Tan Kah-Kee

TAN KAH-KEE
The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend

Revised Edition
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TAN KAH-KEE
Revised Edition
C. F. YONG
Flinders University, Australia
World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TA I P E I • CHENNAI
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Published by
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TAN KAH-KEE
(Revised Edition)
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ISBN 978-981-4447-89-8 (pbk)
Printed in Singapore
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Preface
IT is a daunting task to attempt to write a biography of prominent Chinese

in South-East Asia of the pre-war vintage at any time because of
a dearth of historical material. For this project on Chen Jia-geng
(1874–1961), more commonly known as Tan Kah-kee, however, the task
has been rendered less intimidating as a substantial body of raw material,
including personal, family and archival records, does exist.
The book was conceived in London in 1976 in the course of my
research on the history of the Chinese leadership and power in Singapore.
Since then, it has taken me back to Singapore and London on four more
occasions to collect data and to interview people who possess intimate
knowledge of Tan Kah-kee, the man, the industrialist, the philanthropist,
the founder of Amoy University, the community and political leader, a
personal friend of Mao Tse-tung and a foe of Chiang Kai-shek, and the
legend. Through interviews, I have been kindly provided with much
insight into Tan Kah-kee, the man and his career, without which it would
be difficult for me to write this biography. It is therefore logical that
my thanks should first go to all my interviewees, including the late Rev.
A. B. Jordan of Nottingham, the last Secretary for Chinese Affairs prior
to the Second World War, B. C. Corridon of Surrey, Sng Choon-yee, the
Chinese Assistant for the Secretary of Chinese Affairs in pre-war years
in Singapore, the late Lim Bok-kee, the late Dr Ho Pao-jin, Tan Ee-leong,
the late Tan Yeok-seong, the late Ng Aik-huan (1908–86), Pan Kuo-chu,
Tan Kok-kheng, the fifth son of Tan Kah-kee, Tan Keong-choon, a
nephew of Tan Kah-kee, Tan Soo-kiok, Tan Thian-sek, Soon Peng-yam,
Soh Kung-liong and Aw Siow-yam, all from Singapore. During 1984,
I made a trip to China to interview, among others, four of Tan Kah-kee’s
friends and associates, namely, Tan Chun-bok, of Chi Mei, Fukien prov-
ince, Chuang Ming-li, Chang Ch’u-k’un and Hung Shih-shih, all from
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vi TAN KAH-KEE
Peking. I was moved by their readiness to tell me about their associations

with Tan Kah-kee and about their own careers. Among the above, Sng
Choon-yee has made the most sacrifices and contributions by granting
me many long sessions of interviews concerning the British rule, the
Chinese community, his friendship with Tan Kah-kee, and his own fasci-
nating career. Tan Keong-choon has been very kind to me in providing
me with valuable documents and publications at his disposal relating to
Tan Kah-kee. These include six volumes of his father’s correspondence
with Tan Kah-kee between 1923 and 1927, hitherto not used by any
scholars. Also, my sincere thanks should be extended to Tan Keong-
choon’s Assistant Manager, Lim Nai-tien and Tan’s personal secretary,
Foo Kui-ping, for providing me with generous help in the course of my
research in Singapore.
I am indebted to Chui Kuei-chiang for sending me his own writings
on post-war Chinese politics in Singapore; to David Chng Khin-yong for
locating newspaper data on Tan Kah-kee at the Singapore National
Library; to Dr Yen Ching-hwang for helping me with the correct applica-
tion of the Wade-Giles system to the Chinese names; and to Dr Claudine
Salmon for keeping me informed of publications on Tan Kah-kee in
China. Dr Ong Chit-chung deserves my special appreciation for provid-
ing me with data on Tan Kah-kee at his disposal and for informing me
of the rich CO 537 series available at the Public Record Office, at Kew,
Richmond, England, which deals with post-war politics in Singapore
and Malaya.
May I also take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to vari-
ous research funding organizations in Australia and overseas, namely, the
Australian Research Grants Committee, the Flinders University Research
Budget, the Lee Foundations of Kuala Lumpur and of Singapore, and the
Tan Kah Kee Foundation of Singapore, for granting me financial assis-
tance to keep the project afloat and viable.
Finally, I am most grateful to Mrs Joan Stephenson, secretary of
the History Discipline, Flinders University of South Australia, for
her patience in typing and retyping the whole manuscript through
a word processor. Also to Professor Wang Gungwu, Dr H. S. Leng,
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PREFACE vii
Mrs R. B. McKenna, R. Boak, Tan Kok-kheng and F. A. Charlton-Thomas

for valuable comments on parts or the whole of the manuscript, my
appreciation. This notwithstanding, the final product of this work
shall remain my own responsibility, and so shall the inadequacies and
shortcomings in it.
The Flinders University C. F. YONG

Bedford Park, South Australia
March 1986
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Acknowledgments
Tan Kah-kee: The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend, was first pub-
lished by Oxford University Press (Singapore) in 1987 and re-issued in
1989. In 2008, the copyright of my work was reassigned to me, making it
possible for me to revise it for publication with corrections and new
additions.
My first thanks must go to Ms Peggy Tan, granddaughter of the late Tan
Kah-kee, for encouraging me to get it published for a wider circulation
and readership.
I would also like to register my enormous indebtedness to Professor
Phua Kok Khoo of Singapore for accepting my revised work for publica-
tion by his own publishing company, World Scientific Publishing Co., in
2013.
Finally, I would like to affirm that any royalties that may be derived
from the sales of my work, either in book form or in electronic media or
in DVD form, shall be donated to the Singapore Tan Kah Kee Foundation.
This is a small gesture on my part to thank all those involved who have
helped me to complete my research, writing and publication.
C. F. Yong
Adelaide, South Australia
August 2012
ix
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Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgments ix
Tables xiii
Maps xv
Plates xv
Abbreviations xix
Introduction xxi
1 Historical Background 1
2 The Tan Clan 15
3 Emergence of an Entrepreneur 39
4 The Building of a Pre-eminent Social Status 82
5 From Pang to Community Leadership: Tan Kah-kee’s
Power Base 129
6 From Community to Political Leadership: Tan Kah-kee
in Command 178
7 Northern Star and Southern Kamikaze: Tan Kah-kee
Transformed 234
8 Politics Takes Command: The Hua-ch’iao
Flag Fluttering 306
9 Conclusion 360
Glossary 373
Bibliography 385
Index 401
xi
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Tables
3.1 Patent Rights Granted to Inventions Applied for by

Tan Kah-kee on Behalf of the Sumbawa Road Rubber
Manufactory, 1924–1932 57
3.2 Employment Figures at Sumbawa Road Rubber
Manufactory, 1923–1934 65
3.3 Principal Assets of Tan Kah-kee, July 1931 66
3.4 Major Liabilities, July 1931 67
3.5 Costs of Maintenance of Chi Mei Schools
and the Amoy University, 1926–1934 70
3.6 Repayment of Interest, 1926–1931 72
4.1 Donations to Schools in China 105
4.2 Donations to Schools in Singapore, 1907–1941 106
4.3 Charitable Donations by Tan Kah-kee, 1904–1934 109
4.4 Tan Kah-kee’s Donations to Charity, 1916–1926 110
5.1 Chinese Population of Singapore by Pang, 1881–1947 131
5.2 Office-Bearers of the Hokkien Huay Kuan, 1929 140
6.1 Operational Structure of the Shantung
Relief Fund Committee 186
6.2 Contributions by Chinese Individuals and Institutions to
Shantung Relief 189
6.3 Executive Members of the SCRFC 209
6.4 Posts Held by Members of the SCRFC 209
6.5 Officials of the Southseas China Relief Fund Union
(SCRFU), 1938 222
7.1 Office-bearers of the Singapore Chinese
Mobilization Council 291
xiii
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Maps
1 The Homeland of Tan Kah-kee: Chi Mei, T’ung An

District, Fukien Province, 1900 14
2 Tan Kah-kee’s 1940 Comfort Mission to China 235
Plates
1 Tan Kah-kee’s father, Tan Kee-peck (1842–1909)

2 Tan Kah-kee’s first wife, Teo Po-ke (1876–1916)
3 The house in Chi Mei where Tan Kah-kee was born (1874)
4 The earliest photograph of Tan Kah-kee (1905)
5 Tan Kah-kee’s younger brother, Tan Keng-hean (1917)
6 Lee Kong-chian’s wedding in 1920 in Singapore to Tan Kah-kee’s
eldest daughter, Tan Ai-lay
7 The Chi Mei Primary School (1922)
8 At a reception in 1928 in Singapore to welcome Hu Han-min
and Sun Fo
9 The Ee Ho Hean Club at 43 Bukit Pasoh Road (1930)
10 Tan Kah-kee (1938)
11 Tan Kah-kee at the Chungking airport with Tjung Sie-gan and Wu
T’ieh-ch’eng (26 March 1940)
12 Tan Kah-kee and General Li Tsung-jen (1940)
13 Overseas Chinese in Yenan welcoming Tan Kah-kee (1940)
14 Tan Kah-kee’s residence in Malang, East Java (1943)
xv
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xvi TAN KAH-KEE
15 Tan Kah-kee at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (October 1945)

16 Tan Kah-kee with Pan Kuo-chu, Ng Aik-huan and Chew Hean-swee
(October 1945)
17 Tan Kah-kee welcoming Nehru at the Kallang airport in Singapore
(March 1946)
18 Chang Ch’u-k’un, managing director and Hu Yu-chih, chairman of
the board of directors of Nan Chiau Jit Pao (1948)
19 Tan Kah-kee and fellow Preparatory Committee members of the People’s
Political Consultative Conference in Peking (19 September 1949)
20 With third wife Yap Kheok Neo and also mother of fifth son, Tan
Kok-kheng, and family members in Singapore (around mid 1930s)
21 With seventh son Tan Guan Chay and wife Koh Ah-wu, who visited
Tan Kah-kee at Chi Mei in May 1958
22 Tan Kah-kee’s second wife Goh Siok Neo, mother of his sixth,
seventh and eighth sons
23 With Tan Ah-hui, third daughter, and eldest daughter of his
second wife
24 Tan Kah-kee and members of his family on the eve of his visit to
China (May 1949)
25 Tan Kah-kee being welcomed on his arrival at the Kallang airport
by Lee Kong-chian and Tan Lark-sye (15 February 1950)
26 Tan Kah-kee, his fifth son and his grandchildren (May 1950)
27 Family gathering at Tan Kok-kheng’s home at Barker Road,
Singapore, before Tan Kah-kee left permanently for China
(May 1950)
28 Tan Kah-kee speaking at the People’s National Congress in Peking
(1954)
29 Tan Kah-kee, Marshal P’eng Teh-huai and Overseas Chinese
members at the People’s National Congress (1954)
30 Tan Kah-kee, Chang Ch’u-kun and Chuang Ming-li touring the
Ch’in ranges, Shensi province (1955)
31 Tan Kah-kee with a group of students from South-East Asia in
Chi Mei (1955)
32 Tan Kah-kee visiting the Great Wall of China (1955)
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PLATES xvii
33 Tan Kah-kee (left) and Tan Boon-khak (Tan Lark-sye’s elder brother)
centre, in a train travelling between Shanghai and Peking, after visit-
ing an eye specialist (1958)
34 Enjoying a meal with Tan Boon-khak in attendance
35 In an eye hospital awaiting treatment
36 Tan Kah-kee looking at the Whampoa River while recuperating in
Shanghai (1958)
37 Premier Chou En-lai consoling Tan Khuat-siong on the death of Tan
Kah-kee on 12 August 1961 in Peking
38 A state funeral was granted to Tan Kah-kee with Premier Chou
En-lai, Marshal Chu Teh and Marshal Ch’en Yi in attendance
39 The tomb of Tan Kah-kee at Ao Garden, Chi Mei, Fukien province
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Abbreviations
AEBUS Anti-Enemy Backing-Up Society

CCP Chinese Communist Party
CNEVC Chinese National Emancipation Vanguard Corps
CO Colonial Office
FMPR Federation of Malaya Political Report
FMS Federated Malay States
FO Foreign Office
JMBRAS Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society
JSEAS Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
JSSS Journal of South Seas Society
KMT Kuomintang
KMYP Kuo Min Yit Poh
MCP Malayan Communist Party
MKJP Min Kuo Jih Pao
MRCA Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs
NCJP Nan Chiau Jit Pao
NYSP Nanyang Siang Pau
OCAC Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission
PNC People’s National Congress
PPCC People’s Political Consultative Conference
PRC People’s Republic of China
SCBA Straits Chinese British Association
SCCC Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
SCJP Sin Chew Jit Poh
SCMC Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council
SCRFC Singapore China Relief Fund Committee
SCRFU Southseas China Relief Fund Union
xix
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xx TAN KAH-KEE
SKMP Sin Kuo Min Press

SPR Singapore Political Report
SRFC Shantung Relief Fund Committee
SS Straits Settlements
SSGG Straits Settlements Government Gazette
ST Straits Times
WO War Office
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Introduction
LONG before the conception of this project in 1976, there existed several
publications and numerous articles in Chinese on Tan Kah-kee. Among
the more substantial ones was one written by Tan Kah-kee himself, enti-
tled Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu (Singapore, 1946), subsequently reprinted in
Hong Kong in 1979. This 1946 autobiographical work runs into some
300,000 Chinese characters. It consists of three major but disproportionate
components: his political activities during the 1930s, his socio-educational
endeavours and his personal financial success and failure. Undoubtedly,
this is one of the best documented autobiographies ever written by an
immigrant Chinese in South-East Asia. This work has remained an
immensely important source for those seeking to understand not only Tan
Kah-kee himself but the Chinese community in Singapore and China poli-
tics as a whole. However, one major flaw of this important publication lies
not in what has been said but what has not been said. For instance, the
book does not analyse the tensions and chequered relationships between
Tan Kah-kee and the British colonial authorities, nor does it reveal where
his institutional and power bases were.
Apart from Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, Tan Kah-kee also published five other
works: Chu-wu yü wei-sheng (Singapore, 1946), Min-su fei-lun chi
(Singapore, 1946), Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi (Singapore, 1949),
Wo-kuo hsing ti-wen-t’i (Hong Kong, 1946), and Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-
kan-chi (Singapore, 1950). Chu-wu yü wei-sheng is concerned with the
relationship between housing and hygiene; Min-su fei-lun chi is a criti-
cism of various Chinese customs and habits. Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi
is a collection of speeches and writings by Tan Kah-kee in post-war years,
a most valuable source material in understanding Tan Kah-kee’s post-war
political thinking. Wo-kuo hsing ti-wen-t’i is Tan Kah-kee’s solution to
China’s transport problems. It contains some fascinating accounts of how
xxi
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xxii TAN KAH-KEE
Tan Kah-kee started his tyre manufacturing industry in Singapore. Hsin-

chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi gives a full account of his impression of a new
China he visited between May 1949 and February 1950, another fine
source material.
In 1952, Cheng Liang published a work on Tan Kah-kee (Hong Kong),
which was an attempt to sketch Tan Kah-kee’s career in an anti-
Kuomintang framework. This is a slim and narrative work stressing the
important ideological and political transformation of Tan Kah-kee from
being pro-Kuomintang to becoming one of the leaders of the anti-Kuom-
intang cause. Although there is an interesting chapter on Tan Kah-kee’s
post-war activities, the work does not throw any significant new light on
his political success in the pre-war years.
Another work was undertaken by a group of graduates from Amoy
University, headed by Tan Yeok-seong. This publication entitled Tan Kah-
kee (Singapore, 1970), was not for sale but for private circulation only.
Although this work represents a more substantial effort at assessing Tan
Kah-kee’s political leadership and power, it has not achieved any new
breakthrough in understanding Tan’s political success. However, the two
chapters on Tan’s activities in the post-war years do bring the story right
up to 1961.
An important publication appeared in Peking in 1962 to commemorate
the death of Tan Kah-kee. This publication, Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng
chi-nien-ts’e, contains over forty articles of an eulogistic and reminiscent
nature and numerous photographs of Tan Kah-kee. It is important to note
that some of the papers contained in this volume have provided new
insight into the political mind of Tan Kah-kee and his political role in the
People’s Republic of China after 1950. Twenty-three years later, in 1984,
the Chinese government in Peking celebrated the 110th anniversary of
Tan Kah-kee’s birthday by publishing another commemorative volume on
him, entitled Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng (Peking, 1984). This volume consists
of forty-one papers written by Tan Kah-kee’s friends and relatives and has
added new materials on Tan Kah-kee’s post-war career to the growing
body of knowledge concerning him.
In the People’s Republic of China, two of the more serious attempts
have been made to assess Tan Kah-kee’s educational and political endeav-
ours and achievements since the end of the Cultural Revolution. One by
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INTRODUCTION xxiii
Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, or Biography

of Tan Kah-kee (Fukien, 1981), covers a great deal of ground, highlighting
Tan Kah-kee’s public career in politics and educational endeavours and
depicting Tan as a China-oriented political leader, a Chinese patriot and a
progressive representative of the bourgeoisie. One serious flaw of this
political biography lies in the narrative of the public life of Tan Kah-kee
which does not provide sufficient historical, social (community) and
political (British colonial rule) contexts in Singapore and Malaya for the
understanding of things that happened or endeavours made by Tan Kah-
kee. Moreover, those who would like to know more about Tan Kah-kee the
man, his family, his club and community, his socio-political base, his
friends and foes and the role of the British in his political career and for-
tunes, would be sorely disappointed. A second work is Ch’en Chia-keng
hsing-hsüeh chi (An Account of Tan Kah-kee’s Educational Promotion)
(Fukien, 1981), by Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, a thinner contribution.
The main theme of this monograph is essentially Tan Kah-kee’s belief in
and practice of ‘education for nation-building’, giving a fascinating
account of Tan’s educational endeavours and institutions. The authors
have heaped high praise on Tan for his altruistic and patriotic efforts at
modernizing China through education. One minor drawback is that this
monograph has unfortunately and unjustly paid scant attention to Tan’s
educational promotion in Singapore, merely devoting one slim chapter to
his educational activities in the Nanyang. Nevertheless, this is the best
documented work on Tan’s association with the development of education
in Fukien.
There have been fewer writings on Tan Kah-kee in English. One entry
on him was included in Howard L. Boorman’s edited publication,
Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York and London,
1967), Volume 1, which broke no new ground. A couple of papers in
English on Chinese politics in Singapore and Malaya during the 1930s do
make references to Tan Kah-kee but are not exclusively about him.1
Likewise, Yoji Akashi’s work on The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation
Movement 1937–1941 (Kansas, 1970), has him playing a prominent
political role during the period under study. All in all, Tan Kah-kee has
remained underexposed in English publications.
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xxiv TAN KAH-KEE
Having surveyed the literature and commented on the quality of its

scholarship, it is fitting for me to spell out my approach to writing this
biography and my analytical framework for studying this immensely
exciting and important man in modern Chinese and modern South-East
Asian history. As this is a study of an historically important person, my
approach will no doubt be historical and sociological, with the first
chapter on historical background tracing back to nineteenth-century China
and Singapore-Malaya. This will then be followed by a second chapter on
the Tan clan, examining the geography, population and socio-economic
structure of T’ung An generally and Chi Mei village particularly, and
highlighting the significance of the so-called Tung An spirit. The clan will
be discussed in sufficient personal detail. Basic to the understanding of
Tan’s social and political career is his economic base, which will form the
content of Chapter 3, to be followed by the building of a pre-eminent
social status through charitable acts, educational promotion and provision
of both pang and community leadership in Chapter 4. What was his social
and institutional base? Chapter 5 will examine his associations with the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Ee Ho Hean Club, the
Singapore Rubber Dealers’ Association, the Hokkien Huay Kuan and vari-
ous other organizations. The findings will reveal that the Ee Ho Hean Club
and the Hokkien Huay Kuan were two of his most important power bases.
Having secured this power base, Tan Kah-kee was able to branch out,
when opportunities arose, into political leadership as from 1928. His
political career between 1928 and 1940 will form the main theme of
Chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines the importance of both his political and
spiritual odyssey to China in 1940 and his subsequent retreat to Java dur-
ing the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942–45). This will be fol-
lowed by his post-war political endeavours and his career on the soil of
the People’s Republic of China (1950–61). With Tan Kah-kee at the centre
of this historical stage, it is my intention to bring other important and
consequential actors around him into play. With socio-political fabrics and
human factors being woven into the story, it is hoped this many-faceted
man will come alive against the historical environments of China and
South-East Asia in which he breathed and acted, lived and fought.
Thus, this biography will represent my own humble but challenging
attempt to reconstruct the social, economic and political profile of
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INTRODUCTION xxv
Tan Kah-kee and to critically analyse the man and his vision, his endeav-
ours, achievements and contributions in Asian society as an Overseas
Chinese entrepreneur, educationist, philanthropist, patriot and patriarch.
Finally, a note on the romanization of Chinese names and objects is in
order here. It is my contention that all Chinese in South-East Asia should
be allowed to retain the spellings of their own names, popularly accepted
and recognized, instead of being given new romanized names. Thus, Tan
Kah-kee for Ch’en Chia-keng; Lim Boon-keng for Lin Wen-ch’ing; and
Sng Choon-yee for Soon Tsung-yi. However, if and when a popularly
used English name cannot be found, the Wade-Giles system for romaniz-
ing the Chinese name will be applied. Full Chinese characters for most
individual Chinese can be consulted in the Glossary.
1. Pang Wing Seng, ‘The “Double-Seventh” Incident 1937: Singapore Chinese

Response to the Outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War’, JSEAS, Vol. 4, No. 2,
September 1973, pp. 269–99. Stephen Leong, ‘The Kuomintang–Communist
United Front in Malaya during the National Salvation Period, 1937–1941’,
JSEAS, Vol. 8, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 31–47.
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1
Historical Background
ON 12 August 1961, there passed away in Peking an extraordinary man at

a ripe old age of 87. He was accorded a State funeral by the Government
of the People’s Republic of China in recognition of his deeds and
achievements during his lifetime. Among his mourners were some of the
top-ranking party, military and government officials in the land, including
Chu Teh, Chou En-lai, Ch’en Yi, Ch’en Po-ta, Liao Ch’eng-chih and Tung
Pi-wu. Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-ch’i, Madam Sun Yat-sen and many
others laid their wreaths and sent their condolences to the deceased’s
family.1 From Peking, the hearse was carried by train and arrived on
20 August for a final burial at the Ao Garden at Chi Mei on a grand and
extensive ground covering some 8,789 square feet. There an ornate,
elaborate and personally designed tomb had long been completed as his
final resting place. Thousands of mourners from Fukien province lined the
roads and streets from Chi Mei right up to the Ao Garden to pay their last
homage to the best and proudest son ever produced in the area in modern
times — Tan Kah-kee.
In the wake of his death, many returned Overseas Chinese held their
own memorial services in twenty-three cities and towns in China includ-
ing Peking, Foochow, Amoy and Canton. These were followed by the
Chinese living in Hong Kong and Kowloon, Singapore, Rangoon, Jakarta,
Semarang, Bandung, Surabaya, Palembang, Pontianak, Yokohama,
Calcutta, Paris and Leipzig in Germany, as a sign of respect and sorrow.2
Never in the history of the Chinese in South-East Asia had so many found
it compelling to mourn the loss of a single man.
Born at Chi Mei village, T’ung An district, Fukien, China, on
21 October 1874, Tan Kah-kee spent over fifty years between 1890 and
1950 in Singapore, these being some of the best and most productive
years of his life.
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2 TAN KAH-KEE
His life and times encompassed a vast and exciting era of revolutionary
change in China and of rapid socio-political change in South-East Asia.
Personally he witnessed the decline and demise of the Manchu regime, the
rise and fall of the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek and
the rebirth of a modernized China under communist rule. In South-East
Asia generally, and in Malaya and Singapore particularly, he saw Western
imperialism, gradually being eroded by the rise and development of the
forces of nationalism in South-East Asia which aimed at the creation of
modern independent nation-states.
Tan Kah-kee’s Chinese background covered a traumatic and painful era.
A generation before his birth, China had suffered military defeat at the
hands of the British in the Opium Wars (1839–42 and 1856–60), followed
by a series of mid-century peasant uprisings, notably the Taiping, the Nien
and the Muslim. The combined impact of this so-called nei-yu wai-huan
(external encroachments and internal rebellions) was gradually making
itself felt throughout Chinese society — a loss of over forty million lives,
the rise of the treaty ports and a Chinese comprador class, economic
dislocation in rural China, the influx of foreign goods, the continuing
importation of opium into the country and the familiar, gaunt faces of opium
addicts, the final legalization of the opium trade in 1860 resulting in further
draining of Chinese silver taels, war indemnities adding to the financial
crisis, the process of militarization from 1800 culminating in the emergence
of regionalism and modern warlordism, and the beginning of the exodus of
millions of Southern Chinese to a better land and for a better life overseas.
A Confucian China was under duress and mortally wounded.
Tan Kah-kee could be thankful for not living under such miserable
circumstances as those mentioned above, but what he and his generation
of Chinese were to live through was hardly any better. At the age of ten in
1884, war broke out between China and France which destroyed the
Foochow shipyards and China’s Southern Fleet. The Sino-Japanese War
of 1894–5 which was fought in Korea and on the Yellow Sea saw the
destruction of China’s Northern Fleet and of her military forces. The
Treaty of Shimonoseki that followed ceded Taiwan to Japan and forced
China to pay an indemnity of 200 million taels of silver to the Japanese.
In 1949 Tan Kah-kee was to give a personal account of the impact of this
treaty upon the Southern Chinese as he saw it. In his view, the Southern
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 3
Chinese traders suffered miserably because the Japanese dominated the

