Percy Chen | |
---|---|
Born | 1901 Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad |
Died | 1989 (aged 88) Hong Kong |
Alma mater |
University College of London Middle Temple |
Occupation | Barrister, journalist, businessman, political activist |
Parent(s) |
Eugene Chen Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume |
Percy Chen (Chinese: 陳丕士; pinyin: Chén Pīshì; Jyutping: can4 pei1 si6) (1901–1989) was a Hakka Chinese Trinidadian lawyer, journalist, businessman and political activist.
Chen was born in Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies in 1901. He was the eldest son of Eugene Chen, the leader of the left wing faction in the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and the Foreign Minister of the Republic of China, and Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume (1878–1926), known as Aisy, daughter of a French Creole father who owned one of the largest estates in Trinidad.
Chen was educated at University College School in London. He did his apprenticeship at the Middle Temple and called to the English Bar at the age of 21 in 1922 and practiced law for several years in Trinidad. In the fall of 1926 Chen joined his father at the Foreign Office of the Nationalist Government and felt he "had come home" although he didn't speak any Chinese. He followed the National Revolutionary Army to Hankow during the Northern Expedition. He was asked by his father to conduct Mikhail Borodin and other Russian advisors returning to the Soviet Union after the April 12 Purge of the Chinese Communist Party. He stayed in Moscow for six years under his Russian name Pertsei Ievgenovich Tschen before he became advisor to the General Motors Corporation in their negotiations with the Soviet Commissariat of Heavy Industry with his wide knowledge of the conditions in Russia, probably the first Chinese to be employed by a giant foreign corporation as its advisor in a foreign country.