Travelling to Japan as an overseas student in his youth, Zhang studied the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and attempted to reinterpret Confucianism along Kantian lines.

From 1935 to 1937, Zhang founded and presided over the literary and philosophical monthly periodical Wenzhe yuekan (文哲月刊) at the Tsinghua Campus (淸華園).

Zhang veered towards acceptance of the inevitability of Communist victory and took government positions after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

However, his earlier passionate devotion to intellectual freedom and searching critiques of Marxism made him an object of suspicion, obliging him to live in obscurity and in constant fear of persecution.

After 1949, Zhang, although still a notable politician in the PRC, began to secretly provide the CIA with intelligence from the onset of the Korean War as he did not believe North Korea could win.

In 1951-1952, Zhang’s activities with the CIA was discovered and he was charged with providing secret information to the US, which was fighting China directly in the Korean War, therefore losing his position and rights in the government.

All beings exist in a process of constant change that manifests itself in a never-ending modification of structural connections, and the growth and decline of the qualities of the "essence" of particular entities.