barter trade between Taiwan and Fukien. Moreover, the breakdown of
trade between the two territories ruined the handicraft weaving industry in
Southern Fukien, while the free flow of immigrants between them came
to a stop.3 In his account, he also confirmed that he was conscious of the
aggressiveness of the Japanese and of the impotence of the Manchu
regime to uphold China’s territorial sovereignty. Out of the experience of
this first impact of the war and treaty arose a patriot for China’s national
cause of later years.
In the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War there came the scramble for
concessions and spheres of influence in China by the foreign powers. The
cutting of the Chinese melon was not only on the cards but imminent. In
the midst of the scramble for concessions, the Boxer Rebellion (1900–1)
erupted in North China. It brought combined Western and Japanese forces
to Peking, resulting in the pillage of the capital and the signing of the
Boxer Protocol. In this protocol, China was forced to pay 450 million taels
as indemnity to the foreign powers involved, a figure ten times the annual
national revenue of the Manchu regime. The Russo–Japanese War, in
which China was an onlooker, was fought on Chinese land in Manchuria,
leaving China to lick her wounds. With the West preoccupied with war in
Europe between 1914 and 1918, Japan’s ambitions towards China became
more overt and pressing. In 1915, Japan presented the so-called Twenty
One Demands to President Yuan Shih-k’ai. Had China accepted all the
demands, she would undoubtedly have become Japan’s protectorate,
paying annual tributes to the Japanese emperor. Nothing could go right for
China even as a victor in the First World War, for the Versailles Treaty
added insult to injury by allowing Japan to take over former German
rights in Shantung. This sordid affair precipitated the so-called May
Fourth Movement, whose impact is still being assessed by historians. The
Versailles Treaty sowed the seeds of further Sino-Japanese conflict, as is
evidenced by the military clashes between the Japanese forces and Chiang
Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition Army in May 1928 at Tsinan in
Shantung. While this Shantung incident soured the diplomatic relations
between the two countries, it served as a prelude to the second
Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). This protracted struggle saw Chiang Kai-shek’s
armies reeling back to Chungking, in Szechuan, South-west China, leaving
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
4 TAN KAH-KEE
Japan to rule over much of traditional China. All in all, humiliating

treaties signed between China and foreign nations involving indemnities,
the ceding of territories, the opening up of new treaty ports for foreign
economic penetration, and a loss of face for the Chinese, brought neither
peace nor stability to a nation intent on modernizing herself. Their
devastating results were to strike into the consciousness of millions of
feeling and thinking Chinese, bringing a deep sense of shame, frustration
and anger. Patriotism as expressed in the forms of liberalism, democracy,
nationalism, anarchism, and communism began to stir up the minds and
hearts of the Chinese, both within and without China. How could any
Chinese who were proud of their culture and tradition remain unmoved
and unruffled when sheng-chou lu-ch’en (China is sinking)?
As if foreign wars and aggression in China were inadequate to incite the
passion and compassion of the Chinese people, internal political rivalries
and warfare after the fall of the Manchu regime generated some of the
worst and ugliest results in modern Chinese history. Numerous warlords
between 1916 and 1927 trampled across the length and breadth of the
Chinese land; many collected taxes years in advance, bringing nothing but
human misery, tragedy and despair. The Kuomintang government after
1927 dissipated critics, dissidents and opposition parties through political
persecution, terror and military campaigns. There was neither peace,
stability nor effective government available to the Chinese people. Political
rivalries and repression deepened the national crisis, resulting in the wag-
ing of three major civil wars between the nationalists and the communists.
The first civil war (1924–27) saw many Chinese communists rounded up,
imprisoned or summarily executed; many were forced underground. The
second civil war (1928–35) involved five successive and costly military
campaigns against the communist hideouts in Central China ending in the
famous Long March by the communists through twelve provinces to
Yenan. The final civil war (1946–49) reached a climax during 1948 and
1949 when the three major communist counter-offensives in Manchuria,
North China and Central China swept Chiang Kai-shek’s regime out of the
Middle Kingdom, sending him scurrying for refuge to Taiwan. Together
with the foreign wars, the losses in human life and property were only
surpassed by those of the mid-nineteenth century rebellions. The sufferings
and agonies of the Chinese people were almost beyond description.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
One of the concomitants of the nei-yu wai-huan had been the occurrence
of numerous natural calamities in China in modern times. Crises arising
from drought, flood, pestilence and famine were not redressed because of
misgovernment. They made life intolerable for the Chinese affected by
these natural disasters. Their frequency and seriousness between 1890 and
1949 called for enormous sacrifice and compassion on the part of the
economically better off hua-ch’iao.4 Fund-raising campaigns for the relief
of victims of natural disasters were generously and unfailingly promoted
among them. Thus, to political feelings for China and Chinese civilization
was added the sense of moral compassion and fortitude, a more gentle
ingredient of modern Chinese nationalism overseas.
In response to the protracted and deepening political crisis in China,
succeeding generations of Chinese from Hung Hsiu-ch’üan, K’ang
Yu-wei, and Sun Yat-sen, to Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai attempted to
effect political change through applying Western learning to Chinese
conditions. These leaders were in the forefront of political struggle in
China and they were often called the hsien-chih hsien-chüeh (pioneers),
playing a leading role in various phases of modern Chinese political his-
tory. Tan Kah-kee, on the other hand, was physically away from the centre
of these raging storms. However, socio-political changes and forces in
China could not but capture his attention, colour his political thinking and
motivate his political actions. Like most Chinese-educated emigrants of
his generation to South-East Asia, he was dismayed when the country was
misruled, worried when it was on the brink of civil strife, and angry when
nothing seemed to be going right for China. As a concerned and politically
motivated man who believed firmly in a famous Chinese dictum —
t’ien-hsia hsing-wang p’i-fu yu-tse (fortune or misfortune of the world
rests on the shoulders of each of us) — he was determined not to sit idly
by if he could help it. Despite limitations and restrictions imposed on him
by geographical barriers and British colonial rule, he was to play a
significant role inside and outside China in socio-political change in a
peaceful manner when opportunities arose.
To be sure, although the changing destiny of modern China coloured
his political thinking and guided his political actions, the Singapore
environment under a colonial government was to limit his role in politics.
While Singapore’s booming economy, based on entrepot trade and free
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
6 TAN KAH-KEE
enterprise, shaped his moderate reformist ideology, the Chinese social and
community structure posed no insurmountable problem to his community
and political leadership role and ambition.
For a start, the Government of the Straits Settlements was responsible to
no other authority but London. When the Settlements were brought under
the direct control of the British Colonial Office in 1867, a legislative coun-
cil and an executive council under the governor were established. The
Legislative Council consisted of both official and unofficial members,
the unofficials all being nominated and in a minority on the council. The
Executive Council consisted of a smaller number, all of whom were
colonial officials. From the 1920s, a few Asian members were co-opted
into the Executive Council as participants and decision-makers in the col-
ony. While the Legislative Council served merely as a debating, sounding
and legislative body, the Executive Council was responsible for carrying
out legislative and other administrative duties concerning the colony. In
dealing with the Chinese population in the Straits Settlements on matters
concerning them, the governor was advised by officers from the Chinese
Protectorate. The Singapore Chinese Protectorate, later called the Chinese
Secretariat, was set up in 1877. In 1889 the Chinese Protectorate set up
the Chinese Advisory Board as a sounding board on Chinese affairs, with
members drawn from various Chinese pang.5 The colonial government
used this as one of the major mechanisms for defusing tensions and
potential threats between itself and the Chinese community.
The British colonial authorities were clearly and positively in favour of
the Straits-born Chinese, many of whom were English-educated who
became prominent professionals, including lawyers, doctors, engineers,
architects and accountants. These were groomed and nurtured to serve as
spokesmen for the whole Chinese community to the increasing resentment
and envy of the hua-ch’iao community. Even so, there was only limited
opportunity for political mobility for the King’s favoured subjects as there
was neither franchise nor parliamentary democracy as such in Singapore
prior to 1945. A lack of genuine political mobility for competent and
ambitious Chinese under colonial rule must, to a certain extent, be
considered responsible for those immigrant Chinese who continued to
look to China for inspiration and aspiration. This phenomenon, together
with the colonial disinterest in Chinese culture and language, may even
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
explain why some of the brightest Straits-born scholars and professionals

including Dr Ku Hung-ming (1856–1927), Dr Wu Lien-teh and Dr Lim
Boon-keng (1869–1957) returned to serve China in various capacities.6
Like all Western colonial authorities in South-East Asia, the British
jealously guarded their political power in Singapore and Malaya against
real or imagined ideological and political ‘subversion’. To this end they
sought to regulate community actions through the legislation and
operation of Societies Ordinances. Those ‘deemed’ to be ‘subversive’ and
dangerous to law and order, such as Chinese secret societies, the
Kuomintang branches, and later the Malayan Communist Party and its
cells, were banned. Likewise, those committing ‘criminal’ or ‘political’
sins, such as taking part in ‘illegal’ organizations, were sentenced to a
term of imprisonment or deported for life. Thus, through such rigid
political control, the British authorities created a more ‘acceptable’ type
of community or political leadership, moderate in ideology and reformist
in action. Besides, the British legitimized those community and political
leaders who often collaborated with them or abided by their rules when
China politics was played locally. One of the reasons why Tan Kah-kee
was to become such a ‘legitimized’ leader during the 1930s was that he
knew the art of compromise and was prepared to accept rules of political
control laid down by the British within the colonial framework.
A no less important form of control under colonial rule was ideological
manipulation. The British jealously and zealously exerted such ideologi-
cal control through Press and mail censorship as well as educational
supervision. Press and mail censorship aimed at weeding out ‘subversive’
ideologies such as anti-Western, anti-British nationalist, or communist
propaganda. School Ordinances were passed in the Straits Settlements and
in the Federated Malay States in 1920 to effect control over the Chinese
schools in particular. These ordinances empowered the respective educa-
tion departments to register or deregister schools and teaching staff on
political and ideological grounds. Likewise, any Chinese individuals who
harboured ‘subversive’ ideologies would in no way be accepted and
legitimized as community or political leaders under normal circum-
stances. Thus, ideological control on the part of the British authorities
imposed further constraints on the emergence of a radical, volatile and
colourful political leadership in the Chinese community of Singapore and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
8 TAN KAH-KEE
Malaya. Tan Kah-kee’s socio-political thinking was largely acceptable to

the British in pre-war Malaya, because it was aimed single-mindedly
against the Japanese encroachments in China. Even so, tension between
Tan Kah-kee and the British mounted as the British maintained a ‘neutral’
posture towards the Sino-Japanese War. It was to cause acute concern and
anguish in the post-war era when Tan Kah-kee overtly condemned Chiang
Kai-shek and his regime, because the British were on friendly terms with
the Kuomintang government.
In sharp contrast to their rigid political and ideological control, the
British adopted paradoxically a much more relaxed economic policy
towards free and private enterprise. Their laissez-faire economic policy
allowed industrious Chinese immigrants to accumulate capital, and to
venture into all aspects of the economic arena in both Singapore and
Malaya. British intervention in the civil war-ridden Malay States from
1874 onwards helped restore law and order and paved the way for new
capital investment and expansion in the Malay Peninsula. The influx of
cheap labour from China and India, and the Chinese ventures into
risk-taking investments in the Straits Settlements, saw the boom of the
tin-mining industry and the subsequent rise of the rubber plantation
industry of the twentieth century in the Malay States. Both these indus-
tries promoted Singapore’s entrepôt trade, helping to consolidate its
position as the leading trading emporium and financial centre in
South-East Asia for all nationalities. The Chinese accumulation of capital
through the use of cheap labour, secured by their secret societies, in the
tin-mining industry prompted them to branch into banking, insurance,
manufacturing, shipping, and the import and export trade in direct or
indirect competition with Western enterprises by the early years of the
twentieth century.
Tan Kah-kee was fortunate enough to be living in such a favourable
economic climate, revelling in conditions in Singapore which allowed
ample opportunity for industrious, shrewd, farsighted, adventurous and
determined men to amass riches, prestige and social position. He seized
these opportunities and became a millionaire by 1911 and a multi-
millionaire by the end of the First World War. With enormous wealth at
his disposal, he was able and willing to make immense social and
educational contributions to the Chinese communities in both Singapore
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
and in his home province of Fukien. In his autobiography, Nan-ch’iao

hui-i-lu, he openly acknowledged that without the riches hitherto
accumulated, he could not have laid the foundation for his social and
political works.7
Although the society of Singapore since 1819 has always been
multi-racial in structure and composition, the free port status and the
laissez-faire immigration policy of the British soon brought waves of
Chinese immigrants from maritime China to swamp the Malay popula-
tion. From 1860 onwards the Chinese predominated in Singapore’s
population. Chinese immigrants accounted for 75 percent of the total
Chinese population of 315,151 in 1921. Ten years later this was reduced
to 64 percent of a total of 418,600 Chinese on the island. By 1947 this
pattern of immigrant Chinese outnumbering the Straits-born was finally
reversed; the 1947 census returns show that the Straits-born Chinese made
up 60 percent of the total Chinese population of 729,473. Even at this late
stage, it should be noted that a substantial number of the Straits-born
Chinese were in fact Chinese-educated and Chinese speaking, and still
culturally and mentally more attuned to the hua-ch’iao community.
However, unlike the hua-ch’iao community, the Straits-born Chinese,
as a whole, were more Western-oriented in thinking and in their way of
life. Also, they were the more modernized section within the larger
Chinese community. This Straits-born community had a tradition of
producing a host of able and respectable community leaders, legitimized
by the colonial authorities. Being English-speaking, many of them sought
employment in government departments as administrative officers, clerks
and other functionaries. They could also be found in the private sector,
especially in commercial establishments such as banks, insurance and
shipping companies, and European agency houses. It is quite widely
known that one of the highest objectives in life among the Straits-born was
to become a comprador, either in a European bank or in agency houses,
serving as a middleman between the commercial establishments and the
public. In business, they were just as enterprising and skilful. Some of
the leading figures of the twentieth century including Lim Boon-keng, Lee
Choon-guan (1868–1924), Lim Nee-soon (1879–1936) and a host of
others, were founders of local Chinese banks, insurance companies and
other enterprises. Partly driven by the need to attract hua-ch’iao capital for
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
10 TAN KAH-KEE
new ventures, they often co-operated with the hua-ch’iao community

leaders and capitalists in social, economic and political matters concerning
the Chinese community at large. In organization, the Straits-born
community established many social and sporting clubs and societies.
However, one of the most important bodies established by them in the
pre-war years was the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA) (1900)
which became an effective pressure group, championing the cause of the
Straits-born Chinese and promoting their interests.
Admittedly the Chinese community during the time of Tan Kah-kee
was fragmented and often divisive, due largely to differences in dialect,
education, territorial origin, profession, political outlook, and personal
rivalry among leaders and among the various pang for pang power. In
essence, the Chinese community in Singapore could conveniently be
divided into seven uneven pang along the lines of dialect groupings. These
included the Hokkiens, overwhelmingly dominated by those from the
two prefectures in Fukien, namely, Changchou and Ch’uanchou, the
Teochews, the Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka, the Straits-born English-
educated and English-speaking, and the numerically smallest Sankiang,
which represented immigrants from areas north of the two maritime
provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung.
The Hokkien pang was historically and numerically the single largest
pang throughout Singapore’s history, ranging from 29 percent of the
Chinese population in Singapore in 1881 to 43 percent in 1921, 1931 and
1947. The Hokkiens had been the merchant princes during the nineteenth
century, and in the twentieth century dominated the more modern sectors
of the economy, such as banking, insurance, shipping, rubber-milling and
manufacturing, and the export and import trade. The size of the Hokkien
population and the sound financial resources at its disposal gave the
Hokkien pang an edge over the others in terms of contending elites and
power groups within the Chinese community of Singapore.
The Teochew and Cantonese pang were comparable in size, and
between them they represented about 35 percent of the Chinese popula-
tion in 1901 and 43 percent in 1947. The Teochews did well in the
nineteenth century, dominating the pepper and gambier plantations and
trade. Many of them owned land in Johore but due to their natural caution
in economic management and expansion they failed to cash in during the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
rubber boom times. The Cantonese, on the other hand, were well-known
for their craft skills as artisans in the nineteenth century; but a great
number of them became shopkeepers in the twentieth century. The
Hainanese dominated the domestic services and merchant shipping, as
well as the coffee shop catering business, while the Hakkas, who had
traditionally been agriculturists in Singapore during the nineteenth
century, had become more diversified in their economic interests by the
twentieth century. The Sankiang pang was late on the scene but was
consolidating its power in the 1920s and 1930s. It is a numerically small
community even today.
The hua-ch’iao community was not only viable and virile but dynamic
and enterprising, especially in the social and educational spheres. It often
pooled its resources to establish schools, charitable organizations, guilds,
social clubs, territorial and kinship associations, and numerous temples
for worship. Although the Chinese secret societies still existed they had
been on the decline as an effective community power since 1890 when the
British banned their organizations and activities. In the twentieth century,
the highest body within the hua-ch’iao community belonged to the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SCCC), founded in 1906.
This was an inter-pang organization with uneven numbers of office-
bearers to represent each pang. As the Hokkien pang was the largest in
size, it had more office-bearers than any other single pang. The Chamber’s
membership was recruited along pang lines and so were the elections of
office-bearers to it. Moreover, the presidents of the Chamber were rotated
between the Hokkien and all other non-Hokkien pang in each election.
Thus, it can fairly be said that the hua-ch’iao community in Singapore
was essentially and basically a pang society in character and in structure.
Compared to the Straits-born community, it was more highly and
elaborately organized in terms of the numbers of public and voluntary
bodies founded by them and the manpower involved in them.
The hua-ch’iao community was numerically strong, economically
powerful, and organizationally viable and sound. Its numbers, economic
resources, organizational structure and skills could conveniently be chan-
nelled into community and political actions in the common interest in
times of crises and stress. Thus, the pang structure of the Chinese
community in Singapore was not unconducive to community and political
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
12 TAN KAH-KEE
mobilization. Although Tan Kah-kee had been known to detest the concept
and practice of pang and pang power, he, nevertheless, was realistic in
utilizing and mobilizing his pang and pang organizations for the rise and
consolidation of his leadership and power.
The class nature of the Chinese community in Singapore prior to the
Second World War was still in the making. There was a very substantial
working class in Singapore but due to the high rate of illiteracy and the
inarticulateness of this class in politics, a working class consciousness
was yet to make its presence felt. Moreover, the British policy of banning
the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and preventing a trade union move-
ment from being more effectively mobilized by communist forces, had the
effect of stifling the growth of a Chinese working class organization and
of smothering the widespread outburst of class conflict between workers
and capitalists. Nonetheless, the communist elements were very success-
ful in cashing in on China’s national crisis arising from the war between
China and Japan after 1937 by mobilizing Chinese workers in Singapore
for socio-political purposes, such as fund-raising for China’s cause, the
recruitment of new cadres, demands for better working conditions, and
strike action, etc. The class nature of Singapore society generally and the
Chinese community in particular became emphatically more pronounced
in the 1940s and 1950s when political parties began to mobilize workers
for power.
Organizationally, the Chinese community of the Straits Settlements in
the twentieth century was a complex one. It consisted of both modern and
traditional institutions. While the traditional institutions were largely
structured along the lines of kinship (for example, family, clan or surname
associations), religion, secret society, guild and pang (for example,
hui-kuan, or territorial associations, at village, district, prefectural and
provincial levels), the modern institutions were by-products of modern
capitalism and Western colonialism which comprised the Chamber of
Commerce, social clubs, professional organizations, trade societies,
cultural and sports bodies, political parties and trade unions. While it is
true to say that most of these institutions were voluntary, innocuous and
mutual self-help organizations, some (for example, political parties, trade
unions, secret societies, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce,
etc.) belonged undoubtedly to the category of pressure groups.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
These complex and interlocking community networks served as the

institutional and power bases of the pang and community leaders. Through
them, these leaders were to exert their influence and power, and to mobilize
financial and manpower resources for pang, community or political action.
Thus, it could fairly be said that both traditional and modern organizations
were, often enough, nerve centres for Chinese community and political
leaders.
As a young man of seventeen, Tan Kah-kee emigrated to Singapore in the
autumn of 1890. In Singapore he spent over fifty years of his life, seeking
and fighting for, winning and finally dominating the community and political
leadership role until his return to the People’s Republic of China in May
1950. His arrival in Singapore coincided with the beginning of the hua-ch’iao
era and his exit signified the end of an important epoch in which the
hua-ch’iao had forcefully and successfully claimed, challenged and domi-
nated the community and political leadership within the Chinese society on
the island. More than that, Tan Kah-kee blossomed forth as an ethnic Chinese,
South-East Asian and Asian figure, through his founding of Amoy University, his
assumption of leadership in the Shantung Relief Fund, Singapore China
Relief Fund and Southseas China Relief Fund, his overt moral support for
Indonesian and Indian nationalism in the 1940s, and his bold approval of
Mao Tse-tung and Mao’s regime in China in the post-war era.
1. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien ts’e, Peking, All-China Returned

Overseas Chinese Association, 1961, pp. 98–9.
2. Ibid., pp. 99–100.
3. Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, Singapore, Southseas China
Relief Fund Union, 1949, p. 1.
4. The term hua-ch’iao is to denote immigrant Chinese who were China-
oriented and who received Chinese education and treasured Chinese culture
and values. In the twentieth century this community also included Chinese-
educated Straits-born Chinese. The period of history between 1890 and 1949
has been termed the hua-ch’iao era in South-East Asia, and for the argu-
ments and documentation of this, see Wang Gungwu, ‘Southeast Asian
Hua-ch’iao in Chinese History-writing’, JSEAS, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 1981,
pp. 1–14.
5. Pang is a socio-political grouping; it denotes a bloc, a band or a
sub-community. For more details, see C. F. Yong, ‘Pang, Pang Organization and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
14 TAN KAH-KEE
Leadership in the Chinese Community of Singapore during the l930’s’, JSSS,

Vol. 32, Pts 1 & 2, 1977, pp. 31–52.
6. Dr Ku Hung-ming was a Penang-born Chinese who studied English literature
at the University of Edinburgh and returned to China to lecture at the National
University of Peking in the 1890s. Dr Wu Lien-teh, a famous plague fighter in
China, and a Queen’s Scholar, served China between the 1900s and 1930s as a doc-
tor of medicine. Dr Lim Boon-keng, one of the first Queen’s Scholars from
Singapore, served as Dr Sun Yat-sen’s presidential advisor during 1912 and returned
to China to take up a post as Vice-Chancellor of Amoy University for sixteen years
between 1921 and 1937. For more on Dr Lim Boon-keng, see Chapter 4.
7. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, reprint, Singapore, Tan Kah-kee, 1946, p. 1.
Map 1 The Homeland of Tan Kah-kee: Chi Mei, T’ung An District, Fukien Province, 1900
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
2
The Tan Clan
Think of the source of water when drinking, never forget the origins.
Tan Kah-kee on his homeland
LOCATED in the southern part of Fukien, T’ung An was one of the five
districts of Ch’uanchou prefecture, separating Changchou prefecture to
the south-west from Foochow prefecture to the northeast. The size of
T’ung An was approximately that of the island of Singapore (225 square
miles), its population of a quarter of a million in 1911 being equivalent to
that of the total population of Singapore during the same period. The dis-
trict is mountainous in its hinterland, becoming less undulating towards
the coastal regions. On the north, it merges with the district of An Ch’i, a
hilly and rugged tea-producing area. On the east, it is flanked by Nan An
district, while on the west, its borders link up with Ch’ang T’ai and Hai
Ch’eng districts of Changchou prefecture. On the south, the roaring South
China Sea sweeps its coastlines with Amoy and Quemoy islands guarding
its doorway. On a clear and calm day from the T’ien-ma mountain ranges
at T’ung An, one can catch a glimpse of the Amoy island, for over a cen-
tury one of the southern centres for the exodus of millions of Chinese
from Fukien.
T’ung An has thirteen villages of varying sizes, and Chi Mei village is
situated at the southern tip of the district. Protruding towards the sea, Chi
Mei, being a peninsula, is the closest to the island of Amoy. This district
had historically become a land of enchanting beauty to thousands of
returning T’ung An immigrants from overseas. Getting off the liners at
the port of Amoy, these immigrants would take a boat heading towards
the various villages in T’ung An. And to Chi Mei village, the homeland
of the Tan clan, and the birthplace of Tan Kah-kee, the trip would take less
than an hour by boat. In 1955, an engineering feat was accomplished when
15
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
16 TAN KAH-KEE
a causeway linking the island of Amoy and T’ung An was constructed,

vastly reducing travelling time for homecoming immigrants or visitors. For
the returning immigrants, as far as their eyes could see, the sparkling South
China Sea would merge gradually and harmoniously with distant hills and
mountain ranges at the back. For those Chi Mei visitors or homecomers,
there would be a nostalgic and touching sight — the Shean river flowing
quietly southwards from the hinterland against the rising contour of the
T’ien-ma ranges. How the name T’ung An, literally meaning ‘mutual har-
mony and peace’, originated is immaterial. To the T’ung An folk, its mean-
ing was most fitting as great harmony often descended between the
landscape and seascape in their homeland.
Traditionally and historically, both Changchou and Ch’uanchou prefec-
tures had been relatively affluent areas in South China, well-known for
their trade relationships with foreign merchants from South-East Asia, the
Middle East and Europe. Furthermore, these prefectures were two of
the major centres for the shipbuilding industry in South China during the
Sung and Ming dynasties. Trade and commerce had been the lifeline of
these regions. In agriculture, they were the heart of double-cropping rice
regions in the province.1 Because of its geographical endowments, pos-
sessing numerous well-sheltered islets and harbours on its twisted coast-
line, fishing, seafaring and piracy had also been the traditional occupations
of the T’ung An inhabitants.
The rugged and mountainous landscape and the ever-changing mood of
seascape along the coast helped produce a number of diverse but forceful
traditions among the T’ung An people. While the mountain ranges pre-
cipitated the creation of such qualities as frugality, simplicity and honesty,
the seafaring traditions helped the T’ung An people acquire a love for
independence, adventure, enterprise, doggedness, righteousness and bel-
ligerence. Their constant need to weather the storms at sea for a living and
for survival made them a hardy stock. In addition, its trading tradition with
foreign nations gave them business and commercial techniques and a
sense of shrewdness and ruthlessness in business dealings. These attrib-
utes and qualities were transplanted to South-East Asia with the T’ung An
immigrants over the centuries.
Added to the seafaring tradition was a historical tradition of anti-Manchu
and anti-foreign nationalism. The anti-Manchu feelings of the people in
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THE TAN CLAN 17
South Fukien first flared up at the end of the Ming dynasty when a native
hero, Cheng Ch’eng-kung (1624–1662), built up a strong army and navy,
resisting the Manchu conquest for twelve years. Cheng drew the support
and manpower for his forces from Fukien province, and stationed them in
Chi Mei and on Amoy and Quemoy islands. Hailing from the Nan An
district himself, Cheng led the Southern Chinese to harass, attack and
defeat the Manchu navy off the coast of South China on numerous occa-
sions. On one occasion in 1661, he succeeded in capturing Taiwan from
the Dutch with a fleet of 900 ships. After his death, the anti-Manchu
resistance led by his son continued for another generation until Amoy was
finally captured by the Manchus in 1681, and Taiwan in 1683. Bravery,
sacrifice, perseverance and belligerence, as well as a strong anti-Manchu
feeling, accounted for the prolonged and sustained struggle of the
Southern Hokkiens. Despite the collapse of the anti-Manchu forces, anti-
Manchu nationalism remained alive, dormant until such times as opportu-
nities arose to express it. The rising of the Small Sword Society (Hsiao-tao
hui) in Amoy against the Manchu authorities in 1853 is a case in point.2 It
is more than probable that emigrants from South Fukien to South-East
Asia had brought with them anti-Manchu sentiments. The protracted
resistance created in them a spirit of steadfastness, tenacity, sacrifice and
endurance in the face of adversity. As the years went by, this anti-Manchu
ethos became assimilated into the T’ung An spirit, a heritage that the peo-
ple of T’ung An came to share and treasure.
Apart from the anti-Manchu nationalism, the anti-foreign part of the
T’ung An spirit was created with Lin Tse-hsü’s anti-opium policy against
the British during the Opium War (1839–42). Although Lin was a
Northern Hokkien, he was nevertheless greatly admired by the people in
Fukien for his fortitude and righteousness in upholding China’s right to
ban opium smoking, trade and importation. Although the T’ung An spirit
contained traces of anti-foreign elements, these components were less
active and visible when transplanted overseas.
In Singapore, the T’ung An immigrants often bragged about their
T’ung An spirit with pride and exuberance. They regarded the T’ung An
character as consisting of such qualities and attributes as tenacity, bravery,
militancy and charity.3 Tenacity, bravery and militancy would seem to
imply a sense of independence, dedication, discipline, resilience,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
18 TAN KAH-KEE
ruthlessness and fearlessness, all essential qualities for strong, resolute

