James R. Townsend, emeritus professor of political science and East Asian studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, passed away peacefully on January 17, 2004 after a decade-long battle with cancer. He was 71.

Professor Townsend was a member of the first post-Second World War generation of China scholars. He studied in the late 1950s and early 1960s at one of the Centers for Chinese Studies that had been established by the Ford Foundation to supplement traditional discipline training. Townsend completed his PhD at the University of California at Berkeley, as did other prominent scholars such as Fred Wakeman (history), Chalmers Johnson (political science), Paul Ivory (economics), and Woody Watson (anthropology). He commenced his teaching career in the Berkeley department of political science, only to be recruited away by the University of Washington in 1968. Washington remained his home base thereafter.

Jim Townsend's place in the development of contemporary Chinese studies was multifaceted, due to his intellectual ability, his deep personal commitment to expanded knowledge and interest in China and, equally important, his unique personality. He was a teacher, a researcher and an advocate of knowledge for knowledge's sake.