Ding Shisun, a renowned mathematician and one of the first advocates of the algebraic number theory in China, passed away in Beijing at the age of 93 on October 12.

Ding was former chairman of the China Democratic League (CDL), one of the parties in China which consists mainly of intellectuals in the fields of culture, education and science and technology.

He was also the president of the prestigious Peking University from 1984 to 1989.

Ding, born in Zhenjiang, east China's Jiangsu Province in September 1927, studied mathematics at Tsinghua University from 1948 to 1950, was a teaching assistant at the mathematics department of the university from 1950 to 1952 and worked at Peking University first as a professor and then as the dean of the mathematics department from 1952 to 1984.

He was a vice chairperson of the ninth and 10th standing committees of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and chair of the seventh, eighth and ninth central committees of the CDL.