John Ching Hsiung Wu (also John C.H. Wu; Traditional Chinese: 吳經熊; pinyin: Wu Jingxiong) (28 March 1899, Ningbo – 6 February 1986) was a Chinese jurist and author. He wrote works in Chinese, English, French, and German on Christian spirituality, Chinese literature (including a translation of the Tao Te Ching) and on legal topics. On his Tao Te Ching translation, Thomas Merton said Wu's work was "absolutely necessary for us not only to progress but even to survive."

Biography

A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, he was the principal author of the constitution of the Republic of China (ROC). He maintained a correspondence with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and later produced scholarly work examining Holmes' legal thought. Previously a Methodist, he was a convert to Roman Catholicism after reading the biography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Wu served as an adviser in the Chinese delegation to the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco and served as the Chinese ambassador to the Vatican in 1947-49. He resigned in August, by which time the ROC Foreign Ministry had already re-located to Taipei due to Nationalist losses in the Chinese Civil War. Wu requested that the ROC delay naming his replacement because of what he described as the delicate situation. In 1957, Wu was appointed a judge of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. After the Chinese Communist Revolution, Wu worked as a professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law in New Jersey until retiring to Taiwan in 1967.

Works by John C. H. Wu