and dynamic leadership. On the other hand, charity and generosity may
indicate a sense of public-mindedness, self-sacrifice for a common goal,
and purposefulness in actions, virtues for popularity, and benevolence in
leadership.
The T’ung An spirit, in short, was a combination of sound leadership
qualities and forceful leadership style. However, there were some flaws in
the T’ung An character, according to one of the prominent T’ung An lead-
ers in Singapore, Tan Ean-khiam (1881–1942). In his view, these included
a lack of humility and respect for others and a tendency to lose poise and
composure when things were not going their way.4 Tan Kah-kee, the most
influential and undisputed T’ung An leader of them all during modern
times, had all the leadership qualities and style as well as the shortcom-
ings associated with the T’ung An spirit. In fact, he was the T’ung An
spirit personified. Apart from Tan Kah-kee, the T’ung An community in
Singapore had continued to provide a host of forceful leaders in the
twentieth century, including Tan Cheng-siong (1874–1922) and his son,
Tan Chin-tuan (b. 1908), Tan Ean-khiam, Yap Geok-twee (1897–1984),
Lim Kim-tian (1908–2005), later to join hands with anti-Tan Kah-kee
forces in Singapore, Tan Lark-sye (1897–1972), the founder of the
Nanyang University in Singapore, Soon Peng-yam (b. 1911) and Tan
Keong-choon (b. 1918), a nephew of Tan Kah-kee. All these had pos-
sessed leadership qualities and attributes pertaining to the T’ung An spirit.
Having taken some general observations of T’ung An, it is imperative
that the Chi Mei village and the Tan clan be singled out for a more detailed
introduction.
Chi Mei, literally means ‘concentrated beauty’. It has been a scenic
spot from time immemorial, with the T’ien-ma mountain ranges at its
back, the Shean river flowing through the land, and the South China Sea
caressing its coast and beaches. It is believed that this peninsula of sandy
soil was created when three rivers (the Shean, the Liu and the Lu) brought
down silt from the hinterland centuries ago. By the time the Tan clan set-
tled down in this oyster-laden sandy land, only the Shean river continued
to flow. Tilling the land, fishing and oyster farming were three major
occupations for the Tan clansmen. As the clan expanded and population
grew, the Tan clan in Chi Mei became divided into seven fang (meaning
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
THE TAN CLAN 19
room or house) or seven branches from the same lineage, congregating in

nine different localities. In 1874, for example, there were over 100 house-
holds in Chi Mei, almost exclusively populated by the Tan clan. In 1912,
the population was reported to be around 2,500 for the village. Although
the population had grown through the centuries, it must be remembered
that occasional epidemic outbreaks (for example, the 1888 epidemics) and
the emigration overseas had kept the clan population down to a steady
level. Those who stayed in Chi Mei during the nineteenth century were
mostly children, the aged and infirm, and womenfolk. A shortage of arable
land and employment opportunities drove many of its able-bodied young
men overseas. The opening of Amoy as one of the treaty ports in the 1840s
in turn facilitated the chain migration of the Tan clansmen.
The Chi Mei village of the nineteenth century could not be regarded as
a poverty-stricken community, for, among other organizations and chari-
table bodies then existing, there was a traditional Chinese school, named
Nan-hsüan ssu-shu, for teaching children the Confucian classics. This
private school was partly subsidized by the local community and partly
supported by remittances from the Tan clansmen overseas. Children from
wealthier fang could be sent to either Amoy or Foochow for further educa-
tion. On the other hand, children from poorer fang often had to help their
families in oyster farming, in burning the oyster shells for house painting,
in collecting firewood for cooking and in planting sweet potatoes for
food.5 This was a beautiful land, but worsening socio-economic conditions
in Chi Mei during the nineteenth century were to be defused through emi-
gration overseas.
The Chinese saying ‘yüan-yuan liu-ch’ang’ (the source is far, the flow
long) is applicable to the Tan clan of Chi Mei. Thanks to Tan Khuat-
siong,6 we now have a comprehensive genealogy of Tan Kah-kee which
traces his forebears back to the late Sung dynasty. Originally hailing from
Ku-sh’e district, Honan province, North China, Tan Kah-kee’s ancestors
emigrated from the war-torn homeland, through Kiangsi province, to
T’ung An during the rule of Jurchen in North China (1122–1234). The
Jurchens were ancestors of the Manchus in Manchuria who succeeded in
establishing a new dynasty in North China called Chin. This Chin dynasty
was subsequently swept away by the invading Mongols who, in turn, set
up their dynasty known as Yüan (1278–1368).
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
20 TAN KAH-KEE
The founder of the Tan clan in T’ung An was a person named Tan Sau-
chi who represents the first generation of the clan in the genealogy. In
T’ung An, Tan Sau-chi, with his wife, settled down to become a well-to-
do landowner. Their only son, named Tan Wei-chi, and their four grand-
children, eventually moved to Chi Mei for permanent settlement. From
here, on a patch of sandy field swept by the Shean river, succeeding gen-
erations earned a living principally in farming and fishing while the clan
expanded. With one exception, the Tan clansmen are not generally known
to have been prominent in officialdom. From the Tan genealogy, only one
clansman named Tan Boon-swee (b. 1573) can be identified as excelling
in scholarship, to obtain a Chin-shih degree (equivalent to a Ph.D.) and
become the magistrate of Wu district in Soochou prefecture, Kiangsu.7
This official is reported to have been a simple, frugal and incorruptible
person, loyal to the Ming emperors and caring for the people. This is not
to say that the Tan clan had not shown interest in scholarship and classical
learning. On the contrary, there is evidence to show that quite a number of
them were in fact well versed in Confucian classics without having to pass
imperial civil service examinations to become officials. Tan Kok-chieh of
the ninth generation and Tan Shih-yu (1693–1776) of the fourteenth gen-
eration are just two cases in point.8
By the fifteenth generation, the Tan clan was headed by Tan Sheng-
heng (1732–1784), who was more prolific than most of his forebears, with
seven sons. He is described as an honest, intelligent, courteous, frugal and
hard-working man, who owned arable land and a couple of houses in Chi
Mei.9 His eldest son, Tan Shih-king (1754–1837) of the sixteenth genera-
tion, was the great grandfather of Tan Kah-kee. He was a model Confucian
gentleman, filial to his parents and respectful to his friends. He carried on
the traditional livelihood in fishing and farming and died a contented per-
son at a ripe old age of 84. He left behind three sons; each had his own
issue. The second son, Tan Chien-chi (1795–1856), became Tan Kah-
kee’s grandfather, representing the seventeenth generation of the clan. He
is described as an honest, strict, industrious and respectful man, a loving
father and husband. He also carried on a livelihood in farming and fishing.
Although Tan Chien-chi had never been interested in trade or in emigra-
tion, his three sons were to be more adventurous. They all migrated to
Singapore and earned a good living as rice traders and successful
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
THE TAN CLAN 21
businessmen. The eldest son, Tan Eng-tiong, seems to have been the least
prominent of the three. He does not get much of a mention in the geneal-
ogy, except for the information that he had three sons. The second son of
Tan Chien-chi, Tan Eng-kan (1838–76), seems to have done well in
Singapore and in his home village. Although he died young, at the age of
thirty-six, he had become rich enough to be the holder of a purchased
brevet rank, an imperial title which entitled him to a sixth-grade office
post.10 The third and youngest son of Tan Chien-chi, Tan Kee-peck
(1842?–1909), was Tan Kah-kee’s father, of whom we do have firmer and
more accurate information for a profile. Right up to the eighteenth genera-
tion, the genealogy is most consistent about the moral and ethical features
of the clan — they were frugal, hard-working, law-abiding and practising
Confucians with caring and loving parents and respectful sons.
Economically, they were land-owning farmers and fishermen with practi-
cally no strong tradition in trade and commerce until the generation of Tan
Kee-peck.
Tan Kee-peck was born in Chi Mei but the date of his birth has
remained unresolved. His second brother, Tan Eng-kan, was born in 1838,
so it is logical that he should have been born during or after the Opium
War (1839–42). As a young man, he left home to join his two elder
brothers in Singapore as an apprentice in their rice firms. This would
probably be during the 1860s, and by the time his son, Tan Kah-kee, was
born in 1874, Tan Kee-peck had already branched out himself and estab-
lished a rice firm at North Boat Quay, called Soon Ann. Soon Ann
imported rice from Cochinchina, Siam and Burma and sold it to retailers
in Singapore and the Malay States. The reasons for venturing into the rice
trade are not difficult to find. For a start, rice was a staple food for Asians
in the region, and with the increase in Chinese population in Singapore
and the Malay States through immigration, there was an increasing
demand for rice. Merchants who were able to control the source of it could
be sure of amassing wealth in due course. Some of the Chinese merchants
in Singapore who grew rich out of the rice trade included Tan Kim-ching
(1829–92) and Khoo Cheng-tiong (1820–96); both were also leaders of
the Hokkien pang in the island. Moreover, Tan Kee-peck had built up a
business network in the rice trade during the years when he was appren-
ticed to his elder brothers.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
22 TAN KAH-KEE
The establishment of Soon Ann during the 1870s allowed Tan Kee-
peck to accumulate capital and to branch out into the real estate business.
In addition, Tan Kee-peck ran a sago mill, producing sago for export pur-
poses. He owned a couple of hundred acres of land for pineapple planting,
and began, in the 1890s, to manage a pineapple-canning plant in Singapore
to export canned pineapples overseas. By 1900 Tan Kee-peck had reached
the pinnacle of his economic success, when all his assets were assessed to
have amounted to over $400,000. By then he had also become the largest
pineapple canner and packer, and was reported to have secured about
70 percent of the export trade in canned pineapple. His ‘Sultan’ brand of
preserved pineapples was in great demand.11
According to Tan Yeok-seong,12 Tan Kee-peck had in his lifetime estab-
lished some eighteen business firms either on his own or in partnership
with his clansmen. Out of these, five bore a ‘Bee’ (for Chi Mei) in the
name, while thirteen others bore an ‘Ann’ (for T’ung An). Although it is
difficult to verify the accuracy of the statement, it is possible to provide a
list of firms fully or partially owned by Tan Kee-peck. These included
Kim Sheng Bee (commission agents), Soon Ann (rice), Tack Ann (rice),
Guan Ann (rice), Hock Ann (rice), Cheng Ann (blacksmith), Teck Ann,
and Hiap Ann. However, quite a number of companies which were closely
associated with him but without bearing an ‘Ann’ or ‘Bee’ could also be
found. These consisted of Kheng Seng (cement), Jit Sin (Pineapple can-
ning) and Sing Kai Mow. This is the success story of Tan Kee-peck in the
1890s. Even at this stage, it should be noted that one of the reasons for the
economic success was Tan Kah-kee’s capable business and financial man-
agement of Soon Ann. Together with the episode of Soon Ann’s final
demise in 1904, the story must be reserved for more detailed analysis in
the next chapter.
Tan Kee-peck’s social standing was high and his profile impressive. He
had been a prominent leader in the Tan clan in Singapore since 1878 when
a clan temple named Po Chiak Keng, was founded. This impressive tem-
ple at Magazine Road in Singapore is still well-maintained and preserved.
In the courtyard of the temple there are four plaques, commemorating the
building and fund-raising events of the temple. Two of these show that Tan
Kee-peck was one of the eighteen directors of the temple in 1878 and one
of its eight directors in 1898. In 1903, Tan Kee-peck was promoted to
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
THE TAN CLAN 23
become one of the three directors of the temple, responsible for building
roads and sheds in the temple-owned cemetery in Thompson Road.13
Tan Kee-peck, a religious man, was associated with the building of the
Rochore Chinese Temple in 1903 in Singapore, being one of the nine
directors for the building project.14 In 1904, he was one of the three fund-
raising directors in Singapore responsible for the erection of a Buddhist
temple in Foochow, Fukien. On this occasion, he donated a sum of $300.15
Like many Chinese in his generation, Tan Kee-peck was charitable and
public-minded. When the Tong Chai Medical Institution was built in
New Bridge Road in 1891, all his affiliated firms donated money. These
included Soon Ann ($120), Tack Ann ($80), Hiap Ann ($60), Cheng Ann
($50) and Hock Ann ($40). The Hokkien pang raised over $20,000 on this
occasion, more than any other pang.16
It is reasonable to say that Tan Kee-peck was not the most important
Hokkien pang leader, neither was he a recognized community leader in
the Chinese society of Singapore. Nevertheless, he was one of the Hokkien
pang leaders, quite prominent and influential at that. In 1896, some
Chinese merchants and leaders in Singapore floated the idea of founding
a Chinese commercial association as a pressure group. Although the
attempt was abortive, they did get together twice to discuss getting the
project off the ground. Tan Kee-peck was among thirteen Hokkien leaders
on a forty-member committee for its founding.17 They got to the stage of
drafting and devising a constitution, but the association was never real-
ized. It is still an enigma to historians as to why their efforts came to noth-
ing. The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce was not to be founded
until ten years later, in 1906. Tan Kee-peck, however, had a hand in the
proposed scheme while representing the Hokkien pang as a recognized
pang leader.
The British authorities in Singapore obviously regarded Tan Kee-peck
rather highly as a merchant and Hokkien pang leader, for when he applied
for naturalization in 1904 as a British subject, the Executive Council
granted it,18 as a privilege and a sign of respect for him.
The genealogy of the Tan clan described him as an upright and even-
tempered man, while his son, Tan Kah-kee sketched him as a homely,
frugal and simple-living person, who resided in the third floor of the
premises of Soon Ann for decades, and who read and entertained friends
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
24 TAN KAH-KEE
on the second floor. The one single luxury Tan Kee-peck ever indulged in
was opium-smoking.19 When he retired to Chi Mei in his twilight years,
one of his clansmen, Tan Soo-kiok, then a young child, recalled him as an
approachable and affectionate old man, wearing glasses, and loving the
children of the village. When he died in 1909, it was quite a memorable
affair, for the provincial government of Fukien even despatched a number
of officials to Chi Mei to express condolences.
In his lifetime Tan Kee-peck is known to have had three marriages and
ten sons.20 One marriage in Singapore went without issue as his spouse
died at a young age. Another marriage in Singapore to a Straits-born lady
from a Saw family bore him two sons, namely Tan T’ien-ch’i and T’ien-fu.
One other marriage in China to a lady from a Soon family of Soon Ch’u
She, a seaside spot within Chi Mei village, resulted in the birth of Tan
Kah-kee and Tan Keng-hean (1889–1936). Besides, Tan Kee-peck
adopted six sons. In terms of seniority, Meng-keng came first, followed by
Kah-kee (second), Ch’ang-keng, Ch’ang-ling, Ch’ang-hsiu, Ch’ang-
ch’eng, Keng-hean (seventh), T’ien-ch’i (eighth), T’ ien-fu (ninth, alias
Ah-bah and Kuang-liang), and T’ien-lu. With the exception of Tan
Kah-kee and Tan Keng-hean, little is written or known about the rest of
the brothers. There is no record to show that there were daughters ever
born to the family of Tan Kee-peck.
Tan Kah-kee’s mother deserves considerable credit for bringing up her
two children at Chi Mei as her husband was far too preoccupied with busi-
ness in Singapore to come home. In her own lifetime, she never left the
home village of Chi Mei and died there in 1897, an epidemic victim.
With the declining health and eventual death of Tan Kee-peck, it was
left to both Tan Kah-kee and Tan Keng-hean to carry on the family name.
As Tan Kah-kee is now on the centre stage of the drama, it is only fair that
their relationships with their parents, their own character and personali-
ties, and their own families should be considered.
The childhood of both Tan Kah-kee and Tan Keng-hean could not be
said to have been perfect and happy. As neither hardly saw nor knew their
father, they were left to do their own thinking and their own things. Both
were mentally and sentimentally attached to their mother who provided
the only source of love, affection and security they received and appreci-
ated. It was on his mother’s instruction that Tan Kah-kee returned home
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
THE TAN CLAN 25
to marry his first wife from a Teo family in 1893. When his mother died
in 1897, Tan Kah-kee had intended to return home to attend her funeral
but was unable to do so due to business commitments in Singapore. The
burial was eventually carried out in 1899 upon his return. For his young
brother, it was a traumatic experience. So grieved was he by the loss of the
dearest person in his life that he was reported to have refused to part with
the coffin for six months.21 What psychological impact the lack of fatherly
care and affection may have had on them remains a topic for surmise. One
is tempted to draw the conclusion that Tan Kah-kee was much more
affected than he himself would care to admit. In his lifetime, Tan Kah-kee
is known to have been hard, strict and harsh towards his children, verging
on the un-Confucian. For him, the family and children were to be cared
for in a material way, and beyond that there was little need to show his
own affection towards them. In any case, he spent far too little time with
his children, the Chinese New Year being the only occasion when family
reunion took place. He had no intention of leaving his assets to any of his
children while he was still alive, on the grounds that ‘wealth would impair
the ambition of the wise and increase the follies of the foolish’.22 He left
his children not a single cent when he died. According to his will, the
money in his savings bank account in China amounting to over C$3 million
was to be thus distributed: over C$2 million for the building funds of Chi
Mei schools, C$500,000 towards the cost of building an Overseas Chinese
museum in Peking, and another C$500,000 to be reserved for the Chi Mei
welfare foundation.23 From 1937 onwards Tan Kah-kee had become so
engrossed with China politics that he practically lived away from his
homes. Instead, he took up residence in his Ee Ho Hean Club at Bukit
Pasoh Road in Singapore, sleeping in a sparsely furnished room with a
simple single bed, a couple of chairs and a desk, and books.
Despite Tan Kah-kee’s apparent lack of affection for his sons, it would
be unkind to say that he did not benefit from his association with his father
in any significant way. His father should be credited for providing him
with an opportunity to receive some basic education in Chi Mei, thus
enabling him to read and write classical Chinese with ease. His father also
provided business training and practice to his apprenticed son, without
which Tan Kah-kee might not have been able to stand on his own within
a limited period of time. Despite the financial collapse of his father in
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
26 TAN KAH-KEE
1904, his father’s business concerns presented him with a base for reor-
ganization and restructuring. When opportunities were present, Tan Kah-
kee was able to branch out on his own. Finally, the business networks that
his father had built up over the long and laborious years, together with his
father’s high social standing within the business community, gave Tan
Kah-kee credibility in the eyes of his business counterparts. This was most
crucial because it permitted him time to ride out stormy financial waters
without incurring insurmountable difficulties. It would be hard to contem-
plate Tan Kah-kee’s chances of making a million dollars within a period
of some seven years (1905–11) without the foundation laid in business
networks, dealings and financial management during the years of his
apprenticeship between 1890 and 1904.
In his adolescent years, Tan Kah-kee entered the Nan-hsüan ssu-shu at
Chi Mei for a traditional Chinese classical education based on the
Confucian classics. Like many of his contemporaries, he had to learn by
heart the San-tzu-ching (or Trimatrical Classic), the Pai-chia-hsing (or
Century of Surnames), and the Ch’ien-tzu-wen (or Millenary Classic). He
sang and recited these classics without properly understanding them. After
having memorized these basic classic texts, students were then taught the
Four Books, for example, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, The
Analects of Confucius and Mencius. Because of the incomprehensible
nature of these Confucian texts, and a lack of textual analysis and explana-
tion by his teacher, Tan Kah-kee admitted that his knowledge of the
Confucian classics was at best inadequate.24 Tan Kah-kee remembered an
embarrassing episode in 1887 at the age of fourteen when he failed to
explain to his homecoming father the meaning of some lines from a
Confucian classic.25 He was so ashamed of himself that he decided to
study the Confucian classics with more dedication and determination.
Needless to say, the nine years of classical learning, albeit half-hearted,
stood him in good stead. It gave him a foundation in Chinese language and
culture and whetted his appetite for Chinese learning in his later years.
With classical learning, such Confucian precepts as loyalty, filial piety,
integrity, humanity, decorum, harmony, self-cultivation and other
Confucian ethical precepts were imparted to him. Although not known as
a staunch Confucianist in his life, Tan Kah-kee at least remained a mem-
ber of the Straits Confucian Association in Singapore in the 1920s.26 From
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THE TAN CLAN 27
a selected list of some twenty teachings by Tan Kah-kee to his children, it

