YEN FU

born Jan. 8, 1854, Fu-chou, Fukien province, China died Oct. 27, 1921, China Pinyin Yan Fu Chinese scholar who translated into Chinese works by T.H. Huxley, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Adam Smith, and others in an attempt to show that the secret to Western wealth and power did not lie in Western technological advances, such as gunmaking, but in the ideas and institutions that lay behind these techniques. Yen Fu was sent to England to study naval techniques, but he soon became interested in British government, jurisprudence, economics, and sociology. He returned to China in 1879. China's humiliating defeat by Japan in 1895 prompted him to advocate liberal social and political reform. He did so because he detected in liberal institutions a way of strengthening the state. His understanding of Darwinism convinced him that change must come through a gradual shift in the thought of the Chinese elite, not from revolution. In the chaotic years after the Revolution of 1911, he opposed republicanism in China and supported Yan Shih-k'ai in his attempt to restore the monarchy. In his late years, Yen Fu rejected his earlier position regarding Western thought and turned increasingly to Confucianism and ancient Chinese culture. Yen Fu wrote poetry in addition to his translations; two collections of his poetry were published posthumously. Additional reading Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (1964).