Li Shu-hua was a Chinese biophysicist and politician. He was an educator, and administrator at Peking University and a Chinese diplomat. He was the brother of Li Shu-tien. He went to France where he earned a doctorate in Physics. In 1922 he returned to China where he worked at the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China and at the Academia Sinica. From 1935-1949 he was chairman of the Chinese delegation of the Commission Mixte des Oeuvres Franco-Chinoises. In 1945 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and participated in the conference for the founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. In 1946, 1947, and 1949 he attended the general conferences of the UNESCO as a Chinese delegate; in 1952 he served as chairman of the Chinese delegation to the Seventh General Conference of UNESCO. In 1949 he returned to France where he did research work at the Universite de Paris. In the academic year of 1951-1952 he taught Chinese language and culture at the University of Hamburg in Germany. He relocated to New York City in 1953 and died of a heart attack there in .
Childhood and Education
Li Shu-hua was born in Qinhuangdao, Hebei. As a youth he studied Chinese Classics with private tutors. In 1912 he graduated first in his class at Chihli Higher Agricultural School and received a government grant to study in France, where he participated in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement. He studied under a number of renowned professors, among them Nobel laureates Paul Sabatier, Gabriel Lippmann and Marie Curie. He also worked in the lab of Jean Perrin. Li received the certificate of Ingenieur Agricole from the University of Toulouse in 1918, and the degrees Licencie es Sciences Physiques and Docteur es Sciences Physiques from the University of Paris in 1920 and 1922, respectively.
Politics
Three leaders of the Tongmenghui lived as guests in the dormitory of the preparatory school Li attended prior to his studies in France. Once in France Li met and befriended Li Shizeng and Wu Zhihui, two of the fiercely anti-communist "Four Elders" of the Chinese Nationalist Party; Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library contains multiple volumes of his personal with them in Chinese. Li admired the President of Peking University Cai Yuanpei: "President Cai stood for academic freedom. The professors whom he engaged for Peking University ranged from one extreme to the other in political thinking. Li Shizeng advocated the theory of anarchism. President Cai himself believed in the doctrines of Kropotkin. In Peking University Mr. Cai adopted the policy of "university governed by professors". All of the important problems concerning the university were discussed in the Senate of University which was composed of a number of professors elected by and from among all professors." While Li's first allegiance was to science he also wrote about people, politics, and events. His Reminiscences includes the sections "Wu Chi-hui, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, Li Shi-tseng, and Chang Ching-chiang: Their Participation in the Revolution and Their Contributions to China" and "What I know about Li Ta-chao and Ch'en Tu-hsiu and the Early Development of Communism."