is quite obvious that he approved of some of the basic teachings of
Confucius.27 Among the identifiable Confucian precepts included ‘do not
do to others what you would not want others to do to you’, and ‘the way
to a happy family lies in kindness, affection, filial piety, righteousness,
hard-work and frugality’.
Apart from studying the Confucian classics, Tan Kah-kee’s boyhood
was spent gathering oysters, a nutritious source of food, looking after his
younger brother, playing on the beaches and breathing the fresh and
unpolluted air from the South China Sea. He probably did some swim-
ming and sunbathing during the last summer in Chi Mei. And in the
autumn of 1890, at the age of seventeen, he was instructed to proceed to
Singapore to help manage Soon Ann as an apprentice. On his arrival, his
father found him an eager, hardy and healthy young man. Tan Kah-kee
had reason to be grateful for the Chi Mei milieu with its hills and river, the
sea, water and abundant fresh air, and inexhaustible supplies of oysters,
which gave him a strong constitution. In his lifetime, Tan Kah-kee never
had any serious sickness, except for an ulcer complaint and arthritis dur-
ing his old age. On this score he was more fortunate than his younger
brother who suffered from poor health all his adult life.
Tan Kah-kee projected different images during the course of his life and
times. He was a man of small stature, being described by a Straits Times
reporter in 1930 as ‘short, slim, frail-looking’.28 At first he had a queue
with a half-shaven head, a forced symbol of the Manchu subjugation in
China. After 1910 he was a man with a clean-shaven face and a crewcut.
However, after his return from China in 1922, he began to grow a mous-
tache, making himself look older and more solemn. To an onlooker, Tan
Kah-kee looked cold and severe, but inwardly he was a warm-hearted man.
By 1930 Tan Kah-kee already used a walking stick, one which was given
to Pan Kuo-chu in 1950 as a souvenir. For this occasion, Pan, an outstand-
ing calligrapher and poet, was inspired enough to write a poem on it. The
poem enumerated the uses of sticks, one of which was to beat up the incor-
rigible ‘dog’, hinting at the corrupt officials in Kuomintang China.29
The pattern of Tan Kah-kee’s daily life following his arrival in
Singapore was remarkably consistent. During the 1920s his day started at
5 a.m. except on Sunday. He would do some gentle exercises in bed before
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28 TAN KAH-KEE
getting up. Having got up, he would go outdoors for a walk for half an
hour, engaging in deep-breathing exercises and enjoying the fresh air. He
then took a bath or a shower, sometimes with running cold water, after
which he would rub his body several times with a dry towel. Breakfast
was served at 6 a.m., with three half-boiled eggs and a glass of milk, but
no coffee or toast. He never acquired the habit of drinking coffee because
his life-long friend, Dr Lim Boon-keng, had advised him of the ill-effects
of coffee drinking. At 7 a.m. he started his daily work at the Sumbawa
Road Rubber Manufactory, to which he was driven by his chauffeur.
At the Sumbawa Road complex, he took off his tie and coat, and started
to do the inspection round which took until 12 noon. During the round, he
would pause and talk to his employees and inspect the quality of goods
produced.
By noon, while his employees and workers were having their lunch
break, Tan Kah-kee would be at the Sumbawa Road office conference
room, chairing the daily meeting with his seven superintendents, each
being responsible for one or more departments of the production lines.
This meeting would normally last between 30 and 45 minutes, with each
of the superintendents making a report on the progress of production. The
chairman would help make decisions about any problems cropping up or
raised by them. As Tan Kah-kee was invariably sharp and quick in deci-
sion-making, the meeting never lasted over a 45-minute limit.
After this, he would be driven to one of three places for lunch. He
might go to his Ee Ho Hean Club, or one of his two residences, his
Cairnhill mansion or Meyer Road home. Lunch completed, he would be
driven to the head office at River Valley Road, to attend to all his busi-
nesses, for example, rubber, pineapple, accounting, marketing, rice, etc.
Here at the head office, there were about one hundred staff working for
him, including his two eldest sons and one of his sons-in-law, Lee Kong-
Chian. By 5 p.m. he would arrive at the Ee Ho Hean Club, have a bath and
a well-earned rest. As a rule, he would have his dinner there. Very rarely
would he return to his home for dinner; as regards dining out, not at all.
When dinner was over, he would be at the sundeck of the club, spending
half an hour loosening his muscles. Then, he would settle down in his
room on the third and top floor of the club, a room much underfurnished,
with no bathroom or toilet. His evening would be spent talking to club
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THE TAN CLAN 29
members, attending to his social and education matters, for example, the
Chi Mei schools and the Amoy University as well as many other local and
community matters. By midnight, he would be driven home to one of his
residences for some sleep, to be up and about by five the next morning.
Even after his business collapse in 1934, he carried on with daily exercises
and showers without fail, a practice which kept him fit and alert.
Tan Kah-kee had very simple tastes in food. His lunch or dinner con-
sisted invariably of a bowl of rice and a bowl of sweet potato porridge
with vegetable and meat dishes as main courses. Although some of the
famous eating places in Singapore, such as Nan T’ien, were around the
corner from the club, he never sampled their exotic cuisine. In his lifetime
Tan Kah-kee was so frugal and careful with money that he never carried
more than five dollars in cash in his pocket, wherever he went. Added to
his austere and spartan lifestyle was the fact that he never ventured into a
cinema to see a film until 1934, after the winding up of his business
empire. According to Tan Yeok-seong, he did this in order to excuse
himself from attending a dinner party given by some Ee Ho Hean Club
members in honour of Ch’en Kung-po, then Minister for Industry in the
Kuomintang government, who was visiting Singapore. In his lifetime, a
self-denying Tan Kah-kee never celebrated his own birthday and forbade
the families and children to visit him on the occasion. When he was
unwell, he did not like any of the children to enquire about his health.
Little wonder that his fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng (b.1912), in a candid
interview in 1982, described his father as a busy, hardworking and public
man who had spent so much time on his businesses and social work that
he had hardly any time for his children and families. All his children were
looked after and brought up by their mothers.
Quite apart from food, Tan Kah-kee never took alcohol of any sort:
neither beer, saki, nor spirits. He did experiment with opium and cigars in
his younger days but gave up the smoking habit during the 1920s. He
never gambled and knew nothing about mahjong, or horse-racing. One of
his friends and president of the Ee Ho Hean Club for many years until his
death, Lim Chwee-chian (1868–1923), was full of praise for him as a club
member. He described him as a gentleman who never ever mentioned such
words as ‘prostitution’ and ‘gambling’ in the club. What he did discuss
with fellow members were issues concerning business and the Chinese
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30 TAN KAH-KEE
community.30 Throughout his life Tan Kah-kee was never involved in any
scandals concerning either women or gambling debts. In fact Tan Kah-kee
strongly condemned prostitution as a profession.31
Socially Tan Kah-kee could be regarded as a traditionalist, conservative
in attitude and puritanical in taste. He strongly disapproved of opium-
smoking in the 1920s, likening it to slavery. He objected to modern
Western dancing, condemning it as a decadent social evil. He took a dim
view of lottery sweeps being introduced by the Municipal Council in
Amoy in 1921 to raise funds; he was so incensed that he lobbied and pro-
tested in the Press until the sweeps were prematurely terminated. After
1911 he denounced Manchu clothing on political and aesthetic grounds,
and attacked those Chinese who still wore it.
He was intolerant towards such human behaviour and attributes as
hypocrisy, waste of human resources (lavish wedding spending, expensive
funerals, enervating entertainments and birthday celebrations, etc.), dis-
play and vanity, corruption and misgovernment. He was often appalled by
clannish, selfish, incompetent and irresponsible people and the loafers
within the Chinese community. He had no time for those who were good
at paying lip service.
In politics, he satirized the egotistic, cajoled the deceitful, and despised
and condemned the disloyal and unpatriotic. He was utterly unrepentant
and fearless of creating controversy by naming Wang Ching-wei in 1938
the han-chien (renegade) who helped the Japanese by establishing a pup-
pet government in Nanking. In 1947 and 1948 after the Chinese Civil War
had broken out, he was so furious with Chiang Kai-shek that he likened
Chiang’s sins to those committed by Shih Ching-t’ang and Wu San-kuei;
the former had betrayed the late T’ang dynasty in 936 to the Kitan regime
from Inner Mongolia, while the latter opened the gates of the Great Wall
in 1644 to allow the Manchu bannermen to conquer China.
According to Tan Khuat-siong, the generations from his great grandfa-
ther to his own all believed in Buddhism.32 His grandfather, Tan Kee-peck,
his uncle, Tan Keng-hean and his own mother were all devout Buddhists.
However, it is uncertain just how much Tan Kah-kee could be regarded as
a practising Buddhist. There is no evidence to show that Tan Kah-kee ever
prayed in Chinese temples or donated large sums of money towards tem-
ple building, as his father had done. He did believe in charity, and
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THE TAN CLAN 31
practised it. Moreover, he endorsed the idea of cause and effect in things.33
He was quite obsessed with ‘fate’, saying that the failure of his father’s
business concerns in 1904 and his own in 1934 was due to it.34
Tan Kah-kee was a thinking man who had a lucid and analytical mind,
capable of putting his ideas on paper or in speeches. He was equally good
at making short or long speeches. However, he was more a battler and
action-motivated man who dared to think, to speak his mind, to become
critical and angry, and to take action when action was called for. Moreover,
he had the courage of his own convictions, often making sure he saw his
actions through to the end, at times fearless of adverse consequences.
However, he was quite prepared to compromise when compromise was
the only sensible way to solve a problem. Such were the qualities and
attributes of this remarkable man, and history was to prove that he was a
giant both in community and political leadership in the modern history of
Singapore and China.
Being a cut above all others in his generation among the Chinese in
South-East Asia, Tan Kah-kee has been described as a loner who was his
own think-tank.35 He may have looked lonely throughout his life. In fact he
had a hard core of friends at various times and many more supporters and
admirers. In the 1910s his close friends were Lim Chwee-chian, Lim Boon-
keng, Tan Cheng-siong and Lim Nee-soon, and in the 1920s and 1930s Sng
Choon-yee (b.1897), Yap Geok-twee, Chew Hean-swee (1884–1964),
Hau Say-huan (1883–1944), and Li Leung-kie. In the 1940s a younger
generation of community leaders and activists, including Chang Ch’u-
k’un, Hu Yu-chih, Ng Aik-huan (1908–86), Lau Boh-tan (1902–83) and
Soon Peng-yam became much closer to him. He often did his thinking and
home work before consulting others and getting others to support his ideas
and actions. The nerve centre of his thinking and consultation was the Ee
Ho Hean Club.
Tan Kah-kee was not such a loner after all, for he was not only good at
making friends and spotting talents in the Chinese community, but also at
retaining friendship and loyalty. People who had come into contact with
him often were full of admiration for his modesty and honesty. His
lifetime friendship with Ng Aik-huan began in 1933 at a fund-raising
meeting at the Tong Chai Medical Institution, New Market Street, for the
relief of flood victims in North China. The meeting was chaired by Tan
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32 TAN KAH-KEE
Kah-kee, who made a moving speech pleading for community action and
for help. As no others present were to make speeches, the young Ng Aik-
huan stood up to make an effective impromptu appeal in support of Tan
Kah-kee. Both Tan and his close friend, Hau Say-huan, wondered who the
speaker was, as both were impressed by his oratory and eloquence. After
the meeting Tan introduced himself to the young man and asked for his
identity. To the embarrassment and agony of Hau, Ng Aik-huan happened
to be his fellow district man, from Nan An. Subsequently, Tan Kah-kee
invited Ng to the Ee Ho Hean Club for dinner and discussion, resulting in
a friendship lasting a lifetime. Tan Kah-kee was indeed good at ‘pu-ch’ih
hsia-wen’ (never feel ashamed to ask). His friendship with Pan Kuo-chu
commenced in the early 1930s when Pan was a teacher at the Tao Nan
School, Armenian Street. Having come to know and appreciate Pan’s liter-
ary and intellectual talent, he often used to drop him drafts of speeches,
telegrams or documents, asking Pan to amend or improve them. Later on
he continued to drop him notes, either inviting him to dinner at his club or
to do such things as becoming a secretary of a fund-raising body. By the
eve of the Japanese occupation of Singapore, Pan had collected over 700
such notes, all relating to ‘please help’ pleas or to community matters.
One of his clansmen, Tan Soo-kiok (b.1901), today a multi-millionaire
himself in Singapore, told the story of how Tan Kah-kee regularly wrote
to him when he was the manager of Khiam Aik, one of the branches of the
Tan Kah Kee & Co., in Muar, Johore. In the letters Tan Kah-kee stated that
the Muar branch had never been well managed before and that it was a
crucial cog in the company’s economic success as a collecting and distrib-
uting centre in southern Malaya. Tan Kah-kee wished him well and urged
him to do his utmost to ensure it was well managed. Tan’s modesty, con-
cern and the personal touch, greatly impressed the young manager, who
during the 1930s was to branch out on his own. Tan Kah-kee’s friendship
with Sng Choon-yee commenced towards the end of 1926 when Sng came
from Penang to take up a post as the Chief Translator of Chinese with the
Chinese Protectorate in Singapore. Sng was later to become the Chinese
Assistant to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, thus the right-hand man of
both A. M. Goodman (b.1886), and A. B. Jordan (1890–1981). Sng had
been advised by a member of the Ee Ho Hean Club from Penang to stay
at the club on arriving. He and Tan met the first day he moved in. They
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THE TAN CLAN 33
chatted and immediately respected and admired each other. Sng was
young, competent, talented, persuasive and progressive in his views on
Chinese community affairs. Moreover, Sng was one of the few Chinese in
Singapore who could communicate in nearly all Chinese dialects. His
English was impeccable. Sng found Tan a modest, frank, well-informed
and deep-thinking person, socially and educationally committed to the
well-being of the Chinese community in Singapore and China. Their
friendship was to grow and last for a lifetime, through thick and thin.
Although the friendship was mutually enriching, Tan was to find Sng a
helper in more ways than one. For example, Sng would feed Tan with
information and news on China and Chinese affairs from English books
and newspapers.
Apart from ‘pu-ch’ih hsia-wen’ as a useful way of learning, Tan Kah-
kee was an avid reader, who was interested in such subjects as history,
politics and international affairs. It was said that when he took over the Ee
Ho Hean Club in 1923, one of his first moves was to establish a club
library. Sng Choon-yee helped him to catalogue the books. He was often
found in the library, reading books and taking notes. He was never idle,
and his self-education provided him with the depth of thinking and ana-
lytical tools for his leadership. According to Pan Kuo-chu, Tan Kah-kee
was well versed in Chinese history, from ancient to modern times, often
quoting Chinese historical antecedents or anecdotes in speaking and in
speeches. He was able to use these quotes in such an objective and yet
persuasive way in speaking that his son, Tan Kok-kheng, admired him as
a scholar.
What sort of father and family man was Tan Kah-kee? His son, Tan Kok-
kheng, has been kind enough to provide the author with a rare insight into
his behaviour and thinking. The image of his father was a changing one.
When he was young, he found his father a strict disciplinarian, who would
knock on his door at six o’clock in the morning to wake him up. At the age
of fifteen, then still a student at the Tao Nan School, Tan Kok-kheng’s
mother bought him a necktie, which was to cause him much discomfort.
His father saw him wearing it and called him over. His father enquired,
‘What is that you have on your neck?’ ‘It is a necktie’, came the reply. His
father was not happy with the answer, saying ‘I know it is a necktie, but
where did you get it?’ ‘Mother bought it for me’, was the answer. His father
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34 TAN KAH-KEE
then went to see Kok-kheng’s mother, making more enquiries as to the

reasons for buying it. Later he called his son over again, making a com-
ment, ‘You have not yet started to earn money and yet you have already
worn a tie. If you had earned money, what would you be wearing then?’ His
father refused to allow him to wear a tie until he started his own business
career during the 1930s, years after he had become an adult.
On the completion of his secondary school education at St Joseph’s
Institute, Bras Basah Road, Singapore, at the end of 1931, Tan Kok-kheng
had intended to further his studies in the United States for a military
career. However, his father had totally different ideas for him and argued
against his going. His father thought soldiering was not much of a career.
In any case, it was a rough and tough lifestyle, fraught with peril. In fact,
his father had already mapped out a career for him — to train him to
become the manager for the whole Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory.
Thus Tan Kok-kheng earned his keep for the first time in his life as a
manager trainee in the Sumbawa Road complex, earning a meagre
monthly income of fifteen dollars, a sum equivalent to the monthly pay
package of an ordinary worker in the manufactory.
On the eve of his taking the first job, his father had more humiliating
news for him. He was bluntly told not to be driven by his chauffeur to
work. Instead, he was to walk for half a mile from his home in Meyer
Road, near Katong Park, to Tanjong Katong Road to catch a bus for work.
For six months he did this without fail, being giggled at by his fellow
workers on the bus. Occasionally, they sneered at him by calling him in a
sarcastic manner, ‘Towkay Kia’ (the boss’s son). After six months, his
father saved him from further embarrassment by having him driven by the
family chauffeur to work. His father’s idea behind this seemingly mean
move was ch’ih-k’u, literally meaning eating bitterness, or enduring hard-
ship. This was a common and traditional practice among the Chinese in
South-East Asia to prepare their children by toughening them up on the
threshold of their careers.
Tan Kah-kee could be ‘heavy-handed’, and on occasions, ‘intolerable’
when he chose to intervene in the affairs of some of his children. His
objection in 1934 to his fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng, marrying a certain
young lady, is a case in point. His son met this young lady on board an
Italian liner travelling from Hong Kong to Singapore and fell in love with
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THE TAN CLAN 35
her. They dated each other regularly after their return and were to be
engaged and married. However, his father objected to the engagement on
the grounds that she was a socialite who was fond of Western dancing.
Once Tan Kah-kee had made up his mind, there was no way it was to be
changed, even when he was told that the young lady was willing to give
up dancing.36 When writing in 1982 of this unhappy episode, a mellow
and philosophical Tan Kok-kheng confirmed that his father had changed
his life — first, his career and then his matrimony.37
During the 1930s, when Tan Kok-kheng had more time and opportunity
to be with his father at the Ee Ho Hean Club, he found him a rather warm-
hearted and inspiring man. His father, long known to be a man with a great
capacity for hard work, often enquired about his health, advising him on
numerous occasions not to work overtime without having taken food.
During the hectic years of fund-raising for China’s war effort after the
outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, it was his father who inspired
him to organize the Straits-born Chinese community for fund-raising, an
achievement of which Tan Kok-kheng and his fellow committee members
were truly proud.
In the post-war years, Tan Kok-kheng came much closer to his father,
both mentally and politically. His father often confided in him, thus mak-
ing him a staunch supporter of his cause. One rare quality which most
impressed Tan Kok-kheng about his father was the latter’s ability to
change with the times. The siding with Mao Tse-tung for the unification
of China in the 1940s is a case in point.
In 1950 when his father finally left Singapore for China, it was no sur-
prise that Tan Kok-kheng and his eldest brother, Tan Chay-bing, were
jointly appointed as his deputies to look after their father’s interests and
affairs in Singapore and Malaya.
In his lifetime, Tan Kah-kee had four marriages. His first wife, Teo
Po-ke (1876–1916), the daughter of a scholar from Chi Mei, was a devout
Buddhist, who married him at the age of eighteen. This marriage produced
four sons (Chay-bing, Khuat-siong, Pok-ai and Pok-chay) and three
daughters (Ai-lay, Lai-ho and Ai-eng). Both Tan Pok-chay and Tan Ai-eng
were given to his brother, Tan Keng-hean, as children. Tan Lai-ho, on the
other hand, was given to his third wife, Yap Kheok-neo (1887–1970) as a
daughter.
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36 TAN KAH-KEE
His second marriage was to Goh Shiok-neo (1875–1974), of Amoy, and

by it three sons (Guan-khai, Guan-chay and Guan-aik) and three daugh-
ters (Ah-hui, Ah-moi and Poh-tee) were born.
Tan Kah-kee’s marriage to Yap Kheok-neo, also of Amoy, saw the birth
of one son (Kok-kheng) and three daughters (Lai-on who died at the age
of thirteen, Mary Tan and Lai-choo). His fourth marriage to Madam Chou
resulted in the birth of his eighth son, Kok-whye.38 Madam Chou was a
Singapore-born lady who died young prior to the Japanese occupation of
Singapore in 1942.
All in all, a total of seventeen children were born into the families.
Although it is true that all his four wives had received little or no
formal education and knew practically nothing about businesses and
politics, it must be acknowledged that they brought peace, harmony,
stability and security to the families, without which Tan Kah-kee might
not have been able to concentrate on his profession and career as a
community and political leader in the Chinese community in Singapore
and Malaya. Their contribution to the welfare of their children was
enormous as they brought them up to adulthood and even arranged
marriages for some of them. Moreover, they were practically responsi-
ble for making their homes at Cairnhill Circle and Meyer Road,
Katong, comfortable for all members of the families. Thus, the saying
that behind the success of a great man lies a woman, still holds true in
this case.
Out of the seventeen children, their various marriages brought kin-
ship into the limelight and into play. Closer family ties and relations
among them brought kinship solidarity, improved social standing and
corporate financial and economic power. The more intricate patron–
client and kinship networks will be more closely examined in Chapter 4
in the context of the status building of Tan Kah-kee. Suffice it to say
here that it was a formidable achievement in itself to bring powerful
families together through marriage. These powerful families included
those of Lee Kong-chian, Lim Nee-soon, Chan Kang-swi, Chew
Hean-swee, Chew Lian-seng and Yap Geok-twee directly, and, indi-
rectly, those of many other influential families in Singapore, Malaya
and Indonesia as well.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
THE TAN CLAN 37
1. E. S. Rawski, Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South

China, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972, p. 147.
2. The Small Sword Society was a branch of the anti-Manchu Triad Society
in China, which launched rebellions in both Amoy and Shanghai in 1853. The
society in Shanghai, led by Southern Chinese, captured the walled city of
Shanghai and held it for seventeen months.
3. NYSP, 10 May 1929.
4. Ibid., 28 February 1936.
5. Tan Soo-kiok, one of Tan Kah-kee’s clansmen, provided this information
in Singapore in December 1982.
6. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., Chi Mei Chih, reprint, Hong Kong, Chiyu Banking
Corporation Ltd., 1963.
7. Ibid., p. 47.
8. Ibid., pp. 23,25.
9. Ibid., p. 26.
10. Ibid., p. 27.
11. Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore,
reprint, Singapore, University of Malaya Press, 1967, p. 430.
12. Tan Yeok-seong’s information concerning the eighteen establishments of
Tan Kee-peck was provided by Tan Pok-ai in the 1930s. Tan Yeok-seong passed
the information on to me at his Katong home on 27 April 1979.
13. Lat Pau, 11 May 1903.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 24 March 1904.
16. Ibid., 4 November 1891, 20 November 1891.
17. Ibid., 4 February 1896; Sing Po, 1 February 1896.
18. CO 275/62, Minutes of the Executive Council, Straits Settlements,
21 November1904, p. 163.
19. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, reprint, Singapore, Tan Kah-kee, 1946,
p. 393.
20. The evidence of Tan Kee-peck having ten sons can be found in an inscrip-
tion on the tombstone of Tan Kah-kee’s mother, erected in 1899 at Chi Mei.
21. Ch’en Chin-hsien hsien-sheng chi-nien-k’an, Amoy, 1936, p. 1.
22. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., op. cit., p, 73. C. F. Yong, ed., Tan Kah-kee in pre-
War Singapore: Selected Documents and Analysis, Singapore, South Seas
Society, 1980, p. 27.
23. Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, Ch’en Chia-keng hsing-hsüch-chi, Fukien,
1981, p. 2.
24. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 393.
Overseas Chinese Association, 1961, p. 77.
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38 TAN KAH-KEE
26. NYSP, 19 September 1927.

27. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., op. cit., pp. 177–8.
28. ST, 2 January 1930.
29. P’an Shou, Hai-wai-lu shih, reprint, Vol. 4, Singapore, Singapore Cultural
and Academic Association, 1985, p. 24.
30. Lin Po-ai, et al., Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan, Penang, Nanyang min-jen
chi-chuan pien-chi-ch’u, 1924, p. 199.
31. Tan Kah-kee, Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, Singapore, Southseas China
32. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., op. cit., p. 161.
33. Ibid., p. 118.
34. Tan Kah-kee, Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, pp. 397 and 420.
35. A view provided by Tan Ee-leong at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce, Hill Street, in August 1976.
36. Tan Kok-kheng, ‘Recollections of Tan Kah Kee, My Father’, Singapore,
1982, pp. 615–16. (mimeo.)
37. Ibid., p. 616.
38. Ch’uanchou wen-shih, No. 5, October 1981, p. 90. This journal contains
an article claimed to have been written by Tan Kah-kee in 1944 which admits that
Tan Kah-kee had a fourth marriage.
B1493_Ch-02.indd 38 8/20/2013 4:37:34 PM

1. Tan Kah Kee’s father, Tan Kee-peck (1842?–-1909)
2. Tan Kah Kee’s wife, Teo Po-ke (1876 –-1916)
TKK Photo layouts.indd 1 5/9/13 12:01 PM

3. The house in Chi Mei where Tan Kah Kee was born (1874)
4. The earliest photograph of

Tan Kah-kee (1905)

5. Tan Kah Kee’s younger brother,
Tan Keng-hean (1917)
6. Lee Kong-chian’s wedding in 1920 in Singapore to Tan Kah-kee’s eldest daughter, Tan Ai-lay
Front row, from left: Tan Boon-khian (second), Tan Ee-leong (third), Lee Kong-chian (fourth),
Tan Ai-lay (fifth)
Second row, from left: Tan Chay-bing (first), Tan Keng-hean (third), Lim Boon-keng (fourth),
Mrs Tan Keng-hean (fifth), Mrs Tan Chay-bing (sixth), Mrs Tan Boon-khian (seventh)
Third row, from right: Lim Nee-soon, wearing a hat (fourth)

7. The Chi Mei Primary School (1922)
8. At a reception in 1928 in Singapore to welcome Hu Han-min and Sun Fo

Front row, from left: Tan Pok-ai (second), Mrs Lim Boon-keng (fourth), Sun Fo (sixth),
Tan Kah-kee (seventh), Hu Han-min (eighth), Lim Boon-keng (thirteenth)
Back row, from left: Tan Khuat-siong (first), Tan Chay-bing (second), Lim Nee-soon (fourth),
Lee Kong-chian (fifth)

9. The Ee Ho Hean Club at 43 Bukit Pasoh Road (1930)
10. Tan Kah-kee (1938)

11. Tan Kah-kee at the Chungking airport with Tjung Sie-gan (on his right) and Wu Tieh-ch’eng
(on his left) (26 March 1940)
12. Tan Kah-kee and General Li Tsung-jen (1940)

13. Overseas Chinese in Yenan welcoming Tan Kah-kee (1940)
14. Tan Kah-kee’s residence in Malang, East Java (1943)

15. Tan Kah-kee at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (October 1945)
16. Tan Kah-kee with Pan Kuo-chu (left), Ng Aik-huan (third from left)
and Chew Hean-swee (right) (October 1945)

17. Tan Kah-kee welcoming Nehru at the Kallang airport in Singapore (March 1946)
18. Chan Ch’u-k’un, managing director and Hu Yu-chih, chairman of the

board of directors of Nan Chiau Jit Pao (1948)

TKK Photo layouts.indd 10
19. Tan Kah-kee and fellow Preparatory Committee members of the People’s Political Consultative Conference in Peking (19 September 1949)
5/9/13 12:01 PM
Front row, from left: Chu Teh (third), Mao Tse-tung (fourth), Tan Kah-kee (seventh)
20. With third wife Yap Kheok Neo and also mother of fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng, and family members in Singapore (around mid 1930s)
5/9/13 12:01 PM
22. Tan Kah-kee’s second wife
Goh Siok Neo, mother of
his sixth, seventh and
eighth sons
21. With seventh son Guan Chay

and wife Koh Ah-wu, who
visited Tan Kah-kee at Chi Mei
in May 1958
23. With Tan Ah Hui, third daughter,

and eldest daughter of his
second wife

24. Tan Kah-kee and members of his family on the eve of his visit to China (May 1949)
5/9/13 12:01 PM
25. Tan Kah-kee being welcomed on his arrival at the Kallang airport by Lee Kong-chian (centre)
and Tan Lark-sye (right) (15 February 1950)
26. Tan Kah-kee, his fifth son and his grandchildren (May 1950)

27. Family gathering at Tan Kok-kheng’s home at Barker Road, Singapore, before Tan Kah-kee left
permanently for China (May 1950)
28. Tan Kah-kee speaking at the People’s National Congress in Peking (1954)

29. Tan Kah-kee (front row left), Marshal P’eng Teh-huai (front row right) and Overseas Chinese members
at the People’s National Congress (1954)
30. Tan Kah-kee (centre), Chang Ch’u-k’un (left) and Chuang Ming-li (second from left)
touring the Ch’in ranges, Shensi province (1955)

31. Tan Kah-kee with a group of students from South-East Asia
in Chi Mei (1955)
32. Tan Kah-kee visiting the Great Wall of China (1955)

33. Tan Kah-kee (left) and
Tan Boon-khak (Tan
Lark-sye’s elder brother)
(centre), in a train
travelling between
Shanghai and Peking,
after visiting an eye
specialist (1958)
34. Enjoying a meal with

Tan Boon-khak in
attendance
35. In an eye hospital

awaiting treatment

36. Tan Kah-kee looking at the Whampoa River while recuperating in Shanghai (1958)
37. Premier Chou En-lai consoling Tan Khuat-siong on the death of Tan Kah-kee on
12 August 1961 in Peking

38. A state funeral was given to Tan Kah-kee with Premier Chou En-lai, Marshal Chu Teh and
Marshal Ch’en Yi in attendance
39. The tomb of Tan Kah-kee at Ao Garden, Chi Mei, Fukien province

