Colleagues,

We were saddened to hear of the recent passing of Professor ZHANG Xianglong, a loss that will be felt by many. Our sympathies go out to his family and friends. Please see below the thoughtful remembrance of him that Professor Bo Mou shared with the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP).

-The SACP Board

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As some of you have already known it, Professor ZHANG Xianglong (張翔龍 1949-2022), the founding Vice President of the ISCWP (2002-2005) and former President (2005-2008), passed away last Wednesday, 8th June 2022 (Beijing time) at home in Beijing, China, due to the late stage of pancreatic cancer.

Though the news to me is not too unexpected as Xianglong let me know earlier on in January this year that he had been recently diagnosed as this almost incurable cancer and in our last email contact around the end of April that the treatment was not quite effective…, I was shock and felt especially hard deep in my heart. Actually, just on the beginning days of this month after the end of this busy Spring semester, I was thinking of scheduling a short zoom get-together with Xianglong (if his situation would allow); I so regretted losing the last chance to say the final goodbye to him.

Xianglong has made his significant contribution to the development of ISCWP. In 2002, I talked with Xianglong and several other colleagues about establishing ISCWP to meet the due need and promote comparative studies of Chinese and Western philosophy for the sake of contributing to the contemporary development of philosophy and society. Xianglong gave his firm support and actively participated in due preparatory work. It was no wonder that Xianglong then served as the founding Vice President during the period of the first term of ISCWP board (2002-2005) and became President in the 2nd term (2005-2008). During his term, in 2008, Xianglong successfully organized ISCWP’s conference on methodology of comparative philosophy at Peking University. As the founding team members of ISCWP, Xianglong and I have a long-term trustful and effective cooperation for the sake of healthy development of ISCWP and, more generally, of comparative philosophy as a general way of doing philosophy through cross-tradition engagement toward world philosophy in the past two decades. With shared visions and in view of his holistic and wise command of relevant situations, Xianglong has persistently given his effective and valuable support of a range of strategic ideas and events of ISCWP while giving constructive suggestions. I have felt so proud of having such a trustful and valuable friend and colleague like Xianglong.

My memorial article of Xianglong will appear in the coming July 2022 issue (vol 13 no 2) of the journal Comparative Philosophy (www.comparativephilosophy.org).

With warm regards,

Bo Mou