Eugene Chen or Chen Youren (; July 2, 1878, San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago – 20 May 1944, Shanghai), known in his youth as Eugene Bernard Achan, was a 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.
Early Biography
Childhood
Chen was born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago to ethnic Chinese parents. He was the oldest of Chen Guangquan and Mary Longchallon's three sons. Both parents were Chinese immigrants to Trinidad. Chen's father, Chen Guangquan, was known as Joseph Chen or Achan. He immigrated to the French West Indies where he met his wife, Mary Longchallon (Marie Leong), also a Chinese immigrant. Joseph Chen, as well as the Longchallon family, had been required by the French authorities to accept the 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. The family did not speak Chinese at home; and, since there were no Chinese schools, he also did not learn to read 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".
Professional life
After graduating from university, Chen eventually left Trinidad and Tobago to work in London, where he heard Sun Yat-sen speak at a rally against the Manchu government in China. Sun persuaded him to come to China and contribute his legal knowledge to the new Republic in 1912. Chen took the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and shared the journey with Wu Lien-te, 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 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. Chen had given up his initial support for Yuan Shikai and became a strong critic of the government, accusing it of "selling China", for which offence he was imprisoned. In 1918, Chen joined Sun in Canton to support the southern government, which he helped to represent at the 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.
Chen's revolutionary diplomacy
Chen's diplomacy led one historian to call him "arguably China's most important diplomat of the 1920s and instrumental in the rights recovery movement." Chen welcomed Sun's alliance with the USSR, and worked harmoniously with Michael Borodin, the chief Soviet and foreign policy adviser to Sun Yat-Sen on the reorganization of the Nationalist Party at Canton in 1923. After Sun's death, Chen was elected to the Central Executive Committee of Kuomintang, Nationalist Minister for Foreign affairs at Canton, and Ruler of Hankow, all being achieved in 1926 he was forced to resign in April 1927. Over the next two years, Chen lodged several protests with the American and UK governments over their concessions in China, as well as negotiating with the British colonial authorities from British Raj over labor strikes. When Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition appeared on the verge of unifying the country, Chen joined the rival Nationalist government at Wuhan.