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
3
Emergence of an Entrepreneur
... to establish enterprises before being capable of serving the society and,
later on, of leading the South-East Asian Chinese to help promote China’s
war effort against Japan.
Tan Kah-kee on the importance of an economic base, 1946
THE forceful style and qualities of the T’ung An leadership, enshrined in

the ‘T’ung An spirit’, could not have blossomed forth so brilliantly in
Singapore without other factors being brought to play. These included the
formidable economic base of Tan Kah-kee, his pre-eminent social status
as a result of his promotion of community welfare among the Chinese, his
crucial control of key institutional bases and his relatively cordial working
relationship with the British authorities. Moreover, emergent Chinese
nationalism in South-East Asia made the rise of stronger and more hard-
ened leaders possible. Similarly, it can be argued that the ‘Ta-p’u spirit’1
of Lee Kuan-yew (b.1923) in post-war Singapore could not have flowered
so dramatically without a set of favourable conditions, peculiar to his
times, being available. These consisted of Lee Kuan-yew’s professional
and educational qualifications, his own charisma, his mass-oriented insti-
tutional and political bases, his growing political prestige and influence
amidst rising Malayan nationalism and his acceptability as an outstanding
political figure by the British authorities. In various ways, both leaders had
something in common — their interest in power and leadership and their
will to succeed. While Lee Kuan-yew was more obsessed with a political
power which would allow him to modernize Singapore as a new nation
with or without a merger with Malaysia, Tan Kah-kee was primarily more
concerned with community power and leadership for promoting Chinese
interests in South-East Asia and China. Because Lee Kuan-yew was a
product of Malayan nationalism and Tan Kah-kee of Chinese nationalism,
39
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
40 TAN KAH-KEE
it is not surprising that they possessed different political and ideological

orientations and emphases.
Under British rule, the emergence of a community or political leader-
ship invariably followed two distinctive patterns. For the Straits-born and
English-educated Chinese, English education more than anything else was
the foremost criterion for their rise as community or political leaders. By
contrast, wealth was one of the most important conditions for the China-
born and Chinese-educated immigrants, by which a community or politi-
cal leader arose. Tan Kah-kee trod along the path of wealth to community
and political leadership and power. Being China-born, Chinese-educated
and monolingual, for him this was the only way. For that reason, it is
essential to examine and analyse factors for his emergence as an entrepre-
neur and the collapse of his business empire in 1934. Moreover, it is
important to assess the success and failure of his economic enterprises
upon his political fortunes.
Like the success stories of some of his contemporaries in both
Singapore and Indonesia, such as Lim Peng-siang (1872–1944) of the Ho
Hong group of companies, and Oei Tiong-ham (1866–1924) of Kian
Gwan of Semarang, Java, Tan Kah-kee made and lost a fortune in his
lifetime, an era of emergent industrial capitalism in South-East Asia. He
started off as an apprentice in his father’s firm, Soon Ann, a substantial
business concern in those days dealing with imported rice from mainland
South-East Asia. The monthly turnover for this commodity often
amounted to over $20,000, with an annual net profit from the rice trade
of between $5,000 and $6,000.2 Soon Ann could be regarded as a typical
Chinese family concern which was run and managed by members of the
Tan family and clan. One of Tan Kah-kee’s distant uncles was its man-
ager and treasurer, while his father was its sole proprietor. After only two
years of apprenticeship, a great turning point was reached in 1892, when
Tan Kah-kee became Soon Ann’s manager and treasurer as his distant
uncle returned to China for a visit. Tan Kah-kee proved himself to be a
sound, dedicated, competent and frugal manager, relied upon and trusted
by his father. So successful was he that the young manager was able to
record that on no occasion had his father ever voiced displeasure over his
manner of management or his decision-making concerning business
dealings.3
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
EMERGENCE OF AN ENTREPRENEUR 41
His father was a competent and successful businessman who believed

in and practised the motto ‘never put all your eggs in one basket’. His
father had diversified his interests, being a keen speculator in real estate,
in sago milling and pineapple canning. All these lines of business proved
lucrative in bullish years in terms of steady income and flow of liquid
assets. During his two-year term as manager, Tan Kah-kee himself
assessed that his father’s real estate properties, capital and assets, minus
all debts, had a value of over $100,000.4 However, the peak of his
father’s business career came in around 1900 when the aggregate assets
from all sources, discounting mortgages and debts, came to a handsome
$400,000 net.5
Nevertheless, his father’s economic prosperity was not to last for long.
For in 1903, after his fourth return trip to Singapore from Chi Mei, Tan
Kah-kee saw with apprehension that his father had become heavily
indebted to creditors, to the tune of over $200,000. Although serious
depreciation of real estate properties and a sharp increase in interest rates
for money borrowed from Indian chettyar money-lenders were two major
factors for his indebtedness, the most important reason was mismanage-
ment and embezzlement on the part of his father’s third wife and her
adopted son. Tan Kah-kee made no secret of the fact that both his step-
mother, who was addicted to gambling, and her adopted son had misap-
propriated a sum of over $100,000 during 1901–3 while he was away in
Chi Mei.6 The ill-health of both his father and his distant uncle as well as
his long absence from Soon Ann between the winter of 1900 and the sum-
mer of 1903 must, to some extent, have contributed to the dire state of
affairs the company found itself in. Another contributing factor was that
his father never entrusted Tan Kah-kee with overall control of all the busi-
ness interests; he was thus unable to prevent the misappropriation of Soon
Ann funds carried out by his father’s two firms, Kim Sheng Bee and
Kheng Seng cement shop, managed by other members of the family.
All in all, his father’s bad debts amounted to a staggering $250,000
with mortgages. Soon Ann’s creditors, mostly Indian chettyar money-
lenders, instigated the Supreme Court to adjudicate the financial settle-
ment of debts in April 1905.7 The case dragged on for three years until
1908 when most of the creditors accepted a settlement with a 50 percent
reduction.8 However, as some of the chettyar creditors were then away
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
42 TAN KAH-KEE
from Singapore, the Acting Official Assignee of the Supreme Court even-
tually disposed of the case by making a payment of 6.5 percent in October
1912 to those creditors whose debts were still outstanding.9
For Tan Kah-kee it was an agonizing experience to dismantle the busi-
ness institutions his father had so painstakingly established since the
1870s. He did well to help pay the debts Soon Ann owed to its creditors,
thus greatly salvaging his father’s prestige and enhancing his own social
and economic standing within the Chinese community of Singapore. It is
important to point out that his father’s long-standing business credibility
and community status stood him in good stead, as both were crucial to his
plain sailing in business dealings when he eventually founded his own
ventures in 1904. In any case, the collapse of Soon Ann was a blessing in
disguise for him as he was able to step himself into the business world and
make himself a millionaire within a period of seven years.
At the closing of Soon Ann, Tan Kah-kee was left with a capital of over
$7,000 for building his own fortunes. The cash was invested in the acqui-
sition of a piece of land some ten miles away from the city at Sembawang
and in setting up a plant for pineapple canning. Old pineapple canning
machines were installed and a timber and attap shed erected for produc-
tion purposes. The plant was named Sin Li Chuan, literally meaning ‘new
source of profits’. He did not need any working capital as materials, such
as tin plate and sugar, could be readily obtained on credit of between thirty
and sixty days from Chinese and European firms in Singapore. The fin-
ished products were then marketed to the European agency houses for
export, sometimes long before the credit was due. His early use of the
credit system stamped him as a shrewd businessman. In April 1904, after
the death of a senior partner in Jit Sin, a pineapple canning factory in
Johore, Tan Kah-kee was able to buy off the family shares of the deceased
for $17,000, to become its sole owner. Jit Sin had been started by Tan
Kah-kee’s father and solely owned by him until Soon Ann’s financial cri-
sis took place. However, in order to solve the liquidity problem, Jit Sin
was made into a partnership between the deceased senior partner and his
father. The deceased had bought shares amounting to $17,000 while leav-
ing $10,000 worth of shares to Tan Kee-peck, and by the summer of 1904
the factory was making handsome profits. In June 1904 Tan Kah-kee was
reported to have made a profit of $9,000 from Sin Li Chuan and some
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
$30,000 from Jit Sin. With his ability to collect some of the bad debts of
Soon Ann, amounting to over $10,000, plus the capital investment of the
two pineapple canning mills, his total assets had reached a sum of
$70,000.10 With this healthy financial position in June 1904, he invested
$25,000 in a rice firm called Khiam Aik, at 21, North Boat Quay, which
was where the defunct Soon Ann had been located. From this humble
beginning, Khiam Aik, meaning modesty and profitability, was to become
the nerve centre and headquarters of Tan Kah-kee’s commercial and
industrial empire until 1914. During the First World War, Khiam Aik was
shifted to No. 1, River Valley Road, a two-storey business premises which
housed the financial and business departments of his enterprises, namely,
the rice, pineapple, rubber, shipping, industrial and manufacturing divi-
sions, manned by a staff of over 180 at its peak. All in all, during the first
year of his ventures, Tan Kah-kee made a net profit of over $60,000, so he
got off to a good start.11 The major reason for his financial success during
1904 was improved demand for canned pineapple in the European mar-
kets. However, Tan Kah-kee attributed his success to a lack of imagina-
tive, capable and competitive rivals in the industry. A closer examination
of his style of business management and his enterprising qualities reveal
some of the secrets of his success, even at this early stage. For a start, he
practised direct business contact, essentially the personal touch, in order
to keep himself abreast with market conditions and fluctuating prices. He
admitted that he made daily contact with European agency houses and
found out for himself the overseas demand for various types and styles of
canned pineapples (for example, sweetened or unsweetened, with differ-
ent slice shapes and sizes), so that he could manufacture products accord-
ing to specific demands or changing tastes. Secondly, he invariably made
two daily inspection rounds of his factories, making sure the purchase
price for the pineapples was right, their qualify maintained and the opera-
tion of canning running smoothly. More importantly, he adopted a system
of daily accounting, concerning the production and sale of canned pineap-
ple so that he could keep track of losses or profits made each day. By
contrast, nearly all his industrial counterparts opted for a quarterly
accounting system, which, as a decision-making guideline, was often too
slow for the analysis of losses and gains. Fourthly, Tan Kah-kee was
averse to stockpiling his products; instead he pushed sales as fast
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
44 TAN KAH-KEE
as possible through agency houses so that there would be no liquidity

problems. Applying this sensible management, he made good profits from
the industry despite growing competition from twenty other pineapple
canning mills in Singapore and Johore.12
Having pondered over the possible shortage of pineapple supplies for
canning, Tan Kah-kee decided in 1904 to invest in pineapple planting. He
bought 500 acres of uncleared jungle land, not far from where Sin Li
Chuan was, for a mere five dollars per acre. This estate, named Hock Shan
Plantation, took workmen a year to clear before it could be planted with
pineapples. By a stroke of luck this estate was later to be turned into a
rubber plantation, which was to lay the foundation of Tan Kah-kee’s com-
mercial and industrial empire in South-East Asia generally and in
Singapore in particular. The years following 1904 were those of expan-
sion, consolidation and further economic and financial success.
The year 1905 was a year with less financial success, although Tan
Kah-kee made a net profit of $45,000. He was creative, experimental and
enterprising, for he founded a third pineapple canning factory named Jit
Choon, at the Rochore River delta, a central venue and market for
imported pineapples from Johore and the Malay States. In the premises of
Jit Choon he installed a steam tank, with wood chips as fuel, for manufac-
turing crystal sugar for the Hong Kong and Shanghai markets.13 He was
able to produce the crystal sugar with reduced capital outlay and at a 20
to 30 percent cheaper rate by using the steam tank and wood chips rather
than the less efficient zinc tank and firewood used by his counterparts.
Now that he was the owner of three pineapple canning mills, he became
concerned about marketing his goods. In October 1905, he began to adver-
tise his canned pineapple products in a local Chinese newspaper, Lat Pau,
and for many months he solicited business in this way. It is difficult to
gauge how effective his advertising campaigns were, suffice it to say he
continued to make substantial profits from pineapple canning.
For Tan Kah-kee 1906 was an insipid year in profit-making. Prices for
canned pineapple continued to fall and competition became more fierce.
He managed to make a profit of over $10,000 out of the three mills.
Although he had made a handsome net profit of $110,000 since 1904, he
was unable to settle his father’s debts because 70 percent of that profit had
been absorbed in founding Khiam Aik ($25,000), paying $15,000 for the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Hock Shan Plantation clearing and planting and maintaining the three can-
ning mills at a cost of $45,000, leaving him surplus hard cash amounting
to over $30,000.14
Out of the depressed economic conditions of 1906 came an opportunity
for Tan Kah-kee to enter into the rubber planting industry, a turning point
in his financial fortunes. The rubber plantation industry was as much an
European as a Chinese enterprise. Among the earliest Chinese pioneers in
rubber planting was Tan Chay-yan of Malacca who, with the encourage-
ment of Dr Lim Boon-keng, had planted a 43 acre estate at Bukit Lintang
with rubber trees in 1895. Later he helped to float a Chinese syndicate
called the Malacca Rubber and Tapioca Company, for planting rubber on
its 4,300 acre property at Bukit Asahan, Malacca, at a cost of $0.2 million.
When this Asahan estate was sold in 1906 to a European firm, the Malacca
Rubber Plantations Limited, Tan Chay-yan’s syndicate made a handsome
net profit, ten times more than it had invested.15 Tan Kah-kee had been
aware of the transaction and profits made by Tan Chay-yan but had no
way of finding out how it had been managed and arranged. However, in
June, while he was negotiating a business deal for his canned products
with a European agency house in Singapore, he was strongly urged by his
English dealer to plant rubber for profit. After having made some more
enquiries about Tan Chay-yan’s address and the sale of rubber seedlings,
he got on to Tan Chay-yan and bought some 180,000 rubber seeds from
him at a cost of a mere $1,800, or one cent per seed. When the seeds
arrived, his workmen took some two months to plant them among the
pineapple crops at his Hock Shan Plantation. In 1909, he added another
500 acres of land, bought for $50 per acre, to his Hock Shan Plantation
for rubber planting, making a total of 1,000 acres at his disposal. This was
the beginning of a long and lucrative association between Tan Kah-kee,
his clansmen, and the rubber industry in both Singapore and Malaya.
Those 180,000 seeds were to help pave the way for his pang, community
and political leadership within the Chinese communities in Singapore and
Malaya. Those rubber seeds were also to help consolidate the economic
domination of the Hokkien pang in both these territories and help trans-
form the T’ung An district from a conservative and backward society to
the educational and cultural centre of Fukien.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
46 TAN KAH-KEE
Tan Kah-kee’s entry into rubber planting coincided with the rubber
boom of 1909 and 1910 when market prices for rubber sheets rose sharply
in London to an all time high of 12s 9d per 1b by April 1910. During 1910
rubber prices remained buoyant, ranging from $200 to over $300 per picul
(133 1b). In the climate of rising prices, Tan Kah-kee sold his 1,000-acre
Hock Shan Plantation for a sum of $320,000 making a handsome profit of
$250,000.16 Having completed this transaction, he immediately bought
back two estates in Johore for rubber and pineapple planting, which were
named the Pandas Para Rubber Plantation and the Ayer Itam Para Rubber
Plantation, both being managed by his clansmen. While many wealthy
Chinese in Singapore wavered about investing in the new industry, Tan
Kah-kee was prompt, bold, decisive and imaginative in his business judge-
ment and action. In the end he and his clansmen stood to benefit from the
industry more than most. The wealthy Teochew merchants in Singapore,
who had been monopolizing the pepper and gambier trade and planting on
the island and in Johore, missed out on a great opportunity because of
their unwillingness to diversify their economic activities at a crucial
time.17 It is arguable and conceivable that had the Teochew traders and
planters been more responsive to new initiatives, the Teochew pang would
have been economically more solid and politically more powerful than it
had been in the twentieth-century Chinese communities in both Singapore
and Malaya.
While rubber planting and pineapple canning had remained a constant
and absorbing interest to Tan Kah-kee, they neither distracted nor deterred
him from venturing into other lines of business activities. In November
1906, for example, Tan Kah-kee entered into partnership with two others
in a joint venture for rice milling. This rice mill, named Heng Bee, was to
process cooked rice for export to the Indian market.18 In 1909 Tan Kah-kee
became its senior partner when one partner left of his own accord.19 Heng
Bee was to prove a most efficient money-spinner, making a handsome net
profit for Tan Kah-kee between 1906 and 1908 of $160,000.20 This rice
mill continued its profitable way and became a major source of Tan Kah-
kee’s income until the outbreak of the First World War when trade between
the Straits Settlements and India became restricted and volatile.
Tan Kah-kee’s business progress during the first seven years between
1904 and 1910 was succinctly summarized in his own account. His total
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
net profit of $730,000 during this period came equally from pineapple
canning, rice milling and the sale of his rubber estate in Singapore.21
However, the paying off of his father’s old debts (amounting to $90,000)
in 1908, family expenditure and his generous donations to charity and
education in the Chinese communities in both Singapore and Fukien,
reduced his total net profit to $450,000. The value of all his properties and
assets in both China and overseas, together with his liquid profits, brought
Tan Kah-kee close to becoming a millionaire by 1910.
The years between 1911 and the outbreak of the First World War were
not a particularly fruitful period in terms of profit making for his business
concerns. All in all, it was reported that Tan Kah-kee made a net profit of
$140,000.22 This reduced profit reflected family expenditure, business
losses and the founding and financing of a primary school at Chi Mei in
1913 for the children of his native village. Although profits were practi-
cally negligible as compared to the earlier period, Tan Kah-kee did man-
age to make some business expansion into Thailand and Fukien. In 1912
he established a pineapple factory, named Khiam Thye, in Thailand, and
in 1913 rented a rice mill in Bangkok for the rice trade. While visiting his
native province in 1912 and 1913, Tan Kah-kee founded a joint venture in
Amoy for canning foodstuffs and local produce. The firm, Tai Tong
Canning Company, has since become a prominent manufacturer of canned
foodstuffs for use in China and for export overseas. Moreover, Tan Kah-
kee succeeded in taking over two more pineapple canning factories in
Singapore, making him a major producer and exporter of canned
pineapple. In 1914, at the age of 41, Tan Kah-kee had firmly established
himself as a fully-fledged and formidable capitalist, industrialist and
planter as well as a creditable and proven businessman. He owned eight
pineapple canneries in Singapore, Johore and Thailand; his five canneries
in Singapore manufactured over 50 percent of all canned pineapple prod-
ucts, which amounted to some 800,000 cases annually. In addition, he had
a rice mill in operation in Singapore and possessed two sizeable rubber
estates in Johore.
During this period Tan Kah-kee became involved in banking, an aspect
of his career which has not previously been highlighted or assessed. He
could well have been a founder shareholder of the Chinese Commercial
Bank (CCB), created in 1912 with a paid up capital of $1 million by a
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
48 TAN KAH-KEE
group of prominent Hokkien merchants headed by Dr Lim Boon-keng,

Lim Peng-siang, Lee Choon-guan, Tan Chay-yan and Lim Nee-soon, all
of whom were his friends and contemporaries. He could well have been
elected a member of the board of directors of the bank in 1912 and 1913
had he not been away in Fukien for his fourth visit. However, his turn
came in March 1914 during the bank’s annual shareholders’ general meet-
ing when he was elected as one of the twelve directors to the board.23 He
polled 4,420 votes and took the tenth placing, beating two other prominent
merchants and friends in Goh Keh-khiam (4,390 votes), and Lew Hong-
sek (4,240 votes), in a close contest. The top vote winners were Lim Peng-
siang (7,420 votes) and Lee Choon-guan (6,640 votes). However, at the
outbreak of the war a run on the bank took place due to jitters felt among
its clients. The British authorities decided to back the bank, fearing a
damaging impact on trade and commercial conditions in the colony had it
been allowed to close down.24 The board of directors was restructured in
December 1914 but, unfortunately, it did not include Tan Kah-kee.25 This
then was the ending of his brief association with the management of a
commercial bank. Although Tan Kah-kee had always had close financial
relationships with banking during his business career, he was never known
as a banker.
The First World War, declared in August 1914, brought immense eco-
nomic problems to exporters and manufacturers in Singapore because of
shipping shortages. For Tan Kah-kee, the war practically cut off the Indian
and European markets for his cooked rice and canned pineapple, resulting
in the closure of his rice mill and pineapple canneries. This meant severe
losses in income, and retrenchment for his employees. Initially it was a
difficult time for him. The war, however, presented him with unprece-
dented opportunities for taking on new ventures and for readjusting his
business priorities.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Tan Kah-kee had the unenviable
task of overcoming shipping shortage problems in order to secure a
reliable supply of grain from Cochinchina and Thailand for his rice mill.
His manager, Yeo Lark-sye, competent and English-educated, should be
credited with hiring the first of two steamers for carrying rice, while Tan
Kah-kee was encouraged by the British authorities in Singapore to hire
two more steamers to carry timber for the British government to the
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Persian Gulf.26 Of these four steamers, one was on a two-year contract

while the rest were on yearly contracts. This helped solve the short-term
problem for him but still posed a serious threat to his long-term economic
prosperity. By the end of 1915, just before contracts for three of the steam-
ers were to run out, Tan Kah-kee amassed a handsome profit of $200,000
from the carrying trade.27 Such unexpectedly lucrative gains from ship-
ping in the first year of the venture prompted him to become a shipowner
in 1915, purchasing a steamer of 3,000 tons, which was renamed Khiam
Hong. This ship cost him $300,000, or £48,000,28 and was followed by
another purchase in 1916 of a New Zealand steamer called Warrimoo, of
3,750 tons, costing him $420,000, or £53,000.29 As all shipowners in the
Straits Settlements had to be British subjects, either by birth or through
naturalization before ships could be registered, Tan Kah-kee had no
choice but to apply for naturalization and became a British subject in
1916.30 His case of owning two steamers, during wartime, as a British
subject went as far as the Colonial Office and the Board of Trade in
London, but met with no opposition.31
His two ships at first traded between Amoy, Swatow, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Penang and Rangoon, carrying both cargo and passengers,
which proved economically viable. However, Tan Kah-kee discovered a
more lucrative way of making the investment pay — to lease them to the
French government for carrying provisions and supplies around the
Mediterranean Sea for a combined monthly rental of $120,000. From
leasing these two steamers in 1917 alone he collected a huge net profit of
over $0.5 million. As a result of these ships being sunk by the Germans
in the Mediterranean during 1917 and 1918 Tan Kah-kee received com-
pensation of $1.2 million, which more than covered the cost of their
purchases. All in all, the shipping trade and insurance compensation
between 1915 and 1918 earned him a net profit of $1.6 million. Part of
the proceeds were soon to be used for founding educational institutions
in both Singapore and Chi Mei, as well as for founding and financing
Amoy University in 1921.
Apart from shipping, Tan Kah-kee also made impressive headway on
other economic fronts. In 1916, when the pineapple canning industry was
adversely affected by war conditions, he made two shrewd moves in a
changing economic climate. First, he resold a great quantity of tin plate,
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50 TAN KAH-KEE
originally stockpiled for pineapple canning, which fetched him excellent

