Introduction

      The significance of some historical figures becomes increasingly apparent with the passing of time. This book is about one such person: the Chinese diplomat and philosopher Peng Chun Chang (or Zhang Peng Chun) (1892–1957), who for many years remained largely unknown to the general public.¹

      Why write a book about a virtually unknown Chinese philosopher and diplomat who died, disappointed, in a small town outside New York City? By the time he came to spend his twilight years in modest circumstances in Nutley, New Jersey, Peng Chun Chang had seen many of his dreams and visions come to nothing. His life story, whose finest hour was a key role in determining the shape of one of history’s most important documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ended in bitterness, frustration, and hardship.²

      Peng Chun Chang lived his final years in the shadow of the Cold War and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vicious campaign against communists, supposed as well as actual. Toward the end of his life, Chang drifted out of view from the world, eventually dying disappointed and alone. A diary kept by his colleague Charles Malik, a Lebanese philosopher on the UN Commission on Human Rights, records that during a lunch in autumn 1949 Chang expressed particular bitterness toward the US, complaining about its almighty dollar, its business culture, and its materialism. It was, he declared, a country utterly lacking in morals.³ Interestingly, Chang had expressed a similar attitude while an undergraduate in the United States, something which reveals that certain ideals were a more or less constant presence in his life. In one of his early articles, titled “Shakespeare in China” (1915), Chang observed: “I come from the East—from the land of the Religion of Responsibility. But the lands of the Religion of Greed are fast encroaching upon us.”⁴ In these remarks Chang referred to what he called the commercial lands of twentieth-century Europe and America. In an article from 1931 Chang also claimed: “A common task is facing all people of the world today. In the seething cauldron of greedy contentions, we must attempt to build, and build together, a paradise for poets out of the paradise for profiteers.”⁵

      By way of answer to the question of why we should care about Chang’s life, the following study will start from the fact that he was the coauthor of one of the most important documents in history. His particular contribution to that document has also taken on a special relevance for the present moment as a consequence of China’s current situation and probably future direction. Not least, a study of Chang’s life and work promises to deepen our understanding of the contents and significance of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, a document in whose drafting he played so decisive a role.

      Almost seventy years have passed since the declaration was adopted, and sixty since Peng Chun Chang’s death. With the disappearance of the last generation to have lived through the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the aggression unleashed by the Axis powers, it has never been more important to keep our historical consciousness alive. The drafting of the UN Declaration of Human Rights was one of the earliest and most forceful global reactions to the Holocaust, fascism, and the horrors of the Second World War. In the space of just a few years—years that were characterized by growing ideological polarization—a group of individuals who had themselves experienced the cruelty of war succeeded in hammering out a broad bill of rights.

      The issues on which Chang focused have also moved to center stage in recent public debate and world politics. When certain issues become increasingly urgent, politically and ethically, the result can be that particular ideas and responses take on an even greater significance than when they were first formulated. Multiculturalism, intercultural dialogue, globalization, the religious neutrality of states, and the boundaries of religious tolerance—all are claiming an ever more central role in contemporary public and academic debate. And Chang was intensely engaged with these questions. Indeed, pluralistic tolerance was one of his guiding concepts, especially in connection with his writing of the UN Declaration. He also emphasized that human rights are important not only for the regulation of the relationship between the state and its citizens, they are also important for interpersonal relations in social settings such as the family, the school, and the local neighborhood. This view has also become more widespread in recent ethical debates.⁶ Further, Chang stressed the limits of law and the limits of coercion, complaints, and punishment in fulfilling the respect for human rights more generally. He also wanted to include positive measures, such as educational efforts. In other words, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that in political-theoretical debates, Chang has once again become our contemporary.

      Closer examination of Chang’s ideological interventions in connection with the drafting of the UN Declaration reveals that his focus was on the key issues, including the declaration’s function and nature, its justification and realization, and its principal articles, notably Article 1. Chang was one of the authors who bore perhaps the greatest responsibility for what we now consider the most significant characteristics of the declaration, especially when the latter is compared with earlier bills of rights. These include the declaration’s claims to religious neutrality and universalism as well as its focus on the individual and its ambition to be an instrument for the advancement of humanity’s moral maturity or stature. The British writer and diplomat Brian Urquhart has aptly claimed that Chang was the one among the key drafters who gave the strongest sense of universalism to the work with the Universal Declaration.⁷ The Universal Declaration has been criticized (according to some, unfairly) for its Western orientation. However, Chang did much to make the document all-inclusive and, hence, contributed to its global legitimacy.⁸ Pivotal in this process was Chang’s intercultural perspective on ethics, his emphasis on religious neutrality, and his ability to reach constructive compromises.

      The Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BC), who interested Chang greatly, is currently enjoying a renaissance in China, where his philosophy is often invoked in support of the political order. Chang, however, tried to reconcile and support human rights thinking through references to Confucian thought, such as the individual’s duties to one’s society, welfare rights, the emphasis on moral education, and the concept