Biography in English

Chiang T'ing-fu (7 December 1895-9 October 1965), known as T. F. Tsiang, scholar and diplomat. After teaching diplomatic history at Nankai (1923-29) and Tsinghua (1929-35) universities, he became ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1936. After February 1938 he served as director of the political department of the Executive Yuan. He was named permanent representative to the United Nations in 1947 and was appointed ambassador to the United States in 1961.

Shaoyang, Hunan province, was the birthplace of T. F. Tsiang. His father, Chiang Hsuhsueh, was an independent farmer who owned a small general store and lived in comfortable, though not affluent, circumstances. Although the family had the conventional Chinese respect for education, it was not known for scholarly attainments.

At the age of five, T. F. Tsiang, together with his brother and their cousins, was placed under a private tutor to prepare for regular schooling. A year later he was sent to a neighborhood school to study the Confucian classics. He was also required to read portions of a major historical work, the Tzu-chih Cung-chien [comprehensive mirror for aid in government], and of the celebrated commentaries by the seventeenthcentury Hunanese scholar and patriot Wang Fu-chih (ECCP, II, 817-19) entitled Tu fung-chien lun [on reading the comprehensive mirror].

In 1905, T. F. Tsiang left home for Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, to attend the Ming-te School. The founder of the school was Hu Yuan-t'an (q.v.), one of the most distinguished Hunanese educators of his time. In 1906, Tsiang transferred to a school run by American Presbyterian missionaries in Hsiangt'an, Hunan, so that he could study English. He remained there until the outbreak of the 1911 revolution, when instruction was suspended. Mrs. William R. Lingle, the principal of the school, planned to return to the United States, and T. F. Tsiang decided to go with her. They had reached Shanghai when they learned that conditions in Hunan had so improved that it Chiang T'ing-fu was posssible for the school to open again. Accordingly, Mrs Lingle returned to Hunan. T. F. Tsiang was determined to go to the United States, however, and he sailed alone. He arrived at San Francisco in February 1912. A Chinese pastor from Chinatown put him in touch with a YMCA secretary, who arranged for him to go to Parkville, Missouri, to enter Park College, a self-help institution where needy students could defray part of their expenses by working part time for the school. T. F. Tsiang managed to complete his first year at Park College, but found himself unable to meet expenses during the second year. In desperation, he wrote to the Hunan provincial government to request scholarship assistance. The request was granted, and he was graduated from Park College in 1914.

In the autumn of 1914 T. F. Tsiang entered Oberlin College. He was graduated from Oberlin in 1918. He then went to France, where he served as a YMCA secretary for the Chinese labor battalion attached to the French army. He returned to the United States in 1919 and entered Columbia University as a graduate student in modern history. Unlike most Chinese seeking advanced degrees in history in the United States, Tsiang eschewed Chinese subjects and wrote his dissertation in the field of British political history. It was entitled "Labor and Empire: a Study of the Reaction of British Labor, Mainly as Represented in Parliament, to British Imperialism since 1880." He received the Ph.D. degree from Columbia in February 1923. During his years as a graduate student in New York, T. F. Tsiang also headed the Chinese students' club at Columbia and edited the Chinese Students Monthly, an English-language periodical circulated throughout the United States. In 1921, he was among the representatives of the Chinese Students Alliance who went to Washington to monitor the Chinese delegation to the Washington Conference in order to prevent the surrender of China's vital interests to Japan.

