Hu Shi (or Hu Shih) (1891–1962)

Chinese liberal scholar and reformer. He wrote extensively on Chinese philosophy, but is best known for his championing of bai hua, the new Chinese vernacular that would make literature accessible to the masses, and wrote poetry in bai hua, Experimental poems (1920). An opponent of communism, he served the Nationalist government as ambassador to the USA 1938–42 and United Nations 1957, and was president of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan 1958–62.

Born in Jiqi (Chi-ch'i), Anhui (Anhwei) province, he went to school in Shanghai, and went on to study English literature, political science and philosophy at the universities of Cornell 1910–14 and Columbia 1915–17, where he became a disciple of the philosopher John Dewey and developed his ideas for the revitalization of Chinese culture and literature by the use of the vernacular. He was Professor of Philosophy at Beijing (Peking) University 1917–26 and at Shanghai 1927–31, and Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Beijing 1932–37.