Mo Te-hui (1881-17 April 1968), Manchurian official who served as China's chief representative in the 1930-31 Sino-Soviet negotiations concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway. From 1954 to 1966 he served as president of the Examination Yuan in Taiwan.

Born in Sinkiang, Mo Te-hui was the son of a general in the imperial forces who came from Shuangch'eng, Kirin. He received a traditional education in the Chinese classics, and he passed the examinations for the sheng-yuan degree at the age of 20 sui. After being graduated from the Peiyang Higher Police Academy in Tientsin, he was made chief of police at Harbin. He held that post until 1912, when he was elected to the provisional National Assembly in the new republican government. Little is known about his career between 1914, when Yuan Shih-k'ai dissolved the Parliament, and 1921, when Mo was appointed intendant tao-t'ai at Ilan, Kirin. In 1922 he became an adviser in the headquarters of the peace preservation force for the Three Eastern Provinces.

Because of his association with Chang Tso-lin (q.v.) and his administrative abilities, Mo Te-hui was appointed vice minister of agriculture and commerce in the Peking government. He returned to Manchuria in 1926 to become civil governor and commissioner of finance of Fengtien province. He worked to improve educational facilities in the province and served for a time as dean of Northeastern University. In 1927 he was appointed minister of agriculture and commerce in the Peking government. He held that post until June 1928, when Chang Tso-lin decided to leave Peking before the forces of the Northern Expedition occupied the old capital. Mo was aboard the train that was wrecked by a bomb explosion on 4 June 1928 as it was carrying Chang Tso-lin and his party back to Manchuria. Chang was killed, and Mo was seriously injured. When he recovered from his wounds, Mo entered the service of Chang Tso-lin's son Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.). After the political-military disaster that resulted from the mid- 1929 Chinese attempt to seize the Chinese Eastern Railway and oust its Soviet employees, Mo Te-hui was appointed director general of the railwav early in December. The Khabarovsk Protocol, signed on 22 December, provided for the restoration of the status quo ante. Mo then was made president of the railway and China's chief delegate to a conference at Moscow, scheduled to open on 25 January 1930, which was to settle all important questions relating to the administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Early in January 1930 the Chinese decided that Ts'ai Yun-sheng, their plenipotentiary representative at Khabarovsk, had exceeded his instructions; and they began to work for the voiding of part of the Khabarovsk Protocol and the basing of the conference agenda on the 1924 treaties between Moscow and Peking and between Moscow and Mukden. Instead of going to Moscow as planned, Mo Te-hui went to Nanking for consultation with National Government authorities. He finally reached Moscow in M.iv 1930. and his first official meeting with Leo Karakhan. the chief Soviet negotiator, did not take place until October. After a second bargaining session in December. Mo went to Nanking to report on the sessions. He returned to Moscow in March 1931 and participated in 22 fruitless meetings between April and November. The conference then lapsed into inactivity because of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, although it technically remained in session. Mo stayed in Moscow, and he reportedly played a role in the negotiations thai led to the restoration of diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union in December 1932. By this time. Manchoukuo had been established, and there no longer was any apparent purpose in continuing a conference designed to resolve a Sino-Soviet dispute that had arisen in territory that now was under Japanese control. Accordingly, the Moscowconference adjourned in 1933. and Mo Te-hui returned to China.

Little is known about Mo Te-hui's activities from 1933 to 1938, when he became a nonpartisan member of the People's Political Council at Chungking, the National Government's wartime seat. He was named chairman of the council's presidium in 1942. After the War in the Pacific ended he served in January 1946 as a nonpartisan delegate to the Political Consultative Conference. He was a delegate to the National Assembly when it reconvened later in 1946, and he was elected vice chairman ofihe commission for supervision of the enforcement of constitutional government, becoming its chairman in September 1948. In 1947-48 he served on the State Council; and in 1948 he ran as the government-approved candidate for the vice presidency of the republic, but he lost to Li Tsung-jen. He then was appointed adviser to the presidential headquarters, and in 1949 he was made a minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Ho Ying-ch'in (q.v.). Soon afterwards, with the Nationalist defeat in the civil war with the Chinese Communists for control of the mainland, he went to Taiwan and helped establish the National Government at Taipei.

In Taiwan, Mo Te-hui was prominent in the National Assembly that met in early 1954, and from mid- 1954 to mid- 1966 he served as president of the Examination Yuan. During this period, he also continued to serve as chairman of the commission for supervision of the enforcement of constitutional government. He died at Taipei of a cerebral thrombosis on 1 7 April 1968.