Fei Xiaotong, noted Chinese sociologist and anthropologist, died of illness in Beijing at 10:38 PM on Sunday.

Fei was born in 1910 in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, and received his sociological training at Yenching University and Tsinghua University in the early 1930s. He traveled to the UK where he studied with Bronislaw Malinowski and obtained his PhD from the University of London.

In 1939, 29-year-old Fei wrote the book Peasant Life in China, which won him the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI). Later in the same year, he returned to China and became a professor at several universities.

In the 1950s, Fei helped establish the Central Institute for Nationalities and became a professor researching and teaching about ethnic minorities.

In 1957, Fei went back to investigate his hometown Wuxian and produced suggestions on developing secondary production in the countryside. For the next 20 years, he translated works by foreign authors.

Since 1978, Fei has written proposals on the development of the Yellow River Delta and Shanghai economic revitalization. He has also won many international honors. In 1987, he became an honorary fellow of the RAI. In 1980, he won the Malinowski Award for applied anthropology. In 1981, he was awarded the Thomas H. Huxley Memorial Medal for anthropology.

He helped found the Chinese Sociological Association that promotes sociological studies in China and was Honorary President of the Association.

Fei was also the prominent leader of the China Democratic League, a political party, and intimate friend of the Communist Party of China.

He was the vice chairman of the 7th and 8th National People's Congress Standing Committee, vice chairman of the 6th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, and honorary chairman of the Central Committee of China Democratic League.

(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2005)