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Still, May Fourth leaders were constantly sapped of energy by accusations, sometimes leveled by government officials or their proxies among the literati, that the movement was slavishly pro-Western, insufficiently Chinese, or even unpatriotic.

The life and contributions of P.C. Chang make a mockery of the notion that the May Fourth ideals weren’t “Chinese” enough. Like his friend Hu Shih, Chang had studied in the United States on a scholarship. Attracted to the theater, he was the first to adapt the Chinese story of Mulan for the stage. He brought Western plays to Nankai University, which his brother helped found. And he organized a tour of the United States by the Peking Opera star Mei Lanfang, adapting the music and dance to Western tastes. In China’s philosophy of moral cultivation and rigorous education, Chang saw advantages that could be combined with ideas from the West to form something new.

This culminated in Chang’s crowning achievement: His decisive contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was the document drafted after World War II by an international panel chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Chang, who was by then a veteran diplomat representing China, was a member of the panel. The declaration’s aim was to prevent despotism and war by morally obligating governments to