prices, due no doubt to the high demand for this valuable material in war-
time. Between 1915 and 1918 the sale of tin plate alone earned him a sum
close to $1 million, a rather pleasant windfall. Secondly, he converted one
of his pineapple mills to a rubber mill at Sumbawa Road, Singapore, in
1916, for processing rubber sheets for export. Another rubber mill was
established in 1917 as rubber became greatly sought after in wartime. One
of the youngest and most able persons on his staff, Lee Kong-chian
(1893–1967), was recruited in 1916. He was an excellent linguist and was
instrumental in making a direct break into the American and European
rubber markets, instead of selling the rubber sheets through local European
agency houses.32 Tan Kah-kee had such immense confidence in him that
he arranged for his eldest daughter to marry Lee Kong-chian in 1920.
By making the conversion to rubber mills Tan Kah-kee was among the
early Chinese millers in Singapore to move into the rubber-processing
industry, a move which was soon to make him one of the wealthiest and
foremost industrialists in South-East Asia in the immediate post-war era.
During 1916 and 1917 Tan Kah-kee’s two rubber mills netted him a profit
of $200,000.33 By 1918 his rubber mills had become the major money-
spinner, earning a net profit of $800,000.34 His two mills were among
seventy-two other such plants run by the Chinese in both Singapore and
Malacca35 which collected rubber scraps and lumps from rubber planta-
tions and rubber dealers for processing into blanket sheets campo and bark
crepe for export. During 1916, the average daily output of dried and
cleaned rubber from his Khiam Aik rubber factory was 400 piculs.36
The First World War had proved a bonanza for Tan Kah-kee, and during
these years between 1915 and 1918 he himself admitted to having made a
net profit of $4.5 million,37 thus making him one of a handful of prominent
Chinese millionaires in Singapore and Malaya. The main bulk of the prof-
its was reinvested in improving and expanding other lines of business
activities: rubber milling with assets of $1 million, 5,000 acres of rubber
estates in Johore at a cost of over $1 million, a joint venture with three
other rubber firms at a cost of $500,000 and the purchase of 300,000
square feet or 7 acres of land, at Sumbawa Road, Singapore, at a cost of
$320,000. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee owned one of the largest rice mills in
Thailand and possessed the Tai Tong Canning Company factory at Amoy,
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Fukien.38 It was reported in 1917 that Tan Kah-kee employed over 1,000
labourers on his rubber estates, 1,200 hands for his pineapple canneries,
and hundreds for his rice mill in Thailand and rubber estates in Malaya.
By the end of the war Tan Kah-kee’s business empire had become
extensive, diverse and prolific. It included preserved pineapple manufac-
turing, Siam rice and par-boiled rice mills, rubber works, sawmills and
commission agents, and a shipping line.39 His organizations became fur-
ther diversified with the addition of such new departments as engine
works and boiler makers, rubber and rubber estates and shipping. Staff at
the headquarters of Tan Kah-kee’s group of companies at River Valley
Road were bubbling with enthusiasm and confidence as they faced the
post-war era. Overlooking the Singapore River from the top floor balcony
of the head office, Tan Kah-kee must have been well satisfied with his
growing business and financial successes. He saw the unceasing bustle of
the Singapore River, invariably choked with numerous tongkangs and
twakoes plying from the harbour to the warehouses of various business
firms along its banks. For him this was a glowing and moving picture of
living vitality, signifying not only a sense of diligence, dedication, enter-
prise and dynamism in human endeavours but also an undaunted spirit of
human progress as well as the slow but sure process of capital accumula-
tion. He loved both struggle and rewards.
All the same he was toying with the idea of retirement to his home
village to promote education in his home province. In May 1919, he
embarked on his fifth return trip from Singapore to China where he stayed
for a period of just over three years instead of the total retirement he had
contemplated. Just before his departure in 1919, he had plenty on his mind
and had to make a number of major decisions concerning his businesses
and himself.
The first decision concerned the reorganization and streamlining of his
businesses by the creation of Tan Kah Kee & Co. in which his younger
brother, Tan Keng-hean, became a junior partner. This brother had been in
Chi Mei since 1916, mainly looking after Tan Kah-kee’s investments in
education. Divorced to some extent from business, he was recalled to take
over the management of this new company, a daunting task indeed. The
two brothers kept in constant touch with each other through correspond-
ence, with final decisions concerning investments and business expansion
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52 TAN KAH-KEE
being made by the senior partner. A second decision concerned the dis-
posal of profits made by his firm, an issue which had been simmering in
his mind for some time. He was intoxicated by the idea of founding a
university at Amoy and intended to use the surplus for financing it. His
friends ridiculed him when told of his intention. On the eve of his depar-
ture he announced that he intended to use the main bulk of his business
profits exclusively for educational development in China.40 In his rousing
speech of 13 July 1919 at Amoy for the founding of the university, Tan
Kah-kee further revealed that all his immovable properties and assets in
Singapore and Malaya had been willed to the Chi Mei Schools as a per-
manent financial source, to ensure that profits derived from these would
be used for that stated purpose.41 These immovable assets included shop
premises, warehouses, a ten acre block of vacant land and some 7,000
acres of rubber estates. Although Tan Kah-kee sold most of his rubber
estates prior to the economic depression in 1929, he did keep his promise
to finance the Chi Mei schools right through until the birth of the People’s
Republic of China. A third decision was to transform his Sumbawa Road
rubber mill into a rubber manufactory, a task completed by his brother in
1920, after Tan Kah-kee had left for China to retire. For the transformation
to manufacturing rubber goods he invested a large sum of $1.4 million.42
The major rationale for entering into manufacturing was fourfold. For one
thing, Tan Kah-kee believed in the potential benefits of producing rubber
goods as a cushion against the slump in rubber prices and rubber estates.
He had long learned the experience and virtue of ‘never putting all your
eggs in one basket’. Moreover, rubber manufacturing could serve as a
training school, training skilled workers and technicians for industrializ-
ing China. Finally, it would provide jobs for the local population in
Singapore.
Tan Kah-kee was not unique in making himself a multi-millionaire
from the war. In fact, many of the local firms had done considerably better
then due to an absence of European competition in business. The Straits
Steamship Company, a joint Anglo-Chinese enterprise founded in 1890,
for example, made a fortune of $3 million out of its so-called ‘mosquito
fleet’.43 The Ho Hong Steamship Co. Ltd., with its eight ocean-going
liners and some 22 steamers, made a fortune for Lim Peng-siang and his
family. The fortunes made during the war enabled Lim to float a joint
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stock banking corporation, the Ho Hong Bank Ltd., in 1917, with an ini-
tial stock capital of $3.5 million.44 Thus, the First World War had the effect
of quickening the pace of Chinese capital accumulation and the resulting
emergence of a group of more sophisticated, modern, ambitious and com-
petitive capitalists and industrialists in post-1918 South-East Asia.
The years between 1919 and 1934 witnessed the zenith, decline and
eventual demise of Tan Kah-kee’s industrial and commercial empire.
During this period, the company was intimately, but not exclusively, asso-
ciated with rubber, being active in ownership of rubber estates, production
of rubber sheets, milling, processing, trading and exporting, rubber goods
manufacturing, retailing, and ventures into rubber estate speculation.
Rubber became the life-blood of the company, being the single most
important line of its business.
On Tan Kah-kee’s ‘retirement’, his brother took over the management
of Tan Kah Kee & Co. and ran its businesses competently and conscien-
tiously, with the help of existing capable staff from both the head office
and the newly founded rubber manufactory at Sumbawa Road. Tan Keng-
hean fought hard to ward off the effects of economic recession, the severe
slump in rubber prices and fierce competition in the rubber trade. He
never ceased to consult his brother in Chi Mei when major decisions con-
cerning business expansion and investment were made. He was not just a
‘seat-warmer’, for he could hold his own in business, had initiative and
acumen, albeit being more subtle and less aggressive than Tan Kah-kee in
his business style. Some of the achievements during his term of manage-
ment of which his brother was extremely proud were: the addition of a
block of vacant land of over 200,000 square feet at Sumbawa Road, mak-
ing it close to 600,000 square feet; getting the rubber manufactory off the
ground, and making a net profit of $2.8 million between 1919 and 1921.45
By September 1921 the rubber manufactory at Sumbawa Road had
already manufactured a host of rubber goods and sundries, including tyres
for horse carts and push bicycles, rubber soles for shoes, rubber stoppers,
car fan-belts, rubber tubes, lead and steel-wire pipes, soap containers and
rubber glues for food canning.46 Tan Keng-hean was not only a conscien-
tious and selfless manager, but sadly was a worrier, much obsessed with
his business progress and success in a climate of economic recession.
Excessive hard work and worries weakened his already delicate
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54 TAN KAH-KEE
constitution and eventually forced him out of his office in January 1922.
By then he had contracted tuberculosis and also suffered from gastric
ulcers which needed urgent treatment and time for recuperation. This
unexpected turn of events prompted Tan Kah-kee to resume his duties as
the manager of his company, and in January 1922, he arrived back in
Singapore to accept new challenges with some reluctance.
With Tan Kah-kee at the helm, the company entered into an era of fast
expansion in all directions, reaching its financial peak in 1925 with a net
profit of $7.8 million. In 1922, while rubber prices were still bad, he
snapped up nine rubber mills in Malaya on the cheap, including those in
Batu Pahat, Muar, Batu Gajah, Klang, Ipoh, Kuala Kangsar, Sitiawan,
Taiping and Kuala Pilah. With the installation of new machines, the pur-
chase of these nine mills cost him close to $500,000. His rubber mill in
Penang, closed for two years, was now reopened. It was estimated that the
expanded Penang mill would produce over 30,000 piculs of rubber sheets
for export per month. He poured in another $100,000 for the expansion of
the rubber manufactory, installing new machines and mass-producing can-
vas rubber shoes and soles, tyres and tubes for horse-driven and hand-
driven carts for local and overseas markets. A sense of urgency committed
him to making money to finance the numerous Chi Mei Schools and the
Amoy University. During 1922 his rubber mills earned him a profit of
$1 million, while his rice mill, rubber manufactory, pineapple canning and
timber mills contributed an aggregate profit of only a mere $100,000,47 a
disappointing result for him. He also owned 6,500 acres of rubber estates,
3,000 acres of which was ready for tapping. With land prices hovering
around $100 per acre with rubber trees, his assets on rubber estates
accounted for $6,500,000 in value in 1922.48 Even though Tan Kah-kee
admitted having earned a net profit of $3.9 million between 1919 and 1922,
he was well aware that he had incurred a deficit of a little over $200,000 in
capital outlay and an expenditure of $4.1 million in the same period. These
included maintenance of Chi Mei Schools and the Amoy University ($2.2
million), payment of interest on loans ($500,000), devaluation of property
assets ($500,000), business losses ($300,000), investments in rubber
estates ($300,000), charity ($100,000), and family expenditure ($60,000).49
The year 1923 was a year of only modest expansion with the rubber
manufactory employing over 1,000 workers, producing various types of
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tyres (excluding tyres for motor vehicles), rubber caps and hats, rubber
toys, rubber balls and rubber shoes. Tan Kah Kee & Co. had established
twenty-seven sales branches in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Amoy, Canton,
Batavia, Palembang, as well as various branches in Singapore and
Malaya.50 During the year Tan Kah-kee earned a net profit of $1.2 million,
with his rubber mills contributing a handsome $900,000.51 A significant
event in the same year was his founding of a Chinese newspaper, the
Nanyang Siang Pau, to promote commerce.
Further expansion in business investment and industrial products was
made during 1924 with the installation of second-hand machines bought
from a Dutch firm in Bandung, Java, for the production of tyres and tubes
for motor cars.52 The production of motor tyres and tubes was carried out
by an English and later an Italian technician, employed by Tan Kah-kee.53
However, the experiments with their production were not as successful as
Tan Kah-kee had anticipated and the products were inferior to those pro-
duced by Firestone and Dunlop. After more years of experimentation, his
third son, Tan Pok-ai, finally achieved a breakthrough in producing good
quality and durable tyres for motor cars.54 Mass production of durable
tyres of all sizes took place in 1929 with a daily production turnover of
between sixty and seventy tyres.55
Apart from tyre production, the Sumbawa Road complex began the mass
production of raincoats, tennis balls, various medical goods made of rubber,
rubber sheets, rubber umbrellas, sports shoes, boots, rubber slippers and
various kinds of rubber toys.56 As rubber prices had gradually improved,
Tan Kah-kee also bought new rubber estates. Likewise, as his industrial
products needed marketing and retailing, Tan Kah-kee opened new retailing
branches for direct selling to the consumers. Again, as in previous years, his
various rubber mills earned him a profit of $1.5 million while the rest of his
enterprises merely contributed a meagre sum of $300,000.57
The most exciting year for him was 1925 as he reached the zenith of
his financial success by making a net profit of $7.8 million, although his
rubber manufactory was still expanding fast in this extraordinary year.
Part of the reason for the good financial year was the high price of rubber
which allowed him to reap profits all along the line, ranging from rubber
plantations, rubber mills, trade, rubber goods manufacturing and retailing.
His rubber mills, again, were the main contributors with a profit of over
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56 TAN KAH-KEE
$4 million, his rubber manufactory returned an improved profit of

$1.5 million, the sale of one rubber estate earned him a sum of $1 million.
By the end of 1925 Tan Kah-kee had become a rich rubber estate owner
with a total of 15,000 acres, mostly in Johore.58
The expansion of his rubber manufactory at Sumbawa Road prompted
him to streamline its administration and operation. Separate departments
were established, including ones for general management, shoes, hats,
balls, raincoats, water pipes, trickshaw tyres, motor tyres, toys, and labo-
ratory work. Each department was headed by a superintendent in charge
of the operations within it. In July 1925 it was reported that the rubber
manufactory employed over 1,400 workers, of whom 800 were male and
over 400 female. There were also over 100 children employed.59 The
piece-work system was applied to workers, while staff were given monthly
wages ranging from $15 per month to more than $100. The working hours
were between 7.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. each day except Sunday. The daily
production of rubber shoes at that time was around 6,000 pairs, as well as
the various other items of rubber goods produced.
During the year Tan Kah-kee also became the sole owner of the World
Biscuit Factory, while still operating the Tekong Brickworks, a sawmill
and a pineapple canning factory in Singapore. His newspaper, the
Nanyang Siang Pau, then known as Chinese Journal of Commerce, had
become well established as the newspaper of the business circle, then the
only paper to provide daily information on fluctuations in rubber and vari-
ous local commodity prices. By that time Tan Kah-kee was wearing a
collection of commercial and industrial hats.
Although Tan Kah-kee’s assets and financial position were liquid at this
time, he chose to borrow from banks to maintain his Chi Mei Schools and
the Amoy University ($2.7 million between 1923 and 1925), and to buy
rubber estates. By the end of 1925 he admitted that he owed the local
Chinese and European banks close to $3 million, of which $700,000 was
paid in interest.60 His total assets in 1925 amounted to $15 million. These
consisted of $6 million worth of rubber estates, a sawmill, a rice firm, and
sundry other ventures, and a huge $5.5 million cash in hand at his dis-
posal.61 Had Tan Kah-kee chosen to pay up the $3 million owed to the
various banks, he would have been both liquid and free from debt. The
failure to do so when liquid was to cost him dearly in the end.
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TABLE 3.1
Patent Rights Granted to Inventions Applied for by Tan Kah-kee on Behalf of the
Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory, 1924–1932
Year Inventions granted patent rights
1924 Inventing and improving rubber soles and inner tubes of pneumatic tyres.
1927 A new method of bonding soles and heels to the uppers of boots and shoes
made of leather or other skins without any stitching.
1928 A new invention for manufacturing rubber soled wooden sandals and an
improved method of manufacture of rubber attache cases or suitcases,
bags and trunks.
1932 An invention for the manufacture of a collapsible, air-tight and waterproof
rubberized fabric container for biscuits and other allied products.
Sources: SSGG, 1932, 26.4.1932, p. 791; CO 275/115, Minutes of Executive Council, SS,
23.10.1924, p. 248; CO 275/123, Minutes of Executive Council, SS, 28.10.1927, p. 283; CO
257/123, Minutes of Executive Council, SS, 31.1.1928, p. 345.
In the 1920s and early 1930s Tan Kah-kee was known to the British
authorities as the foremost industrialist in Singapore and Malaya. He was
also regarded as an inventor as his Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory
took out numerous patent rights from the government. Table 3.1 shows the
types of invention granted patent rights by the Executive Council of the
Straits Settlements.
Through the various applications for patent rights for his inventions
with the Executive Council, Tan Kah-kee attracted some attention from
British governors and officials. Sir Hugh Clifford, governor between 1927
and 1929, inspected his rubber manufactory in 1929 and openly admired
Tan Kah-kee’s ‘enterprise and powers of organization’.62 Sir Cecil
Clementi and other high ranking officials also visited the Sumbawa Road
complex in 1930.63 Lady Clementi was to make a round of inspection
herself later in the same year.64 All these visits and the publicity attached
enhanced the prestige and social standing of Tan Kah-kee as an industrial-
ist and a community leader.
It may be fitting to examine some of the factors for his economic and
financial success from 1904 to 1925 during which time he became a multi-
millionaire. Some of his contemporaries made interesting observations
about his success. As early as 1908 both A. Wright and H. A. Cartwright
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58 TAN KAH-KEE
attributed his prosperity to his industry and thrift,65 while W. Feldwick, a

decade later, concluded that it was a combination of good luck, commer-
cial tact and ability which enabled Tan Kah-kee to expand his operations.66
Sir Hugh Clifford was full of admiration for him, and a Straits Times
reporter who accompanied Sir Hugh’s tour of the Sumbawa Road complex
in 1929 praised his energy, initiative and daring.67
Much of Tan Kah-kee’s business success was due to his belief in and
practice of the personal touch and command and in setting an example for
his employees. In order to keep abreast with the progress and problems of
his vast enterprises, he worked long and hard, with only four to five hours
sleep each night, except perhaps Sunday. He never took a holiday before
the collapse of his businesses in 1934. He was blessed with a sturdy and
sound constitution, enjoying good health right into the post-Second World
War years, when he was well over seventy years old.
Tan Kah-kee was known to have an uncanny ability to hand-pick
talented employees for his staff and once they were on the staff, he invari-
ably entrusted them with decision-making responsibility for his enter-
prises. The ability to pick the right staff was part of his business acumen;
it cut costs and kept production and management efficiency up. Tan Kah-
kee nurtured Lee Kong-chian in 1916 and recruited one of the few quali-
fied Chinese chemists, Oon Khye-hong, into his business organization in
1918. Both were to hold important positions within his business empire as
his assistants. In order to cement their loyalty to his enterprises, he
betrothed three of them, Lee Kong-chian, Oon Khye-hong and Poh Teng-
kok, to his own daughters. Lee Kong-chian was in charge of the finance
department at the head office until he branched out himself in 1927. Lee
Kong-chian’s intimate knowledge and relationships with local banks and
their managers were later to prove crucial for his own businesses getting
off the ground. Oon Khye-hong was to become the general manager of the
Sumbawa Road complex, sharing the responsibility with Tan Kah-kee and
Tan Khuat-siong. Poh Teng-kok was recalled from his business posting in
Shanghai during the late 1920s to work at the head office as one of the
divisional managers. During the 1930s he became the printing supervisor
of the Nanyang Siang Pau. Like many of his contemporaries in business
circles, Tan Kah-kee was essentially a traditionalist at heart and in busi-
ness practice, for he promoted three of his sons to be managers of various
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departments within his business concerns during the 1920s.68 These three
sons, Tan Chay-bing, Tan Khuat-siong and Tan Pok-ai, all rose from the
ranks and became his deputies in various capacities. He needed and
trusted these personnel in key positions to help him manage various
departments and lines of business. Without the shipping knowhow of Yeo
Lark-sye, the scientific training of Oon Khye-hong, the financial expertise
of Lee Kong-chian and the able management of his various sons, Tan Kah-
kee would not have been as successful or confident in his enterprises. On
the other hand, his various concerns provided a sound training ground for
scores of his staff who later on left the company themselves in competi-
tion with their boss. Competitors who had formerly been his employees
included Tan Chwee-pang, Teo Leong-tuan, Liu Teng-theng, Lee Kong-
chian, Yeo Lark-sye, Tan Lark-sye, and Tan Boon-khak, some of whom
subsequently became multi-millionaires in banking, rubber trade and
industry and milling. One other feature concerning the employment of
staff was Tan Kah-kee’s tendency to recruit his clansmen and fellow
county immigrants onto his staff. For example, out of some 200 staff
members at the Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory in 1926, 122 could
be identified as his clansmen or fellow immigrants from the Ch’uanchou
prefecture.69 This rule was generally applied to the staffing of his head
office. There is nothing sinister about this as the command of a common
dialect of an applicant — the Southern Hokkien — would prove an advan-
tage for applicants over non-Hokkien speakers. The advantage of employ-
ing clansmen and fellow county immigrants was the existence of a
common bond and mutual trust between Tan Kah-kee and his staff, bond-
ing in kinship and a sense of territorial solidarity. All in all, the ability of
Tan Kah-kee to recruit talented and trusted people for his various enter-
prises was a major factor in his economic success.
Tan Kah-kee’s administrative organization and management structure
fostered his economic prosperity. He adopted a three-tier organizational
system for his various enterprises, with major decisions being made at the
head office by himself, his assistants and managers. Although there is
considerable evidence to show that Tan Kah-kee alone made major deci-
sions for his organization, nonetheless he and his managers made up the
top tier of the management hierarchy. Under them there were the various
departments and departmental heads who had direct control over the
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60 TAN KAH-KEE
specific lines of enterprises in Singapore, Malaya and overseas. On the

bottom rung were the staff of the various factories, rubber mills, estates,
branches and retail shops in charge of labour force, production, mainte-
nance and sundry. Staff at the lowest level of the management hierarchy
were answerable to the various departments which controlled them. This
organizational system seemed to work smoothly and efficiently with the
top management constantly in contact with the various levels of adminis-
trative hierarchy. This system allowed for some leeway as well, in initia-
tive and renovation on the part of the management at the lowest level.
A further important factor in Tan Kah-kee’s success up to 1925 was the
fact that he boldly adopted Henry Ford’s principle of making every article
required in his business himself, except those which could be obtained
more cheaply elsewhere. This was illustrated by his printing department
at the Sumbawa Road complex which printed all the wrappers and labels
needed for all his manufactured goods. Later in 1929 this printing depart-
ment turned out 20,000 cardboard boxes a day for packing purposes.70 It
seems that this same principle also prompted him to publish the Nanyang
Siang Pau in 1923 for purposes of promoting commerce and of advertis-
ing his own manufactured goods and other products.
Again, Henry Ford’s automation and synchronization principles were
used to Tan Kah-kee’s advantage when he became singularly involved in
all lines of business concerning the rubber industry. First, he ventured into
rubber planting and management of rubber estates in 1906. Then came a
second stage when his rubber estates began to produce latex for process-
ing into dried and cleansed rubber sheets for export. The processing of
rubber sheets was done by his various rubber mills in 1917. The third
stage was reached when he entered into the manufacturing side of the
industry as from 1920 onwards. In 1922 the Sumbawa Road manufactory
began modestly with ten hands, producing 100 pairs of rubber shoes a day,
and by 1929 it employed hundreds of workers who turned out as many as
20,000 pairs of rubber shoes per day.71 From 1923 onwards Tan Kah-kee
founded many retail branches in Singapore and Malaya for his rubber
goods, and later extended them to other parts of South-East Asia and
China with some 87 branches in all by 1928. By this method, Tan Kah-kee
was able to monopolize the various aspects of the rubber industry from
production, processing, trade, manufacturing to retailing. And when
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prices of rubber were good, as they were between 1923 and 1925, he was
able to win all along the line. In other words, it was his ability to concen-
trate, specialize, and to some extent monopolize the rubber goods markets
that helped him to build a formidable commercial and industrial empire,
hitherto unknown in the Chinese community in South-East Asia. By draw-
ing on Henry Ford’s various principles, Tan Kah-kee was able to make his
manufactured products competitive in the consumer markets. This was
one of the keys to his economic success up to 1925. Ironically, when mar-
ket prices of rubber were bearish as from 1926, he found himself in deep
water.
Interestingly, his brother, Tan Keng-hean, likened the success of Tan
Kah Kee & Co. in 1924 to a military operation. In his view the company
was superior and competitive because it had heavy armoury (rubber
estates, trade, mills, and the manufactory, etc.), light brigades (retail
branches, etc.), brave regiments (various industrial plants inside and out-
side the Sumbawa Road complex), and living commanders (Tan Kah-
kee’s brain power).72 He wrote this in an exuberant mood when rubber
prices in Malaya were buoyant.
The employment of cheap labour as a factor in Tan Kah-kee’s prosper-
ity is a rather difficult issue about which to draw positive conclusions. As
workers’ wages were largely determined by the piece-work system, it was
the more efficient ones who would benefit. A monthly wage of between
$7 and $10 for a workman was considered by some of Tan Kah-kee’s
employees as being sufficiently good prior to 1930. A factory trainee
earned a wage of $15 per month, similar to a junior supervisor in Tan Kah-
kee’s rubber manufactory. A branch manager at Muar, Johore, earned a
monthly wage of $40 during the 1920s.73 Some of Tan Kah-kee’s senior
staff at the head office and at the Sumbawa Road complex earned $100 or
more per month. An English writer claimed that thousands of workers
earned a ‘good living’ for providing labour to Tan Kah-kee’s various
enterprises.74 However, during the world economic depression, many of
his workers were either retrenched or had their wages reduced. It was
reported that rubber tappers on his rubber estates earned a meagre wage
of just over 20 cents per day for a living. But then times were extraordi-
nary, with rubber prices and manufactured goods as well as profits drasti-
cally slashed. With a few exceptions there existed almost complete
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62 TAN KAH-KEE
industrial harmony between Tan Kah-kee and his employees, a fact which
could be regarded as an indication that he was not seen as a harsh capital-
ist exploiter, as might be expected.75 It is important to point out that,
despite relatively low wages and long working hours for his workmen by
modern standards, Tan Kah-kee provided sufficient incentive for indus-
trial peace by paying an annual bonus to his employees when his enter-
prises made financial gains. The bonus amounted to one or two months’
wages for each employee. His son-in-law, Lee Kong-chian, followed the
same practice of giving a bonus when he founded Lee Rubber in 1927.
This incentive-oriented system had the effect of pressuring his employees
to work harder to earn it. It was a sound system adopted and practised by
many of Tan Kah-kee’s contemporary business counterparts in Singapore
and Malaya.
Finally, luck — in this case, good luck — played an intriguing part in
his financial success. Tan Kah-kee took a calculated risk in 1906 in enter-
ing the rubber planting industry, which had paid off handsomely for him
by 1910. With the capital accumulated he was able to venture into ship-
ping during the First World War. The war, which prompted him to hire and
later purchase steamers, was a more hazardous venture since he lacked
shipping experience. However, with such a capable and seasoned man as
Yeo Lark-sye on his payroll his shipping line proved to be one of the most
lucrative ventures he had ever been engaged in. Fluctuations in rubber
prices and land prices after the war affected his fortunes in a remarkable
way. Had he sold all his 15,000 acres of rubber estates in 1925 at a price
of $600 per acre, he would have made a profit of $6 million for the sale
alone. Unfortunately for him, prices for rubber sheets and land became
depressed in 1926 and finally plummeted in 1929 and 1930. This adverse
turn marked the beginning of the end for his financial success and his
business and industrial empire.
Tan Kah-kee’s financial slide started in 1926 as rubber prices began to
tumble from $180 per picul to about $90. He was well aware of the
mounting financial crisis and did take some measures to curb it. For
example, he scrapped a plan to found a paper mill, although $200,000 had
been spent on ordering machinery overseas. In addition, he stopped all
building projects for his Chi Mei Schools in December 1926, in order to
cut costs.76 Even so he still incurred a heavy financial loss of $1.8 million,
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made up of such items as rubber mills ($300,000), payment of interest

($400,000), scrapping of the plan for the paper mill ($200,000), and the
reduced maintenance of Chi Mei Schools and the Amoy University
($900,000).77 In 1927 and 1928, with $2.8 million in the red, his financial
woes continued with little sign of ebbing. He was heavily indebted to
local banks for borrowing, owing $7 million to them in 1927 but reduced
to only about $3 million in 1928.78 In order to reduce the burden of inter-
est payments to the banks, Tan Kah-kee was forced to sell 11,000 acres
of his rubber estates, which, fortunately, brought him $4.6 million. Tan
Kah-kee’s assets on the eve of the world economic depression were being
eroded by forced sales of his rubber estates and depreciation of other
properties.
By 1929 his financial foundation had been shaken and he was left with
serious liquidity problems. Between 1929 and August 1931, when Tan
Kah Kee & Co. was transformed into a private liability company, Tan Kah
Kee & Co. Ltd., his businesses, going from bad to worse, incurred a loss
of $3,2 million. This sum was made up of losses in his rubber manufactory
($700,000), payment of interest ($1.2 million), maintenance of education
institutions in China ($900,000), and depreciation of his rubber estates
($400,000). By then he owed various local banks a sum of $9.93 million.79
In response to his indebtedness, the local banks organized a consortium to
restructure the board of directors, reassess the company’s assets and make
it into a private liability company. This ended the absolute control of Tan
Kah-kee over his commercial and industrial empire. The newly restruc-
tured company was eventually wound up in February 1934, after about
three years’ operation.
Did Tan Kah-kee take proper measures to ride out this financial crisis
between 1926 and 1931? What solutions did he put forward for weather-
ing the storm?
Tan Kah-kee had a healthy respect for his problems and he tackled
them in a positive way. This was borne out by the fact that, despite his
annual financial slide, he was prepared to pour in more money on his
Sumbawa Road complex, to recruit more manpower to manufacture rub-
ber goods, and to establish more extensive business networks for market-
ing them. In his perception, his business prosperity was to be built on
rubber manufacturing. Here his strategy was attack, believing that this
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64 TAN KAH-KEE
manufacturing arm would turn the corner for him. His rationale was inter-
esting. First, there was a future for the rubber industry as ‘the twentieth-
century belongs to the age of rubber’. Second, while a small nation like
Japan had over 400 rubber manufactories of all sizes, there was none in a
big country like China. Moreover, Singapore was ideally suited for the
development of the rubber manufacturing industry as there was an abun-
dant Chinese labour force, raw materials, and sufficient infrastructure like
machines and laboratories. Finally, quite apart from promoting rubber
manufacturing as an enterprise, he hoped that his rubber manufactory
would serve as a training school, to turn out technicians and skilled
labourers who might help promote the much needed rubber industry in
China.80 In other words, part of the strategy for persevering with his rubber
manufactory in post-1925 was based on the socio-political factors,
namely, the modernization of China.
The expansion of his manufacturing arm took place in various ways.
More investments were poured into installations and improvement of
machinery in the Sumbawa Road complex, now spreading over a ten-acre
site. Within this compound there were other plants unrelated to rubber
manufactory, including a candy factory and a factory for manufacturing
raincoats, felt hats and topees. Outside the Sumbawa Road complex, Tan
Kah-kee improved production at the World Biscuit Factory, solely owned
by him since 1925. He still ran a brickwork in Pulau Tekong, and founded
a soap factory, a leather tannery and iron foundry. During 1928 and 1929
he manufactured hair lotion and cosmetics for the market, and experi-
mented with perfumery, toothpaste and headache balm.81 There is little
doubt that Tan Kah-kee had intended to compete against Aw Boon-haw
economically. As Aw Boon-haw had adopted a ‘tiger’ trademark for his
products, Tan Kah-kee in 1928 also filed a notice with the government
through his solicitors, Eber and Chan, claiming a ‘tiger’ trademark for all
his products including preserved pineapple, soaps, hair lotion, cosmetics,
toothpaste, confectionary, biscuits, chocolates and candies.82 It was
likely that the application of Tan Kah-kee was refused, as no ‘tiger’
trademark had ever been used for the products mentioned above. So, Tan
Kah-kee stuck to his ‘bell’ trademark, as the ringing of a bell signified the
awakening of the Chinese people, a cultural and political message. The
expansion of Tan Kah-kee’s industrial empire was noticed by W. G. A.
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Ormsby-Gore, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the

