Chang Jen-Chieh

Life & Legacy

Zhang Renjie (Chinese: 張人傑; pinyin: Zhāng Rénjié; Wade–Giles: Chang1 Jen2-chieh2; born Zhang Jingjiang; 19 September 1877 − 3 September 1950) was a political figure and financial entrepreneur in the Republic of China. He studied and worked in France in the early 1900s, where he became an early Chinese anarchist under the influence of Li Shizeng and Wu Zhihui, his lifelong friends. He became wealthy trading Chinese artworks in the West and investing on the Shanghai stock exchange. Zhang gave generous financial support to Sun Yat-sen and was an early patron of Chiang Kai-shek. In the 1920s, he, Li, Wu and the educator Cai Yuanpei were known as the fiercely anti-Communist Four Elders of the Chinese Nationalist Party.