
Bian Zhilin was a 20th-century Chinese poet, translator and literature researcher.

Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. In Japan, he is known as Daruma. His name means "dharma of awakening (bodhi)" in Sanskrit.
Chen Maiping is a Chinese-Swedish writer and poet, known by the pen name Wan Zhi (万之). He has written mostly short stories, and has also translated literature from English and Swedish to Chinese.

Chen Wangdao (1891–1977) was a Chinese scholar and educator. He is recognized as the first and only person to translate the Communist Manifesto into Chinese completely so far. He also served as president of Fudan University from 1949 to 1977.

Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India, visiting sacred Buddhist sites in Central, South and Southeast Asia between 399-412 to acquire Buddhist texts. He described his journey his travelogue, A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms.

John Glasgow Kerr (1824–1901) was an American medical missionary and philanthropist who helped establish the Canton Hospital, also known as the Ophthalmic Hospital, in Canton, China.

Kumārajīva was a Buddhist monk, scholar, missionary and translator from the Kingdom of Kucha. He first studied teachings of the Sarvastivadin schools, later studied under Buddhasvāmin, and finally became an adherent of Mahayana Buddhism, studying the Mādhyamaka doctrine of Nāgārjuna.

Li Da was a Chinese Marxist philosopher. He led the Agitburo after the foundation of the Party. Li Da left the Communist Party in the 1920s due to its reformism. However he maintained close ties with the party and its underground apparatus. Li Da translated many European Marxist works into Chinese. Li Da's most important work was Elements of Sociology, which had a great influence on Mao Zedong. Li Da helped popularize the New Philosophy that gained dominance in the USSR in the 1930s. After 1949 Li Da rejoined the CPC. He was heavily criticized and beaten at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and died in 1966. He was posthumously rehabilitated after Mao's death.

Mo Yun-tuan, known by the pen name Luo Fu, was a Taiwanese writer and poet.

Muhammad Ma Jian was a Hui-Chinese Islamic scholar and translator, known for translating the Qur'an into Chinese and stressing compatibility between Marxism and Islam.

Metrophanes, Chi Sung or Mitrophan was the first Chinese Eastern Orthodox priest to be martyred. He was killed with his family members and church followers in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. He is the best known of some 222 Holy Chinese Martyrs glorified in August 2000 by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Metrophanes was stabbed in the chest by a crowd of rebels. Also considered martyrs are his wife Tatiana, whose Chinese name was Li, his sons, 23-year-old Isaiah and eight-year-old John, and Isaiah's nineteen-year-old fiancee Maria, who were all killed with him.

Xuanzang, born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (陈祎), was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who traveled to India in the seventh century and described the interaction between Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism during the early Tang dynasty.

Yang Xianyi was a Chinese literary translator, known for rendering many ancient and a few modern Chinese classics into English, including Dream of the Red Chamber.
Yijing, formerly romanized as I-ching or I-tsing, was a Tang-era Chinese Buddhist monk famed as a traveller and translator. His account of his travels is an important source for the history of the medieval kingdoms along the sea route between China and India, especially Srivijaya in Indonesia. A student of the Buddhist university at Nālandā, he was also responsible for the translation of many Buddhist texts from Sanskrit and Pali into Chinese.

Zhou Zuoren was a Chinese writer, primarily known as an essayist and a translator. He was the younger brother of Lu Xun, the second of three brothers.