CHINA'S DYNAMIC STATESMAN (1878-1944)
EUGENE CHEN, four times Foreign Minister of Chinese
government one of the most dynamic political figures of the twentieth-century,
was born of Negro-Chinese-Spanish parentage in British West Indies.
His family name was Akam.
Education for the law in England, he returned to Trinidad where but
because of minor disagreements with the island he decided to cast
his lot with the Chinese and left for where he became legal adviser
to the Ministry of Communications 1912.
Two years later he founded The Peking Gazette, and being a polemist
and fighter who knew but one tactic, a vigorous and attack, he selected
as his chief target the strongest foe possible: the North China Daily
News, chief spokesman of British interests in the Far East, the defender
of capital, and the prestige and power Britain had built up in that
region. At that commerce was centered in Shanghai, then a so-called
settlement, but this commerce was chiefly for Britain's to some extent
that of Japan, then an ally of Financial power was centered in the
British Hong Kong Bank. As a result of his onslaughts, Chen was arrested
in 1916 and thrown into a narrow cell with five lice-covered However
because he was still a British subject and because extraterritoriality
yet existed in China, he asserted that he was being illegally held
and was released, apparently because of this, in 1917.
Undaunted, he now entered the enemy's stronghold, Shanghai, where
he joined Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of Nationalist China, and became
his personal adviser and private secretary, a position he held until
Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925. He also founded The Shanghai Gazette,
in which he renewed his attacks on British interests and was again
thrown into prison, but was later freed.
In 1919 he was a delegate to the Versailles Conference where he formulated
China's demands in clear, unmistakable terms. He demanded, among other
things, the abolition of concession territories, insisting that all
such be placed under a mixed Chinese and foreign administration with
Chinese predominant. This demand later paved the way for China's victory
over the extraterritorial powers formerly held by the white governments.
In 1922 he founded the Ming Pao, or People's Tribune, and became chief
adviser to the Southern Government of China. In an effort to build
up Chinese commerce, not for the benefit of the whites and the Japanese,
but the Chinese, he led a strike and a boycott principally against
British interests. He asked the Chinese not to speak English and not
to use English ships nor to buy and sell British-made goods. This
had such effect that in 1926 the British yielded and asked for a conference
in which most of Chen's demands were granted and out of which came
the Chen-O'Malley Agreement in which Britain returned to China the
rich port of Hankow.
In 1927, while Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in preventing
war between China on one hand and Britain and the United States on
the other. White people had been mobbed by the Chinese in Nanking
and from southern China had come terrible rumors of the violation
of white women. The result was a great outcry for military intervention
and the world "stood at the eve of a war in which the Russian-Asiatic
and the capitalistic-western powers would clash." President Coolidge
had already dispatched American marines to the scene, but Chen stepped
into the breach and in an eloquent note to the white powers expressed
China's willingness for peace. He said that he was willing to have
the disturbances thoroughly investigated, asking only that the verdict,
whether it be for or against China, be just. This frankness had such
an effect on President Coolidge that he recalled the marines and in
a public address declared for peace to the great discontent of the
interests who wanted war in order to gain greater power in China.
The same year, however, due largely to European intrigue there was
a split between the Nanking and the Wuhan governments and Chen retired
to France, but returned in 1931 to become Foreign Minister of the
Canton Government.
While in China Chen married Miss Chang Tsing-ying, daughter of Chang
Chen-kiang, head of the Cheking Provincial Government.
The New York Times in its obituary of Chen (May 21, 1944) says:
Eugene Chen, British-born Chinese publisher and
politician, was four times Foreign Minister in various Chinese Governments
and twice was a refugee when his political fortunes were at low ebb.
An early member of the Kuomintang and one of the first to support
Sun Yat Sen, Mr. Chen was at times a bitter enemy of Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek and on other occasions was outwardly his ally. However,
since 1941 he had been in Shanghai, apparently harbored by the Japanese,
with whom he had on several occasions in the Nineteen Twenties and
Nineteen Thirties conducted involved negotiations.
When Chiang Kai-shek was friendly with the Soviet Union Mr. Chen was
Foreign Minister of the Russian-dominated Hankow Government, unofficially
run by Borodin and Bluecher. In 1927, after the collapse of the Hankow
Government, Mr. Chen fled to Russia when Borodin staged his famous
"retreat across the Gobi Desert," and with him went other
Chinese leaders with left-wing tendencies.
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