Wang Xuan
Wang Xuan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a well-known computer application specialist, was awarded the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award 2001 together with five million yuan (US$ 600 thousand) by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing on February 1, 2002.
Wang Xuan, 65, is mainly involved in research into computer processing of words, graphics and images. Since 1975, he has been in charge of the research and development of laser typesetting systems in the Chinese language and of electronic publishing systems. Surpassing Japan's second-generation optical designation and the third-generation CRT (cathode-ray tube) designation, the fourth-generation laser typesetting system he invented has not yet come onto the market in other countries.
Wang was born in February 1937 in Shanghai (hometown in Wuxi) and graduated from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics at Peking University in 1958. He has devoted himself to computer sciences education and research ever since. Started in 2000, this highest degree prize of science and technology in China, has only been awarded to 9 scientists by 2006. He was also the vice-president of the CPPCC.
From 1975, he was in charge of the research and development of the Chinese language laser typesetting system and electronic publishing system. Since 1984, he has been a professor at Peking University, and the director of the Institute of Computer Science and Technology at Peking University.
With regard to the characteristics and difficulties of publishing Chinese characters, he invented the high efficiency compression and restoration method. He also took the lead in the designing of a special chip for the system. He was also the first to use control information (parameters) to describe the characteristics of breadth, which he has patented in Europe and China.
The application and industrialization of these inventions ended China's old method of printing which has been used for hundreds of years. It also helped develop China's newspaper, printing and publishing industry.
In addition Wang worked on a Chinese language newspaper editing sand publishing system using large computer terminals, a Chinese language laser typesetting system for color printing, tele-transmission publishing, and a management system for news collection and editing. These technologies can compete with the best in the world.
The rapid expansion and application of Wang's computer technology inside and outside the country has made the Chinese newspaper industry as advanced as any worldwide.
In the early 1980s, Wang started the process of industrializing his life's work. He has also explored a marketing approach combining production, education and research. Currently, Chinese language laser typesetting technology occupies 99 percent of the domestic newspaper industry market and 90 percent of the domestic book (white and black) publishing market.
He was elected an academician of CAS in 1992 and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994.
Wang is the one of the most outstanding scientist with strong marketing sense and prospect. He had devoted a lot to teaching and guiding young scientists, which embodied the new value of modern teachers.
Xu Beihong
Xu Beihong ( July 19,1985—September 26th,1953, used name “ Choukang” ) was born in Yixing, China. He was primarily known for his shuimohua (Chinese ink paintings) of horses and birds and one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a new modern China at the beginning of the 20th century.
He was also regarded as the father of modern Chinese painting to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes - a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique, particularly French Realism.
Xu grew up in an artistic family and showed talent at an early age. In 1915, he went to study in Shanghai, then a melting pot of Chinese and Western cultures. There he met the scholar and political reformer Kang Youwei, who would become his mentor and would greatly influence his thinking about the need to integrate Western practices and ideas into Chinese art.
Xu Beihong's work visually manifests a meaningful and mutually beneficial cultural encounter between China and West, especially his paintings of horse became the milestone and sign of China modern painting.
Sha Zukang
Sha Zukang was born in 1947 in Shanghai; his family relocated to Yixing, in neighboring Jiangsu Province, in the 1950s. In his 37 years of diplomatic service, Mr. Sha Zukang's portfolios have covered a range of fields including economic and social affairs, human rights and humanitarian affairs, politics, and security.
Mr. Sha Zukang officially assumed the office of the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs on July 1, 2007. Prior to assuming his present position at the UN, Sha, 60, held the position of Permanent Representative and Ambassador, Permanent Mission of China to the UN Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland.
Mr. Sha Zukang established the Department of Arms Control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and became its first Director-General. In connection with China's implementation of arms control and human rights treaties, he took charge on many occasions of the coordination between government agencies, military, and civil society in preparing and submitting the implementation reports. He facilitated the on-site inspections by experts and visits by UN working groups, encouraged the development of Chinese non-governmental organizations, and promoted the opening of offices in China by international organizations.
Qian Zhongshu
Qian Zhongshu (November 21, 1910 – December 19, 1998) was a Chinese literary scholar and writer. His writings exhibit his broad and deep understanding of diverse traditions of different culture. He once been one of the translation group for “Mao Zedong’s selected stories”. In his old years, he had been the deputy director of Chinese Academy of Social Science. His satiric novel Fortress Besieged became a best-seller in the 1970s, widely considered as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century Chinese literature. In 1991, it was made into a television drama. Because he was well versed in classic Chinese, his writings often reflect the depth of Chinese literary tradition.
Qian Mu
Qian Mu ( 30 July 1895—30 August 1990) , known as a Chinese historian, educator, philosopher. Seven Mansions was his ancestral home in Wuxi.
After teaching in universities in mainland China starting in 1920s, he arrived in Hong Kong in 1949. With the help from Yale- China Association, along with other traditional scholars, he founded New Aisa College and made cultural communication with Japan, America, Canada, Britain, France and Italy. Later, he received honorary doctorates from both Yale University and Hong Kong University. He wrote extensively on Chinese classics, history and Confucian philosophy.
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