Wang, Chengting Thomas, 1882-1961.

Chengting T. Wang: active in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and helped draft the laws founding the Republic; in 1912 elected Deputy Speaker of the Legislature, and in 1913 made Vice-Minister of Industry and Commerce; in 1916 Deputy Speaker of the Senate; joined Assemblymen who formed a separate government in Canton in 1917, and in 1918 was sent as representative to the U.S.; in 1922 became Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Finance under Kuomintang, remaining until 1931; in 1932 became state councillor of the Nationalist Government.

Chengting T. Wang: active in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and helped draft the laws founding the Republic; in 1912 elected Deputy Speaker of the Legislature, and in 1913 made Vice-Minister of Industry and Commerce; in 1916 Deputy Speaker of the Senate; joined Assemblymen who formed a separate government in Canton in 1917, and in 1918 was sent as representative to the U.S.; in 1922 became Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Finance under Kuomintang, remaining until 1931; in 1932 became state councillor of the Nationalist Government.

On returning to China from Yale, Wang became secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in Shanghai. Within a few months, however, he plunged into the turmoil of Chinese politics. He was active in the Revolution of 1911 which overthrew the Empire and helped draft the basic law on which the Republic was tentatively organized. In January 1912, he was elected a member of the Provisional Legislature and was chosen its Deputy Speaker. In February 1913, he was made Vice-Minister of Industry and Commerce and became Acting Minister of the same Board in May. When, in 1913, the first National Assembly of the Republic met in Peking, he was Vice-President Deputy Speaker of the Senate. In the ensuing struggle between the President, Yuan Shih-k'ai, and the majority party of the Assembly, Wang took sides against the President. In consequence, his life was in danger and he was among those unseated by the would-be dictator.

Then for two years, while out of public office, he found vent for his energies in social service as national secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association and in lecturing and church work. On the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai in 1916, the National Assembly dismissed by him reassembled, and Wang resumed his post of the Deputy Speaker of the Senate. Within about a year, in the vicissitudes of Chinese politics, the National Assembly was again dismissed, this time at the instance of a clique of military leaders in the North who inherited the traditions of Yuan. Thereupon a group of the Assemblymen, Wang among them, in protest against what they believed a retrograde and unconstitutional action, formed a government at Canton. In the autumn of 1918 Wang was sent by this government as its representative to the United States. The following year he was appointed a member of the official delegation which so ably presented the case of China at the Peace Conference at Paris. When eventually Japan became willing to withdraw from Shantung, Wang became (June 1922) China's ranking member of the joint Sino-Japanese commision which drew up the formal agreement. With these achievements as evidence of his ability in diplomacy, he became, in October 1922, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the following December was appointed to act as Premier.

In the rapid shifts of government in the next four years he was sometimes in office and sometimes out. Always he was striving for a stable regime and for the increase of the prestige of China in international arffairs. During part of the time he handled the delicate and highly important negotiations with Soviet Russia and in March 1924, signed the preliminary agreement with Karakhan. Other posts held during these troubled years were Minister of Justice, member of the Educational Sinking Funds Commission, and chairman of the Customs Conference which prepared the way for the full recovery by China of her control over her own foreign tariff duties.

In 1927 he became director-general of the Lung-Hai Railway. In 1926 and 1927 the forces of the Kuomintang, of which he had long been a member, were successfully proceeding with the program of the unification of China and were setting up the Nationalist Government at Nanking. In 1926 Wang became Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Finance concurrently and in these positions gave astute and vigorous leadership in the negotiations for a revision of the treaties for the recovery of customs autonomy and the end of extraterritoriality. In the student agitation formented by the enemies of the Government during the Japanese operations in Manchuria in 1931, Wang was attacked by the mob and severely wounded. He resigned his post, but continued as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and in January, 1932, became state councilor of the Nationalist Government.

Along with his many political duties, Wang has found time to engage in business. He was the organizer of an import and export company, was the founder of the Hua Feng Cotton Mill Company at Woosung, and for a time was its managing director. Since 1926 he has been president, and beginning with 1932, general manger of the Liu Ho Kou Mining Company, Ltd. He has also taken an active part in many private or semi-public institutions and organizations of the assistance of China. He is president of China University (in Peiping) and a member of the board of directors of St. John's University, Futan University, and Nanking University. He has also been a director of the China International Famine Relief Commission, a member of the National Flood Relief Commission, chairman of the finance committee of the United Philanthropic Associations of Shanghai, a member of the Standing Committee of the China Aviation League, and president of the China Good Roads Movement Association and the Pan-Pacific Association. He belongs to the Chinese Episocopal Church.

He also has found time for the preparation of many articles for Chinese and foreign magazines and newspapers, and in 1933 some of his addresses of the previous ten years were published (in Chinese) by the Modern Book Company of Shanghai. Among his honors are an LL.D. From Peiping University (1917) and from St. John's University (1920), the First Class Tashou Chiaho decoration (1922), the First Class Tashou Paokuang Chiaho (1922), and the First Class Wenhu (1923).

Exerpted from the biography of Chenting T. Wang which appeared in the twenty-fifth year record of the Class of 1910, Yale College.