China Heritage Annual

In many respects, the fate of Hu Shi, whose doggerel poem about outspokenness inspired the title of Xu Zhangrun’s essay, was also tragic. The great language reformer, scholar, president of Peking University, Republic of China’s ambassador to the United States, adviser (諍友, ‘political friend who dared to disagree’) of Chiang Kai-shek and celebrated academician, Hu, following his retreat to Taiwan with the defeated Nationalist government, finally found himself unable to resist the blandishments of power. In his later years, his once spirited defence of independent political values and free speech faltered, and then failed. This final benighted chapter in the history of China’s most famous twentieth-century liberal is discussed in depth by Chin Heng-wei 金恆煒, a noted political commentator, essayist and editor in Confronting Autocracy — the contrasting attitudes of Hu Shi and Yin Haiguang 面對獨裁——胡適與殷海光的兩種態度, Taipei: Yunchen Wenhua 允晨文化, 2017.