Eugene Chen

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Eugene Chen
陳友仁
Eugene Chen as pictured in The Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
June 1, 1931 – 1932
Preceded byAlfred Sao-ke Sze
Succeeded byLuo Wengan
Personal details
Born(1878-07-02)2 July 1878
Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China
Resting placeBabaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, Beijing, China
Political partyKuomintang
Spouses
Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume
​
​
(m. 1899; died 1926)​
​
(m. 1930)​
Children
  • Hanyu Pinyin
Chén Yǒurén
Wade–GilesCh'en Yu-jen

Eugene Chen or Chen Youren (

Chinese Trinidadian lawyer who in the 1920s became Chinese foreign minister. He was known for his success in promoting Sun Yat-sen's anti-imperialist foreign policies.[2]

Early Biography

Childhood

Chen was born in

Catholic
faith as a condition of immigration.

Education

After attending a Catholic school, St Mary's College, Trinidad, Chen qualified as a barrister and became known as one of the most highly skilled solicitors in the islands.

Chinese. It was later said of him that his library was filled with Dickens, Shakespeare, Scott, and legal books, that he "spoke English as a scholar"; "except for his color, neither his living nor his habits were Chinese".[5]

Professional life

After graduating from university, Chen eventually left Trinidad and Tobago to work in

Wu Liande
, a physician born in Malaysia. Learning that Chen had no Chinese name, Wu suggested "Youren" as the equivalent of "Eugene": "Youren" has the meaning of "friend of benevolence", and thus echoed his birth name both in meaning and (especially when pronounced in Teochew - Yujeng) sound.

After Sun was forced to flee to Japan in 1913, Chen remained in Beijing (Peking), where he began a second career in journalism. Chen edited the bilingual Peking Gazette 1913–1917, then founded the Shanghai Gazette, the first of what Sun envisioned as a network of newspapers across China.

Paris Peace Conference, where he opposed Japanese and British plans regarding China. In 1922, Chen became Sun's closest adviser on foreign affairs, and developed a leftist stance of anti-imperialist nationalism and support of Sun's alliance with the Soviet Union.[8]

Chen's revolutionary diplomacy

Chen's diplomacy led one historian to call him "arguably China's most important

rival Nationalist government at Wuhan
.

With other leaders of Wuhan Nationalist government, 1927, from left to right: Mikhail Borodin (second from left), Wang Jingwei, T. V. Soong and Eugene Chen

In January 1927, the Nationalists forcibly took control over the British concession in Wuhan, and when violent crowds also took the foreign concession at

White Terror attacks on Communists in Shanghai.[10] Chen sent Borodin, his sons Percy Chen and Jack Chen, and the American leftist journalist Anna Louise Strong in an automotive convoy across Central Asia to Moscow. He, his daughters Si-lan and Yolanda, Soong Ching-ling, and the American journalist Rayna Prohme traveled from Shanghai to Vladivostok, and once again by Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow.[11]

Soong Qingling at Moscow

Life working at

Japanese puppet government, but he remained loudly critical of that "pack of liars" until his death in May, 1944, at the age of 66.[12]

Personal life

In 1899, Chen married Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume (1878–1926), known as Aisy, a

USSR for the rest of her life and came to prominence as a camerawoman; and Jack Chen (1908–1995), who made an international reputation as a journalistic cartoonist and relief worker.[13] In 1958 Jack married Chen Yuan-tsung. Eugene Chen's great-granddaughter is Yolanda Chen, a retired athlete and daughter of Yevgeniy Chen
.

Aisy died of breast cancer in May 1926. Chen and Georgette Chen were married in 1930 and remained together until his death in 1944.

Sources

Sources

  • "Roots and Branches," (website of J. Acham-Chen (Eugene Chen's grandson) Archived June 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  • Colonial Office No. 36535/1927 15 February 1927, including: 1) Copy secret despatch of 20 January from Governor of Trinidad furnishing particulars regarding family of Mr. Ch’en who was for a long time resident in the colony; Minutes (i.e. Notes): “This record does not inspire confidence in Mr. Chen, who I should think will prove to be one of the ephemeral phenomena of Chinese politics”; Very much of an adventurer in type. 2) “Report,: H.A. Byatt, Governor [Trinidad]; 3) “Note supplied by Mr. H. Noble Hall, one time correspondent of the Times at Washington on the early career and character of Chen in Trinidad”; 3) Cutting from “Far Eastern Times, by W. Sheldon Ridge; “Life Story of Eugene Chen” (furnished by American Legation, July 1927).[3]

References

  1. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20120418205323/http://www.yuantsungchen.com/images/Birth%20Certificate%20-%20Jack.jpg. Archived from the original on April 18, 2012. Retrieved October 13, 2012. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ Howard L. Boorman; Richard C. Howard (1967). "Eugene Chen". Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. I. New York: Columbia University Press: 180–183.
  3. ^ a b "Colonial Office Report: Eugene Ch'en" (PDF). 15 February 1927. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2013.
  4. ^ Boorman, p. 180.
  5. ISBN 9789766400217. Archived from the original
    on January 1, 2014. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  6. ^ "China Heritage Newsletter". Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  7. ^ "Peking Gazette" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 16, 2012. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  8. ^ Boorman, p. 181.
  9. ^ Philip C.C. Huang, "Biculturality in Modern China and in Chinese Studies," Modern China 26.1 (2000), p. 13.
  10. ^ Boorman, p.182-183
  11. ^ Percy Chen, China Called Me: My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution (Boston: Little Brown, 1979)
  12. ^ Boorman, p. 180-181.
  13. ISBN 9781402756979
    . Retrieved 2015-03-01.
  14. ISBN 9781402756979
    . Retrieved 2015-03-01.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eugene_Chen&oldid=1191321566"