In 1923 T. F. Tsiang returned to China after an absence of more than ten years to join the faculty of Nankai University at Tientsin. While a graduate student at Columbia, he had developed a keen interest in the history ofChina's foreign relations. In reading Chinese diplomatic history, he had been struck by the fact that it usually had been reconstructed by foreigners and, thus, the Chinese side of the story had never been told adequately. In the 1920's the subject gained new importance because of the availability for the first time of documents from the Ch'ing archives. The Palace Museum at Peking, repository of the archives of the Grand Council of State of the Ch'ing government and of the Tsung-li yamen, a special board that had been established in 1861 under the Grand Council to handle foreign affairs, began publishing documents relating to China's foreign relations in the nineteenth century. Studying these documents, Tsiang gained new insights into the conduct of China's foreign relations during the late imperial period and the forces that had hindered and delayed China's adjustment to the modern world. After six years at Nankai, T. F. Tsiang in 1929 accepted an invitation to go to Tsinghua University at Peiping as chairman of the history department. The move afforded him greater opportunities for scholarly research, since the documents in the Palace Museum were close at hand. Moreover, Tsinghua, a wealthier institution than Nankai, could afford to allot more funds for the acquisition of books, historical documents from private collections, and papers of eminent families. During the next few years, he was able to build up at Tsinghua a collection of great value in the field of modern Chinese history. Tsiang was also successful in creating one of the best-balanced history faculties in China; it included such leading scholars as Ch'en Yin-k'o and Lei Hai-tsung (qq.y.). Tsiang reduced the teaching load of his staff so that the professors could devote more time to research. Through his efforts, Tsinghua also adopted a system of sabbatical leaves for its teaching staff, the first such system in China. T. F. Tsiang was a teacher who possessed the ability to convey to students his intellectual excitement and enthusiasm for the importance and relevance of his subject. Tsiang also assisted some foreign students in China. John K. Fairbank (later a professor of Chinese history at Harvard), who had come to Peiping in 1932 to study Chinese, began to work on Chinese documents under Tsiang's guidance. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1 93 1 , T. F. Tsiang and a group which included Hu Shih, V. K. Ting (Ting Wenchiang), Wong Wen-hao, and Fu Ssu-nien (qq.v.) began publishing a political weekly, the Tu-li p'ing-lun [independent critic]. The first issue appeared on 22 May 1932, and the magazine was an instant success. Many Chinese university students, patriotic intellectuals, and Communists clamored for war against Japan, but Tsiang counseled patience and cool-headedness. He believed that the Far Eastern crisis was the prelude to a global conflict which was already in the making. Since he did not consider it wise for China to attempt to fight Japan at the wrong time and without allies, he advocated a policy of temporizing. "Our humiliations at the hand of Japan," he wrote in an editorial on 13 March 1933, "cannot be wiped out by fighting one skirmish here and another skirmish there. Such sporadic fighting, unsupported by adequate preparations in the military, economic and diplomatic fields, is worse than useless; it only serves to allow the enemy to swallow us up by a piecemeal process. Let us never forget that the Sino-Japanese question is a world problem of the first magnitude. Should the Japanese militarists persist in committing aggressions against China, they will sooner or later dig their own graves." T. F. Tsiang's articles attracted much attention. In the summer of 1934, Chiang Kai-shek, through the banker and politician Wu Tingch'ang (q.v.), asked Tsiang to come to Kuling, a mountain resort in Kiangsi, for consultation. The problems they discussed included national unification and Japanese aggression. T. F. Tsiang voiced strong opposition to unifying China by military force and to undertaking an all-out war with Japan. Later in 1934 he met with Chiang again, this time in Nanchang. It was his year of sabbatical, and he intended to leave for Europe on a study and observation tour. Chiang Kai-shek requested that he go to Moscow first as his personal representative to assess the possibilities of securing Soviet support against Japan. Tsiang consented to serve on a private basis. In Moscow, he had interviews with a number of responsible officials. He made it clear that the National Government of China hoped to obtain Soviet support against Japan, but noted that the domestic policies of the National Government would remain opposed to Communism. Stomaniakoff, the Soviet deputy commissar for foreign affairs, assured him that anti-Communism was no obstacle to friendly relations and cited Russian relations with France and with Turkey as examples. He also declared that, so far as the Soviet Union was concerned, Chiang Kai-shek was China's only leader. After a stay of three months, Tsiang left Moscow for Western Europe. He published his impressions of the countries he visited in a series of articles in the Tu-li pHng-lun. When he returned to China in 1935, he summarized his observations in an article in the Kuo-wen chou-pao [national news weekly] of 30 September 1935. He described the conflict of ideologies in Europe and stated his belief that a showdown was imminent. He also ventured the opinion that the Western democracies were stronger, both materially and spiritually, than either Fascism or Communism.