Colonies, on his visit to Malaya, Ceylon and Java during 1928. He was
most impressed with the achievements of Tan Kah-kee’s enterprises. In his
report, he praised Tan Kah-kee highly:
One of the most remarkable enterprises in Asia, if not in the world, is

Mr Tan Kah-kee’s factory in Singapore. This enterprising proprietor manu-
factures in Singapore boots and shoes, hats, leather and rubber goods,
including motor and bicycle tyres, sweets and confectionery in a vast and
varied factory that he has entirely built up and extended himself with
Chinese management. He employs several thousand operatives, including
large numbers of Chinese women of the better class, and exports his prod-
ucts to all parts of China and the Far East. A pineapple canning industry is
centred in Singapore, also owned and run by Chinese. The wet rubber of the
Dutch East Indian native grower in Sumatra and Borneo is almost entirely
part-manufactured in Singapore before export to America and Europe.83
Tan Kah-kee’s bold expansionism in rubber manufactory is borne out

by the figures for employment between the years 1923 and 1934 and is
shown in Table 3.2.
TABLE 3.2
Employment Figures at Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory,
1923–1934
Date Number of workers employed
8.10.1923 1,000 workers plus

10.4.1926 2,924 workers and 199 staff
1.3,1927 over 3,000 workers
30.11.1927 over 4,000 workers
5.7.1929 4,400 workers
31.3.1930 over 5,000 workers
27.10.1930 over 5,000 workers
28.4.1933 6,200 workers and 200 staff
February 1934 4,400 workers
Sources: MRCA, No, 42, February 1934, p. 20; NYSP, 8.10.1923; NYSP,
10.4.1926; Lat Pau, 1.3.1927; NYSP, 30.11.1927; NYSP, 5.7.1929; NYSP,
31.3.1930; NYSP, 27.10.1930; NYSP, 28.4.1933.
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66 TAN KAH-KEE
It should be noted that Table 3.2 does not include other workers
employed at his soap and biscuit factories which were located outside the
Surnbawa Road complex. Nor do the figures incorporate his employees at
his head office, at over eighty branches throughout Asia, at his rubber
estates and rubber mills, at the Nanyang Siang Pau and the Tekong
Brickworks. At the height of Tan Kah-kee’s business expansion in 1929,
his second son, Tan Khuat-siong, estimated that there were over 32,000
employees on his payroll,84 a staggering figure even by modern standards.
Of the figure of 32,000 staff and workers, Tan Khuat-siong estimated that
the Sumbawa Road complex alone employed some 10,000 workers and
400 staff, figures which are not supported from other sources in Table 3.2.
A Chinese newspaper, Min Kuo Jih Pao, conceded that at the height of Tan
Kah-kee’s economic career, he had employed some 15,000 people,85 a
figure which seems more credible.
Paradoxically the expansion of this rubber manufactory and labour
force in the post-1925 era did not boost his own assets. More significantly,
his business expansion brought him financial losses which prompted him
to borrow more heavily and persistently from local banks. It was clear by
1928 and 1929 that Tan Kah-kee had invested 75 percent of all his assets
in rubber manufactory, estimated to be $9 million in 1928 and $10 million
in 1929.86 The final figures for his assets surfaced on 31 July 1931 on the
eve of the birth of Tan Kah Kee & Co. as a limited liability company. The
breakdown of his principal assets in 1931 is shown in Table 3.3.
TABLE 3.3
Principal Assets of Tan Kah-kee, July 1931
Items $ (Straits)
Land and buildings, factories and estates 3,998,643

Plant and machinery 2,914,711
Sundries 335,491
Stock in trade 4,679,309
Sundry debtors 514,687
Furniture and fittings 142,634
Total 12,585,475
Source: Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs, No. 43, March 1934, p. 16.
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TA B L E 3.4
Major Liabilities, July 1931
Items $ (Straits)
Mortgages and bank overdrafts 9,937,142

Sundry creditors 414,279
Depositors 443,177
Total 10,904,598
Source: MRCA, No. 43, March 1934, p. 16.
It should be noted that the above assets did not include some of his
other enterprises, including the Nanyang Siang Pau, the sawmill, the
Tekong Brickworks, and his rubber mills. By then, his major liabilities
amounted to $10.9 million, which is illustrated in Table 3.4.
The liquidity problem transformed the Tan Kah Kee & Co. into a lim-
ited liability company with a nominal capital of $2.5 million, of which
$1.5 million was issued. Of the $1.5 million issued, Tan Kah-kee held
$1.45 million while the bank overdrafts were secured by mortgages on the
land, buildings, plant and machinery, and by debentures on the movable
assets.87 The banks were issued debentures as security for their loans.88
With the birth of the new company, the banks, as creditors, took a firmer
grip of the board of directors, by nominating F. G. Herose, Yap Geok-twee
and Lee Kong-chian as their directors, while leaving Tan Kah-kee, the
single and largest shareholder, to be the managing director. In order to
recoup bad debts from Tan Kah-kee, his largest creditors, five major banks
in Singapore, established a banking consortium committee to dictate the
company’s financial policy. It was this committee which was to preside
over the eventual demise of Tan Kah-kee’s business and industrial empire.
The new management of Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. did make various
attempts at improving the sale, marketing and production of rubber goods.
For the first time in the history of the company, there was a regular con-
sultative committee meeting with representatives from the head office, the
rubber manufactory, the soap factory, biscuit factory, and seven other
branches of retailing shops in Singapore. The meeting was chaired by a
competent trouble-shooter and organizer, Han Say-huan, a seasoned rub-
ber trader and a prominent community leader, then a new employee of the
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68 TAN KAH-KEE
company. The meeting was to boost morale in extremely difficult eco-

nomic conditions, to improve the quality of rubber goods, to promote
more efficient sales techniques, and the ethics, decorum and dedication of
salesmanship. The importance of the economic prosperity of the company
to the continuing educational development in Chi Mei and Amoy was
stressed by the chairman and speakers. The messages were clear — the
fulfilment of Tan Kah-kee’s vision of saving China through education and
reconstructing China through enterprises was dependent on the corporate
efforts of all his employees.89
In order to improve productivity, the new management maintained a
steady daily workforce at the Sumbawa Road complex of between 4,600
and 6,200 persons. However, it was fighting an uphill, but losing, battle
against depressed economic conditions and Japanese competition in the
market. By December 1931 the company had incurred a financial loss of
$1.28 million, and bank overdrafts amounted to $9.8 million, together
with interest payments of $74,615. The situation was to get worse in
December 1932 when the company’s balance sheet returned a loss of a
further $1.57 million. In June 1933, the losses had increased to a stagger-
ing sum of $3.1 million while accumulated interest on bank loans had also
risen to $500,000.90 This simply meant the company’s capital of $2.5
million had been wiped out while the debentures were not covered. In
December 1933 the company’s creditors decided to dispose of its financial
interests and assets overseas, in other words, to wind up all branches and
retail shops. In February 1934 they began to close down all plants at
Sumbawa Road, and by April the company had ceased to exist.
The immediate impact was the retrenchment and unemployment of
some 4,500 workers and the misery of their families. Had Tan Kah-kee
been younger and in a more optimistic and happier mood in the wake of
the business collapse, he might have made a comeback. However, he had
had enough of business management and operation for the time being,
leaving some of the surviving enterprises to his sons.91 Some two months
before the closure of the Sumbawa Road complex, Tan Kah-kee let the Lee
Rubber Co. take over his biscuit factory, with a tacit agreement that one-
third of the annual profits be used for the maintenance of both the Chi Mei
Schools and Amoy University.92 His various rubber mills in Singapore
were also rented out to Lee Rubber Co., stipulating that, apart from
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monthly rental to be paid by Lee Kong-chian, 20 percent of the annual

profits from them was to maintain his educational institutions in Fukien.93
It was confirmed by his fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng, that Tan Kah-kee’s
income after 1934 came from the above-mentioned arrangements and from
‘his shares in the rubber business in conjunction with Lee Rubber Co.’94
For Tan Kah-kee and his family, the failure of the limited liability com-
pany meant a sharp drop in living standards. This is evident from the fact that
Tan Kah-kee sold his Cairnhill mansion and moved over to a terrace house
at Moulmein Road, not a prestigious residential area. His main worries over
the maintenance of Amoy University became somewhat lessened when the
Ministry of Education of the Nanking Government decided to appropriate
$90,000 (in Straits currency) as a subsidy to Amoy University as from
August 1934,95 and they were finally over when the Nanking Government
took over Amoy University in 1937 as one of the state universities in China.
Despite his business failure Tan Kah-kee was by no means a pauper. He
was able to donate a monthly subscription of $1,100 to the Singapore
China Relief Fund from August 193796 until the cessation of the Sino-
Japanese War. In 1938, he generously purchased the so-called Liberty
Bonds of the Chinese Government, valued at $51,000, equivalent to
$100,000 (Chinese currency).97 On the eve of the Japanese occupation of
Singapore, he was reported to have lost over $1 million worth of stock in
rubber sheets produced by his rubber mills in Perak alone.98 He was well-
to-do in the post-war years; he invested $25,000 in the Nan Chiau Jit Pao,
founded in November 1946. According to Tan Kok-kheng, his father sold
all his shares in the Lee Rubber Co. and his rubber estate at Senai, Johore,
after his return to China in 1950.99 This may explain why Tan Kah-kee left
a sum of over $3 million (Chinese currency) in his bank accounts when he
died in Peking in 1961.
Just what were the major causes of the decline and demise of Tan Kah-
kee’s commercial and industrial empire?
The crux of the problem was a lack of liquidity. It now appears clear
that there were four main reasons for the liquidity problem. First, it was a
common practice for Chinese businessmen of his generation to obtain
loans from banks whenever possible to solve short-term or long-term
financial problems as interest rates were comparatively low by today’s
standards. And as long as the loans were forthcoming, the Chinese
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70 TAN KAH-KEE
businessmen had ‘hardly any awareness of liquidity’,100 nor were they

willing to dispose of their cherished investments to reduce payment of
interest. Many throve on their uncanny adroitness and the interplay of
credit with risks and chances. After all, banks were seen to be there to
serve the business and financial interests of merchants. Tan Kah-kee was
one of the best, if not the best, customer the banks ever had. He was a
leading rubber magnate, being tagged the ‘Henry Ford of Malaya’, and a
foremost industrialist as well as a man of integrity. There were no occa-
sions on which the banks questioned the wisdom of extending him sub-
stantial credit. Thus, whenever working capital became tight, the simple
solution was to borrow more heavily from the banks.
Secondly, the urgent need for Tan Kah-kee to depend on the banks for
liquidity derived from his philosophical and spiritual commitment to the
maintenance of the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University. Whatever
profits he might have made in the post-1925 period were siphoned off in
large quantities for education purposes. The figures provided by Tan Kah-
kee himself bear witness to his increasing financial problem as is evident
from Table 3.5.
His son-in-law, Lee Kong-chian, then in charge of the treasury of Tan
Kah Kee & Co. in 1926, concerned about heavy indebtedness, advised
against heavy borrowing. In fact, he was so apprehensive about the finan-
cial morass that he confessed to Sng Choon-yee his intention to leave his
TABLE 3.5
Costs of Maintenance of Chi Mei Schools and the Amoy
University, 1926–1934
Year $ (Straits)
1926 900,000
1927 700,000
1928 600,000
1929–1931 1,000,000
August 1931–February 1934
$5,000 per month (31 months) 150,000
Total 3.35 million
Source: Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 415–17.
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father-in-law’s head office as treasurer.101 There is, however, another inter-

esting account of his departure in 1927 which was known to only a few
members of the Tan family until recently. The story goes that Lee Kong-
chian had wanted to join Tan Kah Kee & Co. as a junior partner or a
shareholder with his own savings. When his intention was revealed to his
father-in-law, he was brushed aside by Tan Kah-kee who said, ‘I make
money for education, you make money for the sake of wealth.’102 The
result of that comment was the parting of the ways. After the departure of
Lee Kong-chian, Tan Kah-kee’s eldest son, Tan Chay-bing, equally con-
cerned about remitting $20,000 monthly to maintain educational institu-
tions in Chi Mei and Amoy, advised his father to reduce the remittance for
the sake of liquidity. His father asked him not to worry, saying ‘my life-
style is simple and a bowl of peanut porridge would do me fine’.103 When
Tan Kah Kee & Co. was turned into a limited liability company in August
1931, Tan Kah-kee received a monthly salary of $4,000 as managing
director, a salary ten times higher than the usual managing director’s pay
in those days. Tan Kah-kee gave instructions to have his salary remitted to
the Chi Mei Schools in Fukien, to the surprise and consternation of other
board directors representing the interests of the bank consortium. When
questioned about the wisdom of his move, Tan Kah-kee explained that he
only needed $100 per month for his own living expenses and that the
financial maintenance of his families could be looked after by his grown-
up children.104
A third factor related to his liquidity problem was interest repayment at
a rate of 7 percent on loans advanced by local banks in Singapore. As Tan
Kah-kee borrowed more heavily, the size of repayments of interest snow-
balled and drained his much needed working capital. Table 3.6 shows the
annual payment of interest from 1926 to 1931.
A fourth and final factor in his financial crisis was his badly calculated
risk of expanding his rubber goods manufacturing and retailing outlets.
Starting off with an investment in the rubber manufactory in 1921 at a
modest sum of $1.5 million, his investments in the Sumbawa Road com-
plex and in establishing over 80 branches of retailing shops reached a total
of $9 million in 1928 and $10 million in 1929. And by July 1931 it was
estimated that his principal assets in these lines had extended to $12.5
million. In other words, heavy investment in rubber manufacturing and in
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72 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 3.6
Repayment of Interest, 1926–1931
Year $ (Straits)
1926 over 400,000

1927 over 400,000
1928 over 400,000
1929–1931 1,200,000
Total 2.4 million
Source: Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 415–17.
marketing had been a business failure in so far as profits were concerned.

There is no doubt that the Japanese competition in the rubber shoe markets,
and subsequent world economic depression aggravated his financial woes.
Closely associated with the liquidity problem was the reduced profit
margin problem arising from fierce competition in rubber milling, rubber
trade, rubber shoes and rubber goods markets. As early as 1923, Tan Kah-
kee had already felt the threat of competition from rubber firms in
Singapore run largely by his compatriots and friends. Among the biggest
of Singapore’s Chinese rubber firms which competed against him were
Chee Seng, Thong Bee, Chin Seng Hong and Sin Cheng, all of whom
owned rubber processing mills in Singapore. In 1925, when an idea to
found the Singapore Rubber Millers Association was floated, there were
only five founding members.105 By 1928, there were eight Chinese rubber
millers in Singapore, apart from the biggest miller, Tan Kah Kee & Co.,
as members.106 As well as having to compete against each other, it is quite
conceivable that they also had to compete against other smaller millers
who were not members of the association.
Undoubtedly, many of the rubber millers were either Tan Kah-kee’s
clansmen or former employees who had left the company during 1924 and
1925 when rubber prices were excellent. In 1924, for example, two of his
clansmen and employees, Tan Lark-sye and Tan Boon-khak, founded their
own rubber firm and mills, Aik Ho & Co., to process rubber sheets for
direct export overseas. In 1925, another capable employee, Lau Geok-
swee, left the Ipoh branch of Tan Kah Kee & Co. to establish his own
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Tiong Nam Co. Rubber Mill in Kuala Kangsar and Taiping, to enter into
a competitive but contracting market for smoked rubber sheets.107 It was a
great loss to him in 1927 to see his treasurer, Lee Kong-chian, found the
Lee Rubber Co. in competition against all other rubber millers and
traders.
Apart from rubber milling among the Chinese, there were a growing
number of traders entering the trade as commission agents or brokers, col-
lecting rubber sheets from Malaya and Sumatra as well as Sarawak and
packing them for export purposes. In 1928, for example, there were at
least 261 Chinese rubber firms engaged in the rubber trade.108 The gradual
slump in rubber prices and fierce competition in the rubber trade helped
to explain why Tan Kah-kee’s various rubber mills in Singapore and
Malaya were making little or no profit as from 1926.
From 1926 onwards, a new dimension was added to the financial prob-
lems of Tan Kah Kee & Co. when his manufactured rubber goods, mainly
shoes, began to compete against those of the Japanese in South-East Asian
markets. In 1929 it was reported that 60 percent of his rubber goods were
for these markets, while the rest were for markets in China.109 Japanese
rubber shoes were claimed to be cheaper and more competitive on world
markets. In 1928 the Japanese exported 2.67 million pairs of rubber shoes,
and in 1929 this was increased to 7 million pairs for overseas markets. The
first four months of 1933 witnessed the export of 4.43 million pairs of
rubber shoes by the Japanese,110 and more were later to flood the markets.
Competition between Tan Kah-kee’s products and the Japanese continued
unabated until the demise of Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. in 1934.
The Great Depression starting in 1929 was a heavy blow to many
Chinese enterprises in Singapore as the island was over-dependent on
international trade and banking systems. It brought down many business
concerns and sent more for business reorganization. The Ho Hong
Steamship Line became a public liability company due to debts incurred
while the three existing Chinese banks, the Chinese Commercial, the Ho
Hong and the Oversea Chinese, were forced to amalgamate into what is
now the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, for survival.
There was a feeling of panic and despair in the Chinese community in
general and in business circles in particular. It also badly affected the
Government of the Straits Settlements in more ways than one. Under the
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74 TAN KAH-KEE
capable management of Sir Cecil Clementi, his administration did every-

thing possible to balance its annual budgets by adopting drastic measures
to slash wages, dismiss officials, reduce public works and services and
repatriate thousands of the unemployed back to China and India. It was a
hard time for all in this once prosperous island city.
The Great Depression hit even harder at Tan Kah-kee’s various enter-
prises, rendering it difficult for them to survive. It had brought down many
of his rivals in rubber milling and trade, including Chong Joo in 1929,
Chin Seng Hong and Chee Seng in 1930. When Chin Seng Hong col-
lapsed, 4,000 rubber tappers in its rubber estates in Malaya went out of
work, and 2,000 more in Singapore joined the ranks of the unemployed
when Chee Seng closed its rubber and pineapple mills.111 The disappear-
ance of some of his competitors did not bring him comfort nor real relief,
for rubber prices per pound were reduced from 34 cents in 1929 to an
all-time low of 4.95 cents in June 1932. And there were 600,000 tons of
surplus rubber on the market at give-away prices. Indeed, it was dearer to
produce it than to buy it. As Tan Kah-kee was unwilling to retrench all
the rubber tappers on his estates, he retained a portion of them, and pro-
vided each with a little over 20 cents as wages per day.112 This represents
a 100 percent drop on wages received in 1925.113
The Depression affected his rubber manufactory in other ways. For a
start, consumers’ demands became depressed as most wage-earners could
not afford to buy food, let alone rubber goods. Secondly, his Sumbawa Road
complex became overstocked and all his stocks depreciated heavily in
value. Thirdly, prices of his rubber shoes were slashed from over $1 per pair
in 1928 to slightly over 20 cents during the Depression.114 Thus depressed
markets, Japanese competition, overstocking and underpricing on his rubber
goods, all took a heavy toll on his economic well-being and viability.
While Europe, the United States and Canada were protecting their own
manufacturers by putting up a stiff tariff wall against foreign goods during
the Great Depression, the colonial authorities in both Malaya and the
Straits Settlements did little or nothing to protect their own pioneering
manufacturers. During May 1932 an Imperial Economic Conference was
held in Ottawa, Canada, with representatives from British colonies and
dominions attending on the tariff issue. At that conference it was agreed
that Canada be allowed a clear preference of one shilling per pair of rubber
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boots and shoes as well as canvas boots and shoes with rubber soles over
her foreign competitors, in order to protect her manufacturers. Clementi
declined to introduce tariff legislation in the Straits Settlements contrary
to the instructions from the Colonial Office, arguing that ‘to do so would
be to cut right across the principle of solidarity between various parts of
the colonial empire…’.115 It seems that it was the principle of free trade
which discouraged Sir Cecil Clementi from enacting a protective tariff
against Dominion and Japanese competition. Without the much needed
tariff protection during the Depression, Tan Kah-kee’s manufacturing
industry was adversely affected. Again, the Ottawa agreement damaged
the interests of Tan Kah-kee in that it only allowed Singapore to manufac-
ture one million pairs of rubber shoes per year for both local consumption
and for export purposes. According to Tan Kah-kee, the limitations in
production utterly ruined his chances of recovery as no profit could be
made unless 1.3 million pairs of rubber shoes were allowed to be produced
annually by his manufactory.116 There was, however, one glimpse of hope
arising out of the Ottawa agreement — the export of his rubber shoes to
Britain without being subjected to tariff protection. By expanding the
British home market for his rubber products, there was a good chance he
could compete against other non-preferential exporters, including Japan.
Indeed, as from July 1933 eight British customers began to increase their
purchase of rubber boots and shoes from his manufactory. However, one
of the eight customers, regarded by Tan Kah-kee as an ‘evil merchant’,
visited Singapore in August and succeeded in persuading members of the
banking consortium to allow his firm to be the sole purchaser and distribu-
tor of rubber boots produced at the Sumbawa Road complex. The grounds
for allowing that to happen, as told by one influential member of the con-
sortium, the manager of the Chartered Bank in Singapore, were both racial
and political. He argued that the firm that was allowed to monopolize the
purchase and distribution in Britain was a British firm, whereas the other
seven customers were Jews and foreigners. His logic, therefore, was that
for the national interests of Great Britain it was right and proper that the
British firm should have the overriding rights to monopolize the imported
rubber boots.117 Tan Kah-kee disapproved of this marketing policy and
practice, thus clashing with the banking consortium representatives. The
policy of the banking consortium did not work as the monopolist firm did
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76 TAN KAH-KEE
not buy up the stock of rubber boots produced by the Sumbawa Road
complex. In the midst of disillusion and despair, the banking consortium
and Tan Kah-kee agreed to place Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. in the hands of
a receivership under the direction of D. Phillip and R. W. S. Drummond,
in February 1934. Thus it could be said that the Ottawa Tariff Conference
had the unforeseen effect of expediting the process of its demise and end-
ing a chapter of early Singapore’s industrial history.
One other comment relating to Tan Kah-kee’s business failure in 1934
had come from one of his close friends, Sng Choon-yee, who was always
most impressed with Tan Kah-kee’s political career and business brain. In
Sng’s view, Tan Kah-kee’s business empire had grown to such an extent
that he needed new methods of accounting the old stock. In his view Tan
Kah-kee did not make sufficient allowance for the depreciation of the old
stock that got him into trouble.118 Sng’s analysis could well have been
valid, as none of the personnel in charge of the treasury at head office,
including Lee Kong-chian, Tan Chay-bing and Tan Kah-kee himself, was
a trained accountant, well-versed in modern accounting methods.
As a self-made man Tan Kah-kee strove and succeeded in securing a
sound and credible economic base as from 1904. His uncanny ability to
control a great business empire and amass great fortunes was in itself a
great feat. With his unquestionable skills in business management, it pre-
sented no problem at all to him to provide pang, community and political
leadership whenever opportunities arose.
Secondly, a sound and credible economic base in itself must mean an
equally sound and credible social standing and prestige. In a commercial
and capitalist society like Singapore, a person with means traditionally
enjoyed a higher social status. Tan Kah-kee had more than that. He was a
rubber magnate, a business tycoon, and a towering industrialist, easily
identifiable to governments and people. There is no doubt that his sound
economic base was partly responsible for him being appointed by the
British authorities in 1918 as a Justice of the Peace, and in 1923 as a mem-
ber of the Chinese Advisory Board. Likewise, a sound social and economic
base enabled him to be recognized and accepted by the Chinese govern-
ments, both central and provincial, as a community and political leader.
Finally, a sound economic base allowed Tan Kah-kee to be more chari-
table and generous in his social, educational and community works. By so
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doing, his prestige as a social reformer, philanthropist, educational pro-

moter and community leader was further enhanced.
How then did the collapse of his business empire in 1934 affect his
image as a community leader?
The answer to this is very little, or not at all. For a start, Tan Kah-kee had
already built up an impeccable and indestructible image through his eco-
nomic contribution as a large employer, his social involvement as a philan-
thropist, his educational endeavour as a founder of many schools and the
Amoy University and his community leadership as a founding member of
the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Hokkien
Huay Kuan as from 1929 and President of the Ee Hoe Hean Club from 1923.
By 1934 Tan Kah-kee had already built a sizeable personal following
consisting of his fellow-countrymen, his clansmen and his employees.
Many of those who had parted with Tan Kah-Kee during the 1920s had not
only survived the onslaught of the Great Depression but went on to become
prosperous rubber traders, planters and millers themselves. Many were to
become community leaders in their own right. These included Lau Geok-
swee of Penang, Ng Tiong-kiat of Selangor, Tan Lark-sye, Tan Boon-khak
and Lee Kong-chian of Singapore, to name a few. Tan Lark-sye went on to
found in the 1950s the Nanyang University in Singapore, largely inspired
by the educational spirit of Tan Kah-kee, while Lee Kong-chian succeeded,
mainly through rubber and banking, in amassing a fortune many times the
size of that which Tan Kah-kee himself had achieved in 1925. ‘Think of the
source of water when drinking’: these people looked up to Tan Kah-kee as
their spokesman, and regarded him as their patriarch. There was an unseen
moral force binding their relationships, largely motivated and activated by
the patron–client associations. They supported his community and political
leadership during the 1930s and 1940s, morally, politically and financially,
to the hilt. Thus, his financial collapse in 1934 turned out to be a moral
victory for Tan Kah-kee because he had created a host of successors capa-
ble of delivering social and educational responsibility in Singapore.
Politically, the 1934 financial fiasco was a blessing in disguise, for Tan
Kah-kee had so much more spare time to devote to and indulge in the pas-
sion and compassion of community affairs and China politics. It was in
the political arena that his leadership sparkled brightly and his fortunes
went from strength to strength.
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78 TAN KAH-KEE
1. The ‘Ta-p’u spirit’ denotes the dauntless and unyielding qualities of the
Hakka people in China who had migrated over the centuries from North China to
South and West China. They belonged to a rugged and hardy stock which sur-
vived numerous political upheavals, civil wars and persecutions on the part of the
indigenous people of South and West China. The ‘Ta-p’u spirit’ therefore charac-
terizes the enterprise, perseverance, frugality and love of learning and scholarship
of the Hakka people. In short, it reflects a people with a fighting spirit and capac-
ity for survival in adverse conditions.
2. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, reprint, Singapore, Tan Kah-kee,
1946, p. 393.
3. Ibid., p. 394.
4. Ibid., p. 393.
5. Ibid., pp. 394–5.
6. Ibid., pp. 396–7.
7. SSGG, 14 April 1905, pp. 806–7.
8. Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., p. 403; Lat Pau, 29 January 1908.
9. SSGG, 18 October 1912, p. 1885.
10. Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., p. 399.
11. Ibid., p. 400.
12. Ibid., pp. 399–400.
13. Ibid., pp. 400–1.
14. Ibid., p. 401.
15. John Drabble, Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford
University Press, 1973, p. 51.
16. Tan Kah-kee, op. cit,, p. 404.
17. NYSP, 4 February 1926. A speech given by Dr Lim Boon-keng on his role
in the promotion of the rubber planting industry and his criticism of the Teochew
merchants’ lukewarm response to his plea concerning venturing into the industry.
18. Lat Pau, 26 August 1907, 20 April 1909; Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., p. 402.
19. Lat Pau, 24 April 1909.
21. Ibid., pp. 404–5.
22. Ibid., p. 407.
23. Nam Kew Poo, 13 March 1914; Lat Pau, 23 March 1914.
24. Union Times, 27 August 1914; Dick Wilson, Solid as a Rock, the First
Forty Years of the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation, Singapore, Oversea-
Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd., 1972, p. 10.
25. Lat Pau, 3 December 1914.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.; KMYP, 24 October 1916.
29. KMYP, 24 October 1916; Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., p. 409.
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30. SSGG, 1916, p. 1895.

