Professor Hans van Ess is a renowned sinologist and Mongolist scholar, with research interests in Chinese history, Confucianism and Central Asian studies related to China and Mongolia. Early studies in Chinese studies, Turkish studies and philosophy, in 1992 received a doctorate in literature from the University of Hamburg, in 1998 as director of the Sinology Department of the University of Munich, served as director of the Institute for Cultural Studies, and vice president of the University of Munich since 2013; he becomes honorary professor of Sun Yat-sen University from 2014-2017, and the chairman of the Max Weber Foundation in Germany in 2015, member of the scientific advisory board of the Asian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Editorial of T'oung Pao, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Guoxue xuekan, and founder of the series of publications Lun Wen. He is the author of Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China. Pan-ma i-t'ung, one of the most important works in the study of the Western on Shiji and Hanshu.