In December 1935, not long after T. F. Tsiang's return, Chiang Kai-shek assumed the presidency of the Executive Yuan of the National Government at Nanking. At that time he invited two members of the Tu-li p'ing-lun group who were not members of the Kuomintang to join the new government ; Wong Wenhao became secretary-general of the Executive Yuan at Nanking, and T. F. Tsiang became the director of the political department of the Executive Yuan. Tsiang left Tsinghua University in December 1935 to go to Nanking. In October 1936 Tsiang was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union, with the mission of improving Sino-Soviet relations. The National Government hoped that the Soviet Union might be induced to come to the aid of China in the event of war with Japan. T. F. Tsiang soon discovered, however, that although Moscow was prepared to contemplate with equanimity China's entering into an all-out conflict with Japan, the Russian Communist leaders had no intention of becoming directly involved in'the Far Eastern theater at that time. In December 1936 Chiang Kai-shek was detained at Sian by Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.). In Moscow, Pravda published a lead article extolling Chiang Kai-shek's leadership, asserting that Chiang alone had the prestige and authority to lead a united China against Japan, and calling the Sian Incident a plot by pro-Japanese politicians headed by Wang Ching-wei. Bogomolov, the Soviet ambassador to China, was then in Moscow for consultation. He called on T. F. Tsiang and asked him to cable the Pravda article to the National Government in China. Tsiang did so, but he omitted the portion of the article that concerned Wang Ching-wei, then one of the most prominent political leaders of the country. He feared that the publication in China ofso sensational and ungrounded a charge would discredit the article as a whole and create dissension in the National Government at a time of grave crisis.

Chiang Kai-shek was released at Sian on 25 December 1936. War with Japan then became inevitable. Influential men at Nanking cherished great hopes for Soviet participation in the war. T. F. Tsiang, on the basis of his estimates of the situation in Moscow, did all he could to dispel such illusions. He thus incurred the displeasure and antagonism of some officials of the National Government.

The Sino-Japanese war broke out in July 1937. A Sino-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed on 21 August 1937, and in September a formal agreement was concluded for collaboration between the National Government and the Communists in China. T. F. Tsiang was assigned responsibility for seeking Soviet assistance to China. Shortly afterward, General Yang Chieh (q.v.) was sent to Moscow from Nanking to arrange for the purchase of Soviet arms and equipment. Yang reported that Russian participation was imminent. Many influential officials at Nanking believed him. T. F. Tsiang, China's ranking diplomatic representative in the Soviet capital, was accused of being misinformed. In February 1938 he was recalled from Moscow.

On his return, he found a China very different from the country he had left two years before. The coastal cities had been lost to the Japanese, and the National Government had evacuated to Hankow. The well-known financier H. H. K'ung, then president of the Executive Yuan, urged Tsiang to return to his former post as director of its political department. Tsiang hesitated for a time and devoted himself to writing. In 1938, after the National Government moved from Hankow to Chungking, T. F. Tsiang resumed his duties as director of the political department of the Executive Yuan in the wartime capital. In early 1940 he supervised the removal of government offices and hospitals to the outskirts of Chungking to escape Japanese bombing. The same year he was assigned responsibility for preparing and coordinating the national budget. Beginning in late 1942 Tsiang became involved in preparations for postwar relief and represented China at meetings of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the United States (Atlantic City, 1943), Canada (Montreal, 1944), and England (London, 1945). In 1945 he was appointed director general of the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. He resigned from that post in 1946 because of disagreement about policy with T. V. Soong, then president of the Executive Yuan. Although Tsiang hoped to return to academic life and accepted a visiting professorship at the University of California, Chinese friends persuaded him to remain in China. The only government post that Tsiang wanted at that time, the governorship of his native Hunan province, was unavailable. He accepted the temporary assignment of representing China at meetings of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) held at Shanghai. In the summer of 1947, while in New York in connection with ECAFE business, he was instructed to represent China on the Security Council of the United Nations in the absence of the permanent representative, Quo T'ai-ch'i (Kuo T'ai-ch'i, q.v.). In September, he was one of the five Chinese delegates to the meeting of the General Assembly. Soon thereafter, when Quo T'ai-ch'i was appointed ambassador to Brazil, T. F. Tsiang was named as China's permanent representative to the United Nations. China was then at the peak of her influence in the infant international organization, and Tsiang attempted to use that influence to press for orderly solutions to the many problems of postwar Asia. His thinking was determined by his belief that nationalism was the elemental force in the contemporary world. He argued that the Western colonial powers should take a liberal and far-sighted view of the national aspirations of the dependent peoples and that undue delay in settling colonial questions would make their eventual solution more difficult, more costly, and less rational. He also held that independence should be attained and followed by orderly progress, which could be achieved only in cooperation with the former metropolitan powers. He was the author or co-author of numerous resolutions which contributed in no small measure to Indonesian independence. He was personally disappointed that, after the Republic of Indonesia had become an independent state in December 1949, one of its first acts was to accord diplomatic recognition to the new Communist regime in China.

