Zhang Dongsun

Zhang Dongsun (張東蓀; also transliterated as Chang Tung-sun) (1886–1973) was a Chinese philosopher, public intellectual and political figure.

Travelling to Japan as an overseas student in his youth, Zhang studied the epistemology and ethics of Immanuel Kant, and attempted to reinterpret Confucianism along Kantian lines. He took part in famous debates about the relative merits of "science and metaphysics," allying himself with the then fashionable metaphysics of Henri Bergson. He was equally well-known, as an exponent of the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, whom he accompanied on a tour of China in 1920.

A prominent exponent of Chinese liberalism, he became a powerful influence in the China Democratic League in its original incarnation as a non-Communist "third force" grouping opposed to the dictatorship of the Guomindang (Kuomintang or KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek.

In addition to the Second World War era, Zhang also taught the students at Tsinghua University in the 1930s and the 1940s. From 1935 to 1937, Zhang founded and presided the literary and philosophical monthly periodical Wenzhe yuekan(文哲月刊) in Tsinghua Campus(淸華園).

Zhang veered towards acceptance of the inevitability of Communist victory and took government positions after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. However his earlier passionate devotion to intellectual freedom and searching critiques of Marxism–Leninism made him an object of suspicion, obliging him to live in obscurity and in constant fear of persecution. During the early years of the PRC, he served in the new government as a member of the Central governmental committee, as counsellor at the Ministry of Culture and in various other high-level positions, while maintaining his position as professor of philosophy at Tsinghua University. However, In 1951-1952, he provided secret information to the US, which was fighting China directly in Korea, therefore losing his position and rights in the government and was expelled by the China Democratic League soon after. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was hospitalized in the Beijing Railroad Hospital due to his poor health, and was later imprisoned due to his information leak committed nearly 20 years ago. He died in 1973.

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