 13 July 1898) was a doctor of philosophy and literature and a Belgian senior civil servant who played an important role in the Belgian politics of the 19th century.
Born in Liège, Banning started his career as a journalist with the l'Écho du Parlement, where he became an observer of the political life, after a stay at the Royal Library as its archivist and librarian, he was appointed to the department of Foreign Affairs where he quickly became a kind of oracle in all the historical and geographical questions of his time.
From a "simple" historian he became a leading actor of the great decisions in matters of Belgian domestic as well as international policy. His knowledge of the world was of great support to Leopold II of Belgium, even if the king moved away more and more from the advice of Banning.
Émile Banning was a leading negotiator at the Berlin Conference of 1884 and the Brussels Conference of 1890 both involving the Congo. His political doctrines, based on high international morality and the respect of the law of nations, influenced many Belgian personalities such as Pierre Orts.
He died in Brussels on 13 July 1898.

Paul Splingaerd (1842 in Brussels – 1906 in Xi'an, China) was the Belgian foundling who became an official or mandarin (bureaucrat) in the late Qing government. As both a Belgian and a Chinese mandarin, Paul acted as a liaison on various Sino-Belgian projects in the late nineteenth century. The best known are the negotiations for Belgium to build the first major railway in China, the Beijing-Hankou Railroad (Lu-Han Railway in China) and the development of a Belgian-Chinese industrial, mining and commercial enterprises in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province. Although better known in China where he was known by many names, including Lin Fuchen (林 輔臣), Su Pe Lin Ge Er de (斯普林格尔德), Lin Balu Lin Bao luo, Bi lishi Lin ('Belgian Lin'), Lin Darin, Lin Ta Jen, in European circles he developed the reputation for being the "Famous Belgian Mandarin." Paul also initiated negotiations for the First Iron Bridge Across the Yellow River in Lanzhou, China, now known as Zhongshan Bridge, but died before it was built.