After the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China was established in October 1949, T. F. Tsiang's position in the United Nations became increasingly difficult. His right to represent China in the international organization was challenged on 10 January 1950 at a meeting of the Security Council, when Yakov A. Malik, the Soviet representative, demanded his immediate withdrawal. T. F. Tsiang met the Soviet challenge with dignity. When the Security Council rejected the Soviet demand, Malik walked out of the meeting. His departure marked the beginning of a sevenmonth Soviet boycott of United Nations organs. Trygve Lie, then the Secretary General of the United Nations, attempted to persuade the Soviet representative to return to the organization. He also worked for the seating of the Chinese Communists and circulated among members of the Security Council a confidential memorandum setting forth legal arguments for unseating T. F. Tsiang. Tsiang fought back by characterizing Lie's memorandum as "bad law and bad politics." Beginning in 1950, the issue of Chinese representation in the United Nations became a thorny problem at sessions of the General Assembly. The issue led to bitter controversy over the right of the representatives of the Republic of China to represent China at the United Nations. As China's permanent representative, T. F. Tsiang bore the brunt of the battle to maintain his position and that of his government. With unflagging tenacity, he argued that the government headed by Chiang Kai-shek was the only legitimate government of China and that it was based on a constitution drafted and passed by duly elected representatives of the Chinese people. Although T. F. Tsiang's speeches at the United Nations gained relatively few converts, they won the respect of many, including some of his opponents in the organization.

In November 1961, T. F. Tsiang was appointed Chinese ambassador to the United States. He presented his credentials in Washington in January 1962, though he continued to serve concurrently as China's representative at the United Nations until July 1962, when Liu Chieh, China's ambassador to Canada, was appointed to succeed him. Tsiang served as his government's ambassador at Washington until April 1965, when he was succeeded by Chou Shu-kai, who had been ambassador to Spain. He then moved back to New York, where he was hospitalized. He died of cancer at New York Hospital on 9 October 1965, at the age of 69. Tsiang's published works include two volumes ofChin-tai Chung-kuo wai-chiao shih tzu-liao chi-yao [essential documents on modern Chinese diplomatic history] . This work was planned in three volumes, but only two volumes were published, in 1930 and 1934. During a brief period of respite from official duties in 1938, he produced Chung-kuo chin-tai shih ta-kang [outline of modern Chinese history], a concise and thoughtful survey of China's position in the modern world. He also published articles on Chinese diplomatic history in the Tsing Hua Journal ofChinese Studies and was an editor of the Chinese Political and Social Science Review.

T. F. Tsiang's marriage to T'ang Yu-jui ended in divorce. He married Hilda Shen on 21 July 1948 and was survived by her and by the four children of his previous marriage.

