Feng Shan Ho, former Nationalist Chinese ambassador to Mexico and the Middle East, died on Sunday in his home in San Francisco. He was 96.
Mr. Ho was a diplomatic representative of the Nationalist Chinese government for 40 years until his retirement in 1973.
He was the country’s consul general in Vienna when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. Like some of his counterparts from other nations, he helped many Jews escape the Nazis by issuing them visas to China. In one particularly close call, Mr. Ho was waiting at the home of Jewish friend with a visa when the Gestapo knocked on the door. He was able to put off the Nazi officials until his friend was safely out of the country and on his way to China.
During World War II, he was chancellor of the Chinese military mission to Washington and later was an information specialist for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs in Chungking, the country’s wartime capital.
From 1947 to 1956 Mr. Ho was ambassador to eight Middle Eastern countries and was stationed in Cairo. Two years into his posting, Mao Zedong and his communist comrades assumed power in China, and the nationalists fled to Taiwan.
For six months Mr. Ho and his staff were stranded in Egypt with no salaries and no contact with their government. Mr. Ho was able to keep the embassy open and maintain the support of the Egyptian government for the remainder of his tenure in the Middle East.
He then was ambassador to Mexico for eight years and ambassador to Bolivia and Colombia before his retirement to San Francisco in 1973.
Mr. Ho was born in Yiyang, China. He graduated from the College of Yale-in-China, which is sponsored by Yale University, and earned a doctorate in political economy at the University of Munich.
He leaves his wife, Shauyun Hwang Ho; a son, Monto, of Pittsburgh; a daughter, Manli, of Arrowsic, Maine; two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
