Yu Ying-shih (余英時), described by his peers as the world’s greatest Chinese intellectual historian, on Sunday died peacefully in his sleep at his home in New Jersey, Academia Sinica said yesterday.
He was 91.
Academia Sinica issued two news releases in Chinese and English to pay respect to Yu.
Photo courtesy of Asian Culture Publishing
Yu was “an esteemed scholar and venerable public intellectual hailed as the greatest Chinese intellectual historian of his generation,” it said.
Yu’s works spanned the entirety of China’s history, which set him apart from most historians, with a narrow, epochal focus, it said.
Born 1930 in Tianjin, China, Yu studied under the Chinese historian Qian Mu (錢穆) at New Asia College in Hong Kong before obtaining a doctorate of history from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it said.
He was a pre-eminent figure in China studies, it said.
He was a research fellow at Academia Sinica; professor emeritus at Princeton University in New Jersey, and a professor at Harvard and an associate professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, it said.
Yu’s academic honors include the Tang Prize in 2014, the John W. Kluge Prize of the US Library of Congress in 2006, and the Executive Yuan National Cultural Award in 1991, it said.
Outside the rarefied circle of academics he was part of, Yu was a prominent public intellectual who sympathized with the movement toward freedom and democracy in Taiwan, as well as China, including Hong Kong, it said.
Yu mentored many young historians who later became prominent academics and prompted Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology to establish a prize for young students that bears his name, it said.
Readers can glimpse a spectacular and broad world in Yu’s works, said former Academia Sinica vice president Wang Fan-sen (王汎森), a historian, adding that he had received instruction from Yu during his time at Princeton in the 1980s.
Yu was considerate toward his students and treated them as friends, Wang said.
He advocated democracy over revolution and supported Hong Kong’s democracy movements, he said.
Despite his criticism of Beijing — or perhaps because of it — Yu remained a respected figure in China’s public sphere.
The Paper, a state-owned digital media firm based in Shanghai, reported Yu’s passing in a report that largely cited the US Library of Congress’ effusive biography.
Chinese online shared thoughts on parts of Yu’s works allowed by Chinese censors, including an article against Western-centric interpretations of history, which was published in 2012 by Peking University as part of an anthology.
“This article is worthy of deep thoughts in the situation today,” one commenter wrote.
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
The zero emissions ship Porrima P111 was launched yesterday in Kaohsiung, showcasing the nation’s advancement in green technology, city Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said. The nation last year acquired the Swiss-owned vessel, formerly known as Turanor PlanetSolar, in a bid to boost Taiwan’s technology sector, as well as ecotourism in Palau, Chen said at the ship’s launch ceremony at Singda Harbor. Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) also attended the event. The original vessel was the first solar-powered ship to circumnavigate the globe in a voyage from 2010 to 2012. Taiwan-based Porrima Inc (保利馬) installed upgrades with
ENHANCE DETERRENCE: Taiwan has to display ‘fierce resolve’ to defend itself for China to understand that the costs of war outweigh potential gains, Koo said Taiwan’s armed forces must reach a high level of combat readiness by 2027 to effectively deter a potential Chinese invasion, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) published yesterday. His comments came three days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the US Senate that deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan requires making a conflict “cost more than what it’s worth.” Rubio made the remarks in response to a question about US policy on Taiwan’s defense from Republican Senator John Cornyn, who said that Chinese
RSS