Biography in Chinese

蒋廷黻

蒋廷黻(1895.12.7—1965.10.9),学者和外交家。1923—29年,1929—35年先后在南开大学、清华大学教外交史。1936年出任驻苏大使。1938年2月任行政院政务处长,1947年任常驻联合国代表,1961年出任驻美大使。

蒋廷献出生在湖南邵阳。他父亲蒋恕学(音)是一个自耕农,并开设一家杂货店,生活虽不富裕,但尚称安适。他的家庭如一般中国人一样重视子女教育,但远远说不上有追求学术上成就的要求。

蒋廷黻五岁时,为准备入学,和他的同胞弟兄以及堂兄弟从塾师读书。一年后,他进入邻近学校习读孔孟典籍及史书,如《资治通鉴》及王夫之的《读通鉴论》。

1905年,蒋廷黻离家去长沙进明德学校。该校系胡元倓创办,他是当时著名的湖南教育家。1906年,转入湘潭的一所美国长老会传教士办的教会学校,他从此有机会学习英语。1911年发生革命,该校停办,校长林格女士准备回美
国,蒋廷黻决定随同前去。他们到上海时,听说湖南形势大为改观,学校可以重新开学。因之,林格女士回湖南,而蒋廷黻独自去美国。

他于1912年2月到达旧金山,经华人区一个牧师介绍与青年会干事相识,安排他到密苏里的派克维尔进了派克学院,这是一所半工半读学校。他在派克学院学习一年后,无力支付第二年的日常费用,因此写信给湖南当局申请奖学
金,他的请求获准。1914年他在派克学院毕业。

1914年秋,蒋廷黻进了欧伯林学院,191B年毕业。然后他去法国,以青年会干事身份在法军中做华工工作。1919年回美国,进哥伦比亚大学当近代史研究生,他与在美国攻读历史高等学位的大多数的中国学生不二样,他的毕业论文
并不以中国历史为题,而是研究英国的政治史,题为《工党与帝国:关于英国工党自1880年以来主要社议会中对英帝国主义的反动之考察》,1923年2月,他获得哥伦比亚大学哲学博士学位。他在纽约当研究生时,领导哥伦比亚大学的中国学生会,并主编英文期刊《中国学生月刊》,该刊流传全美。1921早时,他作为中国学生同盟的代表之一,去华盛顿观察参加华盛顿会议的中国代表团的动向,以防止向日本屈服,而损害中国的重要权益。

1923年,他离国十余年后回国,在天津南开大学任教。他在哥伦比亚大学当研究生时,就很注意中国对外关系史。他在读中国外交史时,发觉都是一些洋人的活动,而中国方面的情况没有恰当表达。在二十年代时,由于首次能査
阅清代档案文件,这一研究主题的重要性更显现山来了。北京的故宫博物院藏有清政冷军机处和1861年设立的专司外事的总理衙门的档案,发表有关十九世现中国对外关系的文件。蒋廷黻在研究这些文件中,对清末中国外交关系的情
况以及阻碍中国适应近代世界的原因,有了新的了解。

他在南开工作六年后,1929年因聘去北京清华大学当历史系主任,这对他的学术研究更为有利,故宫的档案近在身边,而且清华比南开经费充裕,可供收购私家收藏的书籍和历史文献以及名门收藏的资料。几年之中,他为清华筹
设了一组中国近代史的重要资料,历史教席亦很完备:有着名学者如陈寅恪、雷海宗等人。他又减少教授讲课学时,以便有更多时间进行研究。由于他的推动,清华在中国是第一个实行教师休假制度。蒋廷黻是一位善于使学生了解他
所研究的课题的重要性的教师。他还协助一些在中国学习的外国留学生,如费正清(以后任哈佛大学中国史教授),他于1932年到北平学中文,在蒋廷黻的指导下研究中国文献。

1931年9月,日本侵占满洲后,蒋廷黻及胡适、丁文江、翁文灏、傅斯年等人主办政治周刊《独立评论》。1932年5月22日创刊号出版,当即获得成功。很多大学生、爱国知识界和共产党人呼吁对日抗战,但蒋廷黻却很稳健冷
静。他认为远东危机不过是正在酝酿中的全球危机的序幕,他认为中国在这个不利时机又无外援的情况下对日抗战是不明智的,他主张因循观望。1933年3月13日他写的社论中说:“中国从日本所受的耻辱不可能以零敲碎打的战斗就
可以洗雪。在军事、经济、外交方面全无准备的情况下冒险出战,这不仅徒劳无益,而后果更坏,这只能促使敌人将我们蚕食殆尽。不要忘记,中日问题是一个头等重要的世界问题。日本军阀肆意侵犯中国,不过是自掘坟墓而已”。

