Qiu Renzong
Qiu Renzong is a Chinese bioethicist. He is a senior research fellow emeritus at China's Institute of Philosophy, and chair of the Academic Committee at the Centre for Bioethics at Peking [Union Medical College]. China Daily writes that he is regarded as the scholar who 30 years ago introduced bioethics to China.
Qiu published a paper in 2002 arguing for the recognition in China of animal rights, and introducing the idea of speciesism. He argued in favour of a gradualist approach to the recognition of rights, rejecting the abolitionist approach as unrealistic. His paper was criticized by Zhao Nanyuan, a professor at Tsinghua University, who wrote that animal rights arguments are foreign ideas and are "anti-humanity."
Qiu was awarded the 2009 UNESCO Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science and he shared the Hastings Center's Henry Knowles Beecher Award with Solomon R. Benatar in 2011.