Hu Shi (1891–1962) was one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century. After a classical Chinese education and then studying with John Dewey at Columbia University, he returned to China in 1917 to become a major figure in the New Culture Movement and an advocate of liberalism and gradualism. A signatory to the Manifesto of the Struggle for Freedom of 1920 (see Text 14, above), Hu nonetheless had a diffident relationship to politics throughout his life, often preferring to leave the compromises and disappointments of concrete political action to others. With this essay in the Xinyue magazine, though, Hu launched a brief human rights movement that included both detailed criticisms of the practices of the GMD government and theoretical discussions of human rights (for an example of the latter, see especially the next text, by Luo Longji). Hu’s main argument in this essay is that genuine protection of human rights requires a legal foundation that applies impartially to all, including members of the military and the government. He demonstrates that a balanced reading of Sun Yatsen’s writings also points to the need for a “provisional constitution,” though he neglects to say that Sun was no defender of unqualified “human rights” (see Text 18). Hu’s position in this essay is criticized by the Communist Peng Kang, translated below as Text 23.
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