蒋廷黻的文章,引起很大注意。1934年夏,蒋介石通过银行家、政治家吴鼎昌,请蒋廷黻到牯岭咨询,他们的讨论涉及有关国家统一和日本侵略等问题,蒋廷黻强烈反对武力统一中国和全面抗击日本的主张。同一年晚些时侯,他在南昌再次见到蒋介石。这一年是他的休假期,他准备去欧洲考察。蒋介石要他以蒋介石私人代表的身份先去苏联,试探苏联支持抗日的可能性,蒋廷黻同意前往。在莫斯科他会见了许多负责官员,阐明了中国国民政府希望苏联支持抗日的愿望,同时指出国民政府的外内政策,仍将是反对共产主义的。苏联副外交人民委员斯托尼可夫向他保证说,反对共产主义并不妨碍友好关系,并举俄国和法国、土耳其的关系为例。斯还声称苏联迄今认为蒋介石是中国的唯一领袖。

蒋廷黻在苏联耽了三个月后,离莫斯科去西欧。他对所访问的国家的印象记,连续发表在《独立评论》上。1935年回国,他在9月30日的《国闻周报》上发表了一篇文章,总叙了他的观感,叙述了欧洲思想界的斗争,并认为一决
雌雄的时刻即将到来,他断言,西方的民主政治,无论在物质方面或精神方面,都比法西斯主义和共产主义为强大。

1935年12月,蒋廷黻回国不久,蒋介石在南京任国民政府行政院长,邀请了《独立评论》的两名非国民党人员参加新政府,即翁文灏任行政院秘书长,蒋廷黻任行政院政务处长。1935年12月,蒋廷黻离开清华大学到南京。

1936年10月,蒋廷黻出任驻苏大使,以求改善中苏关系。国民政府希望一旦中国对日作战苏联能援助中国。然而,蒋廷黻很快就觉察到,虽然莫斯科冷静地注视着中国进入全面对日作战,但俄国共产党首领们无意于在那时直接卷
入远东战场。

1936年12月,蒋介石被张学良拘禁在西安,在莫斯科,《真理报》发表了一篇重要文章,称誉蒋介石的领导,并认为只有他才有声誉和权威领导中国团结一致地抗日,并称西安事变是以汪精卫为首的亲日政客的阴谋。当时苏联骁
华大使鲍哥莫洛夫正奉召回莫斯科咨询,他拜访了蒋廷黻,请蒋把《真理报》上的文章转发给中国国民政府。蒋照办,但删节了有关汪精卫的段落,因为汪精卫那时是国内的重要政治领导人物之一。他深恐这篇文章中敏感而又没有根据的指责部分在国内发表,会引起对整篇文章的全盘否定,并在这严重危机时期造成国民政府的分裂。

1936年12月25日,蒋介石在西安获释,对日作战势不可免。南京方面的有影响人士迫切希望苏联参战。蒋廷黻基于他对莫斯科情况的估计,竭力打消这种幻想,因此遭致国民政府某些官员的不满和反感。

1937年7月,中日战争爆发,8月21日,中苏互不侵犯条约签订,9月,国民政府和中国共产党达成共同合作的正式协议。蒋廷黻受命争取苏联的援助。不久,派杨杰由南京去莫斯科购买军火装备。杨杰报告苏联参战即将实
现,南京不少有影响的官员深信不疑。身为驻苏首都的外交代表蒋廷黻被责为报导失实,1938年2月,蒋廷黻从莫斯科被召回国。

他回国时,看到中国与他两年前离国时大不相同,沿海城市沦入日本之手,国民政府撤武汉。当时任行政院长,著名的财政家孔祥熙,催他复任以前担任过的行政院政务处长之职,他踌躇了一段时间后,仍决定专心从事著述。
直到1938年国民政府从汉口迁到重庆后,蒋廷黻才在战时首都复任行政院政务处长的职务。1940年初,为躲避日本人的轰炸,他负责将政府机关和医院迁到重庆郊区。同年,他受命编制国家预算。

