Zhang Qianfan | |
|---|---|
 Zhang in 2018 | |
| Born | January 1964 (age 62) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin Carnegie-Mellon University Nanjing University |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Constitutional law |
| Chinese name | |
| Traditional Chinese | 張千帆 |
| Simplified Chinese | 张千帆 |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Zhāng Qiānfān |
Zhang Qianfan (张千帆; born January 1964) is a constitutional lawprofessor atPeking University Law School,[1] and an activist who advocates constitutionalism in China and has called for China's general political and judicial reform.[2]
Zhang was born inNanjing and raised in Shanghai. He is analumnus ofNanjing University, where he studied Solid State Physics as an undergraduate. He earned aCUSPEA scholarship to attendCarnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, where he received a PhD degree inbiophysics in 1989. After 2 years of doing postdoctoral research, he attended theUniversity of Maryland to study law but dropped out after the first year because he could not afford the tuition. In 1995, he was awarded a scholarship to attend theUniversity of Texas at Austin and received a PhD degree in Governmental Theory in 1999.[3]
Zhang left the United States and taught law at Nanjing University in 1999. He later became a constitutional law professor at thePeking University Law School inBeijing. He also serves as senior deputy director of Peking University Administrative and Constitutional Law Center and director of the Law School's Congress and Parliamentary Studies Centre.[citation needed]
He is the author of several hundreds academic publications. His bookConstitutional System in the West helped introduce western constitutionalism in Chinese. His bookThe Constitution of China: A Contextual Analysis was published in the United States in 2012.[4]
In February 2019, his textbook,Study of Constitutional Law: Principles and Applications was withdrawn from book stores and university teaching materials in China, as part of a nationwide check on constitutional law textbooks launched by theMinistry of Education earlier that year.[5] Zhang stated in response that "As an academic discipline, constitutional law should not be politicized. If it is, there will be no knowledge, as politicization and knowledge are incompatible". He also noted that this development represented a "retreat" from China's own constitution, of which Article 35 guarantees freedoms of speech and publication.[6][7]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
