Chen Hansheng

Chen Hansheng[lower-alpha 1] (Chinese: 陈翰笙; pinyin: Chén Hànshēng; February 5, 1897 – March 13, 2004), also known as Chen Han-seng and Geoffrey Chen, was a Chinese historian, sociologist and academic, considered a pioneer of modern Chinese social science,[1] and also a spy working for the Communist Party, most famously active as a member of legendary Soviet master-spy Richard Sorge's Tokyo ring.[2][3]

Chen Hansheng
陈翰笙
Chen Hansheng
Born	(1897-02-05)February 5, 1897 Wuxi, Jiangsu
Died	March 13, 2004(2004-03-13) (aged 107)
Nationality	Chinese
Other names	Chen Han-seng
Alma mater	Pomona College (B.A.) University of Chicago University of Berlin (Ph.D)
Known for	Pioneer of modern Chinese social science
Scientific career
Fields	Sociology
Institutions	Peking University
Academic advisors	Charles Haskins

A statue of Chen at the Wuxi Museum, showing his visit to a farmer’s home in Baoding to investigate agricultural production and family economic conditions

Chen was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu. He studied at Pomona College, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in History in 1920. He then pursued an MA in History at The University of Chicago. In spring 1922, he enrolled at Harvard University for a History PhD; there he assisted Charles Haskins. However, a year later, he left the United States for Germany, and completed his doctorate in History at Berlin University. In 1924, he became professor of International History at Peking University and later joined the Academia Sinica, working in the Institute of Social Science Research.

Chen was recruited to the Comintern in 1924, by Li Dazhao, as mentioned in his 1988 autobiography My Life During Four Eras. During the 1930s he came down on the Communist side of Mao Zedong, drawing on his field research on the economic conditions of Chinese peasantry for the Institute for Social Science Research. He wrote Landlord and Peasant in China (1936) on this area. He was one of Mao's political theorists, and he spent time out of China in Moscow.

Chen was a member of the well-known Richard Sorge spy ring, initially based in Shanghai. When Sorge was reassigned to Tokyo, Chen went along and worked closely with Ozaki Hozumi and others of the ring until 1935, when the unexpected arrest of a messenger from Moscow almost exposed Chen’s real identity. Chen sensed the danger and fled to Moscow.[2]

After Chen fled from Tokyo to Moscow in 1935, Owen Lattimore, then the editor of the New York-based journal "Pacific Affairs", of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), asked the Soviet Union, a member nation of IPR, for an assistant. Moscow recommended Chen Hansheng to Lattimore, who accepted. Chen then went to New York, and worked with Lattimore from 1936 until 1939, when he was reassigned by Communist intelligence chief Kang Sheng to Hong Kong. Chen stated in his memoirs that Lattimore was kept in the dark as to his true identity as a Communist agent, and that Lattimore’s scholarly and publishing activities were only to be used as a cover for Chen.[2]

At Hong Kong, Chen was responsible for running a network of dummy corporations funnelling huge amounts of money to the war effort of the Communist Party, mostly for the purpose of purchasing Japanese-made weapons from the Chinese collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime, whose military forces were rife with corruption and thoroughly demoralized.

In 1943 Chen moved to Guilin. Wanted by the Kuomintang authorities, he was rescued by the British and airlifted to India where he was recruited by British intelligence in New Delhi, after convincing the British that he had become disillusioned with communism. Between 1946 and 1950, Chen lived in the United States, working as a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. While there, he was active as the Beijing’s secret liaison with the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA).

Chen returned to China in 1950, and served as Director of the Institute of International Relations attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as the founder and first Director of the Institute of World History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (later part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). Persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, he was put under house arrest for two years and often tortured; his wife was tortured to death in late 1968.[2]

Chen was later reinstated, and served as Consultant of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Honorary Director of the Institute of International Relations, professor of politics at Peking University, and editor-in-chief of the "World History Series" published by the Commercial Press.

A centenarian, he died in Beijing in 2004, at the age of 107.