从1942年底起,蒋廷黻着手战后救济工作,代表中国出席在美国(1943年在大西洋城)、加拿大(1944年在蒙特利尔)和英国(1945年在伦敦)召开的联合国善后救济总署会议。1945年任中国善后救济总署署长。1946年他因为与
行政院长宋子文在政策上发生分歧而辞职。蒋廷黻希望重新从事学术生涯,接受了加利福尼亚大学之请为客籍教授,许多中国友人劝他留在国内。那时蒋廷黻唯一希望的政府职位是当他的家乡湖南省主席,但这是可望而不可及的。他
临时担任中国代表,出席在上海举行的联合国亚洲远东经济委员会会议。1947年夏,他在纽约处理有关经济委员会的事务时,因常任代表郭泰祺不在,蒋奉命代表中国出席联合国安理会。9月,他是中国五代表之一,出席联合国大会。不久郭泰祺出任驻巴西大使,蒋廷黻被任命为中国联合国常驻代表。

中国在这个初成立的国际组织中影响很大,蒋廷黻想利用这个机会,逐步解决战后亚洲的众多问题。他认为民族主义是现代世界的基本力量。他认为西方殖民国家对附属国人民的民族愿望,应该以明智远见的态度对待,不及时解
决殖民地的问题,会使问题的解决更困难,代价更大,而更为不合情理。他还认为独立必须在前宗主国的合作下有秩序地进行才能获得。他是促使印度尼西亚独立的许多重要决议的起草人和合作起草人。印度尼西亚于1949年12月独立后最早的行动之一是对中国的共产党新政权予以外交上的承认,他对这事感到很失望。

1949年10月,中华人民共和国中央人民政府成立后,蒋廷黻在联合国的地位日趋困难了。1950年1月10日,苏联代表马立克在安理会的一次会议上要求蒋廷黻立即撤走,他在这个国际组织中代表中国的权利受到挑战,蒋廷黻处之
泰然,安理会否决了苏联的要求,马立克退出会场。此后七个月中,苏联抵制参加联合国机构。

于是联合国秘书长赖伊劝请苏联代表重回联合国,给予中国共产党以席位,并在安理会成员中散发一件机密备忘录,从法律上讨论取消蒋廷黻的席位的问题。蒋对此加以反击,他对赖依的备忘录斥之为“坏法律、坏政治”。

从1950年起,中国在联合国的代表席位问题成为历次联合国大会的棘手问题,中华民国在联合国的代表权问题引起激烈争论。蒋廷黻作为中国的常任代表在这场争论中为他的席位也是为他政府的席位力加辩说,他坚定不懈地说明
蒋介石所领导的政府,是中国人民选出的代表所制定和通过的宪法为基础的唯一合法的中国政府。蒋廷黻的发言,虽难以改变人们的观点,但他仍然羸得不少人的尊重,其中也有他的反对者。

1961年11月,蒋廷黻出任中国驻美大使,1962年I月,在华盛顿递呈国书,同时又兼任中国驻联合国的代表至1963年7月,以后由中国驻加拿大大使刘锴继任这一职务。蒋廷黻在华盛顿任驻美大使,一直到1965年4月,后由驻
西班牙大使周士楷继任。然后他迁往纽约,因病住院,1965年10月9日,因癌症死于纽约医院,时年六十九岁。

蒋廷黻的著作公开发行的有《清代中国外交史资料辑要》两卷,该书原计划出版三卷,但只在1930年、1934年出版了两卷。他在1938年公余时间,写了一本《中国近代史大纲》,简明扼要地叙述了中国在近代世界中的地位。他有关中国外交史的文章,有不少发表在《清华学报》上,他又是《中国政治社会学报》的编辑。

蒋廷黻和唐玉如结婚,后又离婚。1948年7月21日,与希尔达•沈结婚。蒋廷黻遗有继室和前妻的四个儿女。

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