Percy Chen

Background

Percy Chen was born in 1901 in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, into an overseas Chinese family. His father, Eugene Chen, became a leading lawyer, Nationalist statesman, and foreign minister of the Republic of China. Percy Chen's Caribbean birthplace and Chinese family background placed him within the wider overseas Chinese world that connected the British Caribbean, Britain, and China.

He was educated in England before returning to Trinidad to practice law. His later move to China in 1926 connected his British legal training with the revolutionary and nationalist politics surrounding the Nationalist Government and the Northern Expedition.

Education

Chen was educated at University College School in London and subsequently trained at the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court responsible for the professional education and admission of barristers in England. He was called to the English Bar in 1922 at the age of twenty-one. The Inns of Court combined legal instruction, professional dining, and institutional regulation rather than functioning as conventional universities.

His legal education prepared him for practice in Trinidad and later for work in China, where English legal training remained useful in diplomacy, commercial negotiations, and the administration of foreign-related affairs.

Career

Chen was called to the English Bar in 1922 and practiced law in Trinidad for several years. In the fall of 1926 he joined the Foreign Office of the Nationalist Government and followed the National Revolutionary Army to Hankou during the Northern Expedition. The Nationalist Government was then divided between competing political and military centers as the expedition attempted to unify China under Nationalist leadership.

In 1927, Chen was commissioned to conduct Mikhail Borodin and other Russian advisers back to the Soviet Union after the breakdown of the Nationalist-Communist alliance. The journey from Hankou toward Moscow took place during the political violence and military realignment that followed the April 1927 purge of Chinese Communists. Chen remained in Moscow for approximately six years, using the Russian name Pertsei Ievgenovich Tschen.

After his Soviet period, Chen served as an adviser to General Motors Corporation during its negotiations with the Soviet Commissariat of Heavy Industry. His knowledge of Soviet conditions made him an intermediary in a period when foreign corporations were exploring commercial and industrial relations with the Soviet state. He was also a correspondent of Ta Kung Pao in Tianjin, a major Chinese newspaper with a strong political role in twentieth-century China.

Chen moved to Hong Kong in 1947 and established a private law practice. Hong Kong was then a British colony and an important meeting point for Chinese political organizations, foreign businesses, journalists, and diplomatic representatives. Chen used his legal and international connections in public affairs and in contacts between the People's Republic of China and Western communities.

In 1956 he founded the Marco Polo Club, a Hong Kong dinner organization that brought together foreign businessmen, journalists, trade representatives, consular officials, and representatives connected with the People's Republic of China. The club provided an informal setting for contacts across the political divisions of the early Cold War. Chen later served as a member of the sixth Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and was invited to witness the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in December 1984.

Achievements

• Chen escorted Mikhail Borodin and other Russian advisers from China to the Soviet Union in 1927 during the political crisis following the collapse of the Nationalist-Communist alliance.

• Chen became an adviser to General Motors Corporation in negotiations with the Soviet Commissariat of Heavy Industry, an unusual early example of a Chinese professional advising a major foreign corporation in the Soviet Union.

• Chen founded the Marco Polo Club in Hong Kong in 1956, creating an informal meeting place for foreign commercial and diplomatic representatives and people connected with the People's Republic of China.

• Chen wrote China Called Me: My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution, a memoir published in 1979 that records his experiences across Trinidad, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.

Works

More photos

• autobiography

  • China Called Me: My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution

    (Chen's autobiography recounts his childhood in Trinidad, ...)

    1979

Politics

Percy Chen supported Chinese nationalism and later became sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party. His political outlook developed through service in the Nationalist Government, close involvement with Soviet advisers during the Chinese revolutionary crisis of 1927, and later work in Hong Kong as a lawyer and intermediary between representatives of the People's Republic of China and Western business, journalistic, and diplomatic circles.

In Hong Kong, Chen participated in the Chinese Reform Association, which opposed the appointed character of the constitutional reforms proposed under Governor Mark Aitchison Young and called for greater Chinese representation in municipal government. His later membership of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference reflected his continuing association with the political institutions of the People's Republic of China, although no formal Chinese Communist Party membership is documented here.

Views

Chen's political outlook emphasized Chinese national independence and the importance of international relationships in China's modern political development. His support for closer Sino-Soviet relations and later sympathy for the Chinese Communist movement developed alongside his continuing interest in legal institutions, commercial exchange, and China's position in the world.

Membership

Chen was a founding member and the first honorary secretary of the Hong Kong Bar Association, the professional organization representing barristers and promoting the independence, standards, and administration of justice of the Hong Kong Bar. He also helped found the Hong Kong Chinese Reform Association in 1949, a civic organization formed during the debate over constitutional reform in colonial Hong Kong.

In 1956 Chen founded the Marco Polo Club, a social and political contact organization whose dinners brought together foreign commercial and diplomatic representatives with people connected to the People's Republic of China. His participation in these organizations combined professional legal activity with public and international affairs.

• Founding member and first honorary secretary.

  Hong Kong Bar Association , Hong Kong

  1948

• Founding member.

  Hong Kong Chinese Reform Association , Hong Kong

  1949

• Founder.

  Marco Polo Club , Hong Kong

  1956

Personality

Chen's memoir and public career present him as an internationally oriented and politically engaged lawyer who moved between British, Chinese, and Soviet institutions. His work required sustained engagement with political movements and commercial representatives from different legal and diplomatic cultures.

Connections

Percy Chen was the son of Eugene Chen, the Trinidad-born lawyer and foreign minister of the Republic of China. Eugene Chen's political career connected the family with Sun Yat-sen's movement, the Nationalist Government, and Soviet advisers such as Mikhail Borodin.

Percy Chen accompanied Borodin during the latter's departure from China in 1927 and later drew on his family and professional connections in China, the Soviet Union, Britain, and Hong Kong. In later life he was associated with the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and was invited to attend the 1984 signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Father:

Eugene Chen

Lawyer, Nationalist statesman, and foreign minister of the Republic of China.

References

• Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong Christine Loh's historical study discusses Chen's role in Hong Kong's political and professional networks and identifies him as a barrister and later founder of the Marco Polo Club.
  2010
• Hong Kong Bar Association: About Us The official history and institutional description of the Hong Kong Bar Association, the professional organization of which Chen was an early officer.
• Hong Kong Bar Association: Past Officers The association's official list identifies Percy Chen as honorary secretary in 1949.
• Excerpts and Notes on China Called Me: My Life by Percy Chen, 1979 California State University, Northridge archival finding aid documenting materials relating to Chen's 1979 memoir.
  1979
• China Called Me: My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution A contemporary New Yorker review identifies Chen's memoir and summarizes its account of his Trinidadian birth, English education, legal training, and entry into Chinese political life.
  1979