Zhang Renjie

Biography

In December 1902 Zhang Renjie stepped off a train in Paris as part of the Chinese legation. His post was the humblest, Third Secretary; a title bought by his family and his father’s connections had done the work. He was twenty-five, and his wife had come with him.

He was born on 19 September 1877, according to some accounts in Nanxun, in the family home, the Zunde Hall, according to others in Wuxing in Zhejiang, though the family came from Nanxun. The background is described the same way throughout: his grandfather traded in silk and salt, his father, Zhang Baoshan, expanded the business and married into a family of Shanghai silk compradors, that is, intermediaries in trade with foreigners. The boy liked riding, calligraphy and Go. He chose the name Renjie, “outstanding personality”, for himself. In his youth he fell ill, walked and saw poorly, and gave up the examinations for official rank, and his grandfather bought him the title of Expectant Daotai, a candidate for an official post. At about the same time the family arranged his engagement to Yao Hui.

In Beijing in 1901 he met Li Shizeng, the son of a high Qing official. Both were dissatisfied with the state of the country. When Li was appointed attaché to Sun Baoqi, the Minister to France, Zhang used family connections to get a place in the same mission. On the way, in Shanghai, they met Wu Zhihui, a well-known opponent of the Manchu dynasty. Li soon left the service to study; Zhang resigned only in 1905.

In Paris he founded the Ton-ying Company (Tongyun Gongsi), with a gallery on the Place de la Madeleine. It imported Chinese tea, silk and works of art and is considered the first firm of its kind in France. His father provided 300,000 Chinese dollars. Among its employees was Loo Ching-tsai, known in the West as C. T. Loo, later an influential dealer in Chinese art. Ton-ying later opened branches in New York and London. Thanks to Zhang’s position in China, the firm obtained pieces directly, including some from the former Imperial Collection. Later he also speculated on the Shanghai stock exchange, but a considerable part of his fortune, and of the money for the revolutionary cause, came from this trade.

It was Li Shizeng who introduced him to anarchism. Zhang rejected religion and the family and argued against traditional ideas about the sexes. I suspect, judging by how quickly his interest cooled, that he was attracted more by its scientific aura and its revolt against custom than by its politics. In 1905 in London he renewed his friendship with Wu Zhihui, and with his money the three founded a publishing house, Shijie she (“The World”). In 1908 the journal Xin Shiji (“New Century”, in Esperanto La Novaj Tempaj) appeared: Zhang paid, Wu edited. The journal translated French radical thinkers and introduced Chinese students to Kropotkin, Proudhon and Reclus. Supporting both a journal and Sun Yat-sen was beyond his means, and in 1910 the publication closed.

On a steamship in 1906 Zhang met Sun Yat-sen and made the first of many contributions. They agreed on a code for telegrams: a letter stood for the sum to be sent. In Paris Zhang brought Wu and Li into the Tongmenghui, the revolutionary alliance led by Sun, and was himself sworn in by Hu Hanmin and Feng Ziyou; because of his attacks on religion they let him omit the oath “by heaven”. According to Sun Yat-sen’s recollection, Zhang was the most generous of his donors.

After the Revolution of 1911 Zhang returned to China. He was one of the organizers of the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement, which sent worker-students to France. He declined the post of finance minister, but kept giving money to Sun Yat-sen even after Sun fled to Japan under Yuan Shikai. In Shanghai he made acquaintances in a wide range of circles, especially among people from Zhejiang. After the assassination of Chen Qimei in 1916 he took his place as Chiang Kai-shek’s mentor, helping him with money and advice. In 1923, when Sun Yat-sen invited Soviet advisers and admitted the Communists to the party, Zhang, as a representative of the right wing, was elected to the Central Executive Committee together with Li Shizeng, Wu Zhihui and Cai Yuanpei. They came to be called the “Four Elders” of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang).

In 1925 Zhang was among the witnesses to Sun Yat-sen’s deathbed political will. In April 1927, together with the other Elders, he urged Chiang Kai-shek to purge the party of the left, after which the White Terror began in Shanghai. Later a rift opened between him and Chiang Kai-shek that lasted until Zhang’s death. The cause is said to be that Chiang abandoned Jennie, a friend of Zhang’s wife, for Soong Mei-ling.

From November 1928 to January 1930 Zhang was governor of Zhejiang and headed the National Reconstruction Commission, which dealt with industry and electric power. He built power plants, among them one in Hangzhou, and in China he is also remembered for the Hangzhou–Jiangshan railway line. From 1931 his influence declined. By the mid-1930s he had withdrawn from politics, turned to art and Buddhism, and became a vegetarian. In 1937 he left with his family, first for Hong Kong, then for Europe, and then settled in Riverdale, in New York City. He and Li Shizeng sometimes met to look out over the Hudson.

Zhang Renjie died in New York on 3 September 1950. Chiang Kai-shek sent the family a telegram of condolence and wrote an inscription for the memorial service: “Deep grief for losing my teacher.”