Wang Chonghui was a minister’s son strongly influenced by Christian values while growing up in the church, but was not a practicing Christian during his adult life. Wang received his doctorate from Yale University.
As a returned student, he worked in the ROC Judicial Yuan along with American advisors, including Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound, to produce a thorough revision of the 1936 ROC draft constitution. In the spring of 1948, the National Assembly promulgated the new constitution, and officially chose Chiang Kai-shek as President and Li Zongren (Tsung-jen) as Vice President.
Dr. Wang became presiding judge of the Supreme Court, Minister of Justice, one of three Chinese delegates to the Washington Disarmament Conference in 1921-22, and a member of the Permanent Court of International Justice.
Near the end of his life while suffering from cancer, Wang came back to the Christian faith of his youth. His wife was a Christian, as evidenced by her activities in later years on Taiwan.
Sources
- May-lee Chai and Winberg Chai, The Girl from Purple Mountain: Love, Honor, War, and One Family's Journey from China to America (New York: St. Martin's Press Thomas Dunne Books, 2001).
- Wallace C. Merwin, Adventure in Unity: The Church of Christ in China (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), p. 48.
- Zhao, Suisheng, Power by Design: Constitution-Making in Nationalist China (Honolulu, U. of Hawaii Press, 1996), Chapter Two, "The Rise of Constitutionalism," pp. 21-37; 241.
About the Author
Senior Associate, Global China Center; Chinese Editor, Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.