31. CO 273/443, File No. 51628, Khiam Yik & Co.; see G. Grindle, Colonial
Office, to the Secretary, Board of Trade, 31 October 1916.
32. Annual of Chinese Society, 1964–7, p. 2.
33. Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., pp. 408–9.
34. Ibid,, p. 409.
35. Straits Settlements Blue Book 1918, pp. X6–8. Cited by John Drabble,
op. cit., p. 148.
36. W, Feldwick, ed., Present Day Impressions of the Far East and
Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad, London, Globe
Encyclopaedia Co., 1917, p. 837.
The Annual Profits, 1915–1918
1915 $450,000
1916 $500,000
1917 $900,000
1918 $2.65 million
Total $4.50 million
38. Feldwick, op. cit., p. 836; Tan Kah-kee, op. cit,, pp. 409–10.
39. Straits Settlements Directory, 1919, pp. 2I6J–216K.
40. KMYP, 20 May 1919, 7 June 1919.
41. Fukien shih-li Ch’i-me-hsüeh-hsiao hsiao-chu Ch’en ch’uang-pan Hsia-
men ta-hsüeh yen-chiang-tz’u, Amoy, 1919, pp. 7–8; Ch’en chia-keng hsien-
sheng chi-nien-ts’e, Peking, All-China Returned Overseas Chinese Association,
1961, pp. 23, 32, 71, 112.
42. Lat Pau, 28 July 1925.
43. K. G. Tregonning, Home Port Singapore, Singapore, Oxford University
Press, 1967, p. 50.
44. Tan Ee-leong, Hsin-ma tsu-ts’e shang-yeh yin-hang, Singapore, The
World Book Co. (Pte.) Ltd., 1975, p. 179.
46. SKMP, 1 September 1921.
48. Ibid., p. 413.
49. Ibid., pp. 412–13.
50. NYSP, 8 October 1923.
52. Wo-kuo hsing ti-wen-t’i, Hong Kong, Ch’en Chia-keng hsüeh-hui, 1946,
p. 21.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., p. 23.
55. ST, 6 June 1929.
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80 TAN KAH-KEE

58. Ibid.
59. Lat Pau, 28 July 1925.
61. Ibid., p. 415.
62. ST, 6 June 1929.
63. Malay Mail, 6 March 1930.
64. NYSP, 9 February 1930.
65. A. Wright and H. A. Cartwrighl, ed., Twentieth Century Impressions of
British Malaya, London, Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908, p. 712.
66. Feldwick, op. cit., p. 836.
67. ST, 6 June 1929.
68. Straits Settlements Directory, 1930, p. 163; Straits Settlements Directory,
1931, p. 147; Straits Settlements Directory, 1932, p. 495.
69. NYSP, 10 April 1926.
70. ST, 6 June 1929.
71. Ibid.
72. Tan Keng-hean’s Correspondence, Vol. 2. See his letter to Tan Kah-kee,
18 May 1924, pp. 12–13.
73. Information provided by Tan Soo-kiok on 20 December 1982 at his
home at Holland Park in Singapore.
74. Feldwick, op. cit., p. 836.
75. On two occasions, relationships between Tan Kah-kee and his employees
at Sumbawa Road complex were less than amicable. In the first instance, workers
there resorted to strike action when their wages were reduced at the height of the
Great Depression in 1930. A second incident took place in 1934 when Tan Kah
Kee & Co. Ltd., decided to wind up business and retrench all employees because
of business failure.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., pp. 416–17.
79. MRCA, No. 43, March 1934, p. 16.
81. ST, 6 June 1929.
82. SSGG, 1929. The notice to this effect was dated 14 March 1928 and was
filed by his solicitors, Chan and Eber.
83. Report by the Right Honourable W. G. A. Ormsby Gore, M.P.
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies) on his visit to Malaya,
Ceylon, and Java during the year 1928, London, HMSO, 1928, pp. 13–14.
84. Tan Khuat Siong, ed., Chi Mei Chih, Hong Kong, Chiyu Banking
Corporation Ltd., 1963, p. 119.
85. MKJP, 22 February 1934.
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86. Tan Kah-kee, op. cit., p. 417; NYSP, 8 August 1928, 5 July 1929.
87. MRCA, No. 43, March 1934, p. 16.
88. MRCA, No. 42, February 1934, p. 20.
89. Tan Kah Kee & Co, Ltd. Minutes of 22nd staff consultative meeting of
branches and the rubber manufactory, 15 December 1932, Singapore, Tan Kah
Kee & Co. Ltd., 1932, pp. 4–5. Tan Kah-kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 25th Staff
consultative meeting . . . , 15 March 1933, Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd.,
1933, p. 6.
90. MRCA, No. 43, March 1934, p. 17.
93. Ibid.
94. Tan Kok-kheng’s letter to the author, dated 16 August 1983.
95. MRCA, No. 48, August 1934, p. 59.
96. Tan Kah-kee, op, cit, p. 43.
97. Ibid., p. 46.
98. Ibid., p. 335.
99. Tan Kok-kheng’s letter to the author, dated 16 August 1983.
100. Yap Pheng Geek, Scholar, Banker, Gentleman Soldier, Singapore, Times
Books International, 1982, p. 38.
101. Information provided by Sng Choon-yee in Singapore on 18 January 1976.
102. Information provided by Tan Keong-choon on 12 December 1982 at his
home. The story was relayed to him by Tan Chay-bing.
103. In a letter by Tan Keong-choon to the author, dated 19 April 1981.
104. This episode was related by Tan Sri Tan Chin-tuan to Tan Keong-choon
who kindly relayed it to me in a letter dated 16 January 1984.
105. NYSP, 9 January 1925.
106. Ibid., 29 May 1928.
107. Ibid., 23 April 1925.
108. Ibid., 20 July 1928.
109. Ibid., 5 July 1929.
110. Ibid., 22 September 1930.
111. Ibid., 7 October 1930, 11 October 1930.
113. K.G. Tregonning, A History of Modern Malaya, Singapore, Eastern
Universities Press Ltd., 1964, p. 207.
115. CO 273/583, P. Cunliffe-Lister, Colonial Office, to Sir Cecil Clementi,
SS, 2 January 1933.
116. MRCA, No. 50, October 1934, p. 18.
118. Interview with Sng Choon-yee on 18 January 1976 at his home at
Serangoon Garden, Singapore.
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4
The Building of a Pre-eminent Social Status
… willingness to serve society is an unequivocal aim of my life; social and

community works should be done there and then and according to one’s
ability. If one waits until one is wealthy before embarking on them, then
there is nothing one can do or achieve in life....
Tan Kah-kee on his ambitions in life, 1933
UNTIL recent times in China, the scholar–gentry topped the social scale
and possessed unchallenged status symbols and power in officialdom,
scholarship and landownership. It was a combination of these three assets
that enabled them to remain a self-perpetuating ruling class for over a
thousand years after the institutionalization of the imperial civil service
examinations in the T’ang dynasty (618–907). By contrast, colonial
regimes in South-East Asia restricted and impeded Chinese political
mobility and prevented the scholar–gentry from ever forming a ruling élite
in a colonial setting.
Since colonial regimes in South-East Asia invariably put an enormous
premium on trade, commerce and the development of a cash crop econ-
omy, and on modern capitalism, there arose a Chinese middle class, con-
sisting of middlemen, compradors, traders, shopkeepers, bankers and
financiers. The rise of this middle class in Singapore was closely associ-
ated with the growth of a free entrepôt port, aided and abetted by the result
of the surging of rubber and tin industries in Malaya and Sumatra.
In the Chinese community of Singapore there existed various status
symbols which served as pointers to a person’s social or community
standing. While monetary wealth was the obvious symbol of sound social
status, other status symbols such as education, personal attributes and
abilities, possessions, position, profession, kinship ties and patron–client
relationships, were of considerable importance as barometers of the social
82
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THE BUILDING OF A PRE-EMINENT SOCIAL STATUS 83
standing of any individual Chinese within his own community. While the
acquisition of such status symbols was important in its own right, it was
more crucial for individuals to utilize them for the common good. It was
from the practice of letting money work for the common good that helped
build up and sustain a pre-eminent social status of an individual in society.
Did Tan Kah-kee possess these status symbols? How did he build an
imposing social status which could not be ignored by the local Chinese com-
munity, the British authorities and succeeding Chinese governments?
As seen in Chapter 2, Tan Kah-kee was the ‘T’ung An spirit’ personi-
fied, a man of many attributes with the courage of his own convictions and
a capacity for forceful leadership. He was a giant of a man with immense
organizational skills. These personal qualities served him well as a leader
at all levels, from a pang, community to a political leadership.
Educationally, Tan Kah-kee had never qualified to sit for the imperial
civil service examinations at either the provincial or metropolitan level.
Largely through self-education and practice, Tan Kah-kee acquired great
skill in calligraphy and wrote six books on various themes, including an
autobiography, China’s transport problem, housing and hygiene, Chinese
customs and an account of a visit to New China. Although he never
claimed to be a traditional scholar, he wrote and behaved in a scholarly
manner all his life, Perhaps it was as well that Tan Kah-kee was not a true
Confucian scholar with degrees, deeply steeped in Confucian ideology
and scholarship, since he might have been inspired to choose the imperial
civil service as a career, scorning the rough and tumble of money-making
in a competitive business world. Nevertheless, he accepted key Confucian
precepts, such as hardwork, frugality, honesty, integrity, perseverance,
charity and loyalty. It can thus be said that he was a practising Confucian
all his life.
With nine years of basic Confucian classical education, plus many
more of self-education and self-cultivation, Tan Kah-kee was considerably
better off educationally than many of his contemporaries who often had
received little or no education at all. At least he could read and write.
And with his lucid and analytical mind, he could communicate intellectu-
ally and write in fine semi-classical prose. He often strove to improve his
and others’ literary and intellectual standards. An example of this was his
establishment of a small library in his Ee Ho Hean Club in 1923 for the
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84 TAN KAH-KEE
benefit of members.1 Books for the library were mostly supplied by the
World Book Company in Singapore, of which he was a shareholder. His
friend, Sng Choon-yee, later helped catalogue them. Tan Kah-kee often
spent much of his spare time in his club library, reading, thinking and
planning community and political activities. Largely through the con-
sciousness of self-strengthening and self-education, he became a well-
informed person in community and political affairs. He used to tell both
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, during his 1940 Comfort Mission to
China, that he was a political men-wai-han (a political ignoramus), which
was untrue. Tan Kah-kee often wrote his own speeches, propounding
socio-political ethics, a practice which was rare among his contemporar-
ies, either friends or foes. His two-volume autobiography, Nan-ch’iao
hui-i-lu, published in Singapore in 1946, was the hallmark of his literary
skills and considerable intellectual achievements. Suffice it to say here
that his lack of formal or modern schooling in no way hampered his sound
social standing and his rise as an important political leader between 1928
and 1949.
Admittedly Tan Kah-kee never mastered a second language, either
Malay or English, but this did not pose many problems to him as business
dealings with foreign agency houses and firms could be handled by his
English-speaking staff. Nevertheless, not being conversant with a second
language was a handicap. For had he been able to read and write English,
for example, he would have been more easily exposed to Western ideas
and techniques of business and financial management. And with these at
his disposal, he would have been better equipped to ride out the storms of
world economic depression in the 1930s. Conversely, had he been able to
communicate in English, he might have been more acceptable to the
British authorities earlier and able to play a bigger role in local politics
and in Chinese community affairs.
As Chapter 3 has shown, Tan Kah-kee’s economic standing, based on
wealth and possessions, was extremely high between 1910 and 1934. By
1911, Tan Kah-kee had become a millionaire, and by the end of the First
World War, a multi-millionaire. He was more than a mere comprador and
businessman; he was arguably the most enterprising entrepreneur the
region had produced. His numerous industrial plants in Singapore,
employing over 10,000 workers and staff in the 1920s, and his many other
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properties and assets, were testimony to his financial standing. Although

not the richest Chinese in South-East Asia, Tan Kah-kee was among the
best-known and most popular of the multi-millionaires in the region.
Some of his contemporaries, like Oei Tiong-ham of Semarang, the sugar
baron, were many times wealthier than Tan Kah-kee. Lee Choon-guan
(1868–1924), a Straits-born Chinese and a shipping and real estate tycoon,
and Eu Tong-sen, a rubber-estate owner and shopkeeper, were more opu-
lent than he was. Lim Peng-siang of the Ho Hong group of companies in
Singapore, possibly matched Tan Kah-kee’s assets at the peak of his busi-
ness and industrial expansion during the 1920s. If wealth was to be taken
as the foremost status symbol among the South-East Asian Chinese, then
Tan Kah-kee had hardly ever lost it. In his lifetime, Tan Kah-kee made and
lost a fortune, yet he still remained a rich man even after the collapse of
his business empire in 1934.
Wealth produced some of the visual and tangible assets and possessions
which, in their turn, were status symbols. These included his three sepa-
rate mansions at 42, Cairnhill Road, a valuable property with an extensive
garden. In 1934, the Cairnhill mansions were owned by a prominent
Chinese banker, Tan Chin-tuan, another T’ung An man and admirer of Tan
Kah-kee. Although Tan Kah-kee never took out a driving licence, he was,
nevertheless, one of Singapore’s earliest owners of a car. In 1918. he was
among 1,709 registered car owners in Singapore, possessing a German-
made prestige car, a Daimler 1314.2 In a population of approximately
200,000 in 1918, he was indeed one of the select few to own a car. Quite
a number of his friends, including Lim Nee-soon, Lee Choon-guan, Tan
Jiak-kim, Lim Peng-siang, Lim Boon-keng, Liau Chia-heng, See Tiong-
wah and Koh San-hin, owned more than one car.3
Although wealth per se conveyed esteem in the Chinese communities
overseas, it was the fulfilment of social responsibility through providing
community services, financial support and manpower resources when
need arose which was crucial to the building of a creditable social stand-
ing, and to the rise of community leadership. The gist of this traditional
Confucian moral standard of social responsibility was to serve society and
humanity, the catchwords for this being ‘taking it from (the) society and
giving it to (the) society’, and ‘with money, donate money, with man-
power resources, provide manpower resources’. The fulfilment of this
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86 TAN KAH-KEE
social responsibility would, in turn, help enhance one’s reputation and

social status, two vital stepping-stones for social mobility — the assump-
tion of community leadership and power.
Being a self-made man steeped in traditional Confucian moral codes,
Tan Kah-kee consciously lived up to these standards, both in words and
deeds. He boldly claimed, on a number of occasions, to have fulfilled the
‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ ideals through serving society and through
donating his personal assets for the promotion of education and for com-
mon good.4 But did his words speak louder than his deeds? His track
record for charity and for the promotion of Chinese education in both
Singapore and in Fukien was most impressive. In terms of funding for
education, Tan Kah-kee himself provided a figure in 1946 of over $8 mil-
lion for education investment,5 while the Straits Times suggested in 1954
a figure of over $10 million.6 His second son, Tan Khuat-siong, gave a
figure of over $20 million in 1963 for his father’s educational donations
of a lifetime.7
While there is no denying that Tan Kah-kee’s educational endeavours
have been well documented, it is also important that the story should be
told in the context of status building and community leadership acquisi-
tion. The first evidence of the concern of Tan Kah-kee over education in
his home village took place in 1894 when he donated $2,000 for the estab-
lishment of a private school, called T’i-ch’ai-hsüeh-shu.8 He was then
only a young man, twenty-one years old. Between 1894 and 1906, there
is no evidence to show that Tan Kah-kee was preoccupied with educa-
tional promotion in either Singapore or China. However, in 1907, his
enthusiasm for educational development was revived in Singapore when
the Hokkien pang founded a primary school, Tao Nan, for children of their
community in response to the establishment of a number of other Chinese
primary schools in 1905 and 1906 by the Hakka, Teochew and Cantonese
pang. Tan Kah-kee was then only one of the 110 founding members of
Tao Nan School. He was elected one of the sixty office-bearers and
became one of the twenty-four administrators for dealing with matters
concerning its establishment.9 He donated $1,000 towards the cost of
establishing the school, which was added to the substantial sum of
$58,000 collected by April 1907.10 In November 1907 when the school
was opened, there were about 100 students enrolled to attend classes
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manned by four teachers.11 In 1909 when Tao Nan’s sixty office-bearers

were reduced to forty, Tan Kah-kee remained one of its office-bearers and
a financial patron.12 The following year saw Tan Kah-kee become one of
the two auditors for the school, and in 1911, his fully tested and proven
leadership prompted the school’s financial patrons to elect him president.
Tan Kah-kee was to be closely associated with Tao Nan between 1911 and
1929, serving in that time as president for twelve years.13
One of the main tasks in 1911 for the newly-elected president was to
complete a campaign of fund-raising for the building of the new school
premises. He led the campaign, collected a sum of just over $40,000 and
was among the most generous donors with a contribution of $2,000.14
With the sum assured, Tan Kah-kee and his committee erected the new
school premises at Armenian Street, a stone’s throw from the present site
of the American Consulate and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce and Industry at Hill Street. Needless to say, the position as
president of Tao Nan School helped consolidate Tan Kah-kee as a pang
leader of the Hokkien community in Singapore.
From 1911 in Singapore, Tan Kah-kee went on to become founder of
five other Chinese schools, and donated substantial sums of money for
two English educational institutions. He was one of the founders of the
Chong Fook Girts School in 1915, and the Nanyang Girls School in 1918,
later to become a secondary school in 1930. More importantly, Tan Kah-
kee led the movement in 1918 for founding the first Chinese secondary
school in Singapore at Bukit Timah Road, the Nanyang Chinese High
School, or the Chinese High School, for short.
Being an educational visionary, Tan Kah-kee deserves credit as the first
Chinese in Singapore to argue the need for establishing a secondary
school for Chinese-educated primary school graduates. This suggestion
came from him in 1913 when, writing from Amoy, he urged the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce to found a secondary school.15 The
Chamber decided not to take any action but replied advising Tan Kah-kee
to direct his ideas to the Nanyang Chinese Education Association in
Singapore. As there is no evidence to show that Tan Kah-kee did so, it is
not surprising to see that his ideas failed to evoke a more positive response.
However, some action was taken in 1917 by a number of persons other
than Tan Kah-kee himself. One action involved a feasibility study
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88 TAN KAH-KEE
conducted by the headmaster of Tao Nan School, Hsiung Shang-fu, during

1917, showing that there were over 100 students in Singapore and Malaya
qualified for entry into secondary school education.16 Following this sur-
vey, the idea for founding a secondary school was revived with Chiang
Ying-p’u, a Cantonese leader and the proprietor of the Nanyang Brothers
Tobacco Company, and Tan Kah-kee supporting it. Chiang Ying-p’u took
the first step to convene an initial meeting but without much success.
Things came further adrift when Chiang Ying-p’u returned to China for a
business trip. By the time he returned to Singapore in 1918, he had
become bogged down with his own business commitments and with a
fund-raising campaign for Yang Cheng School, a Cantonese-financed pri-
mary school, founded in 1906. Thus, Tan Kah-kee assumed leadership for
founding a Chinese secondary school and after having received a deputa-
tion from the Tung Teh Reading Room in May 1918, decided to convene
a public meeting for it. The meeting was eventually called by Tan Kah-kee
and sixteen other Chinese school presidents or representatives from both
Singapore and Malaya on 15 June 1918, to discuss such matters as fund-
raising, name and location of the proposed school. At the meeting at the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, some fifty-five Chinese rep-
resentatives attended with Tan Kah-kee elected as provisional chairman.
He made a rousing and emotional speech, appealing to the Chinese to
promote education for their children and castigating the traditional
Chinese concept and practice of leaving family or personal fortunes to
descendants. From this eloquent speech has come one of his quotable
quotes: ‘Wealth would impair the ambition of the wise and increase the
follies of the foolish; our children can make their own fortunes, there is no
need to be their slaves.’17 In the same speech, Tan Kah-kee enunciated the
objectives of founding a secondary school as a strategy for modernizing
China and also for preserving Chinese cultural essence and spirit.18 The
meeting fully endorsed the proposal to set up a Chinese high school in
Singapore and elected Tan Kah-kee as provisional president, with Lim
Nee-soon as provisional vice-president of the proposed school. Meanwhile,
under Tan and Lim, two five-man committees were set up to raise funds
and to purchase a site for the school. Tan Kah-kee donated $30,000l9 out
of a total subscription of $675,262.20 However, due to the economic
depression which began in 1920, only $574,700 was actually collected
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from promised subscribers,21 Tan Kah-kee went on to become the presi-

dent of the Chinese High School for intermittent periods for many years
until 1934 when his son-in-law, Lee Kong-chian, was elected to replace
him. During the years between 1919 and 1934, the Chinese High School
survived some stormy episodes of student unrest, periodic closure by the
British authorities, financial crises, and occasional leadership clashes, to
provide a generation of Chinese primary school graduates with an oppor-
tunity for higher education. By 1918, Tan Kah-kee had become a public
figure and a respected community leader, transcending the pang, clan and
family boundaries by virtue of his community actions and leadership for
the establishment of the Chinese High School.
In the 1930s Tan Kah-kee campaigned for the establishment of a Nanyang
Chinese Normal School which aimed at training qualified teachers for
Chinese schools in both Singapore and Malaya. His campaign for fund-
raising was vigorous and successful, with a total sum of $360,00022 being
collected. In December 1941, the Nanyang Chinese Normal College was
established. After the war in 1947, this School was turned into a girls sec-
ondary school, the Nan Ch’iao Girls High School. He was again instrumen-
tal in bringing about this transformation.
His involvement in the promotion of English education in Singapore
was substantial and impressive. Evidence of this was his commitment to
donate a sum of $100,000 to the proposed Anglo-Chinese College in
1919. The college was the brainchild of the Rev. J. S. Nagle, who was
principal of the Anglo-Chinese School from 1914 to 1922. However,
when the plan was aborted due to opposition from the British authorities,
Tan Kah-kee agreed to his subscription of $30,000 being transferred to the
Anglo-Chinese School as a donation to its physics and chemistry funds.
As a sign of gratitude for his generosity, the school adopted his name for
one of the five sporting houses, into which the scheme was divided for its
sports activities.23
Although Nagle’s scheme for founding a college in Singapore was
shelved, the concept continued to simmer during the 1920s, finally lead-
ing to the establishment of the Raffles College in 1929. Tan Kah-kee not
only approved the development of higher education in English, but
donated $10,000 for the founding of the Raffles College, later to be named
the University of Malaya in 1949, and University of Singapore in 1961.
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90 TAN KAH-KEE
His name and donation were inscribed in a plaque, located at Oei Tiong-
ham Building, now the Institute of Education, at Bukit Timah Road.
While Tan Kah-kee was concerned about the educational well-being of
the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya, he often cast his rest-
less mind to educational development in China generally, and in Fukien
particularly. He was convinced that educational promotion in his home
village and district was the first step towards modernizing China, and was
committed to its development and expansion whenever his personal finan-
cial resources permitted. According to his own account, Tan Kah-kee had
made his mind up soon after the fall of the Manchu regime in 1911 that
he was to utilize his fortunes for educational endeavours in Fukien.24 What
prompted him to take action to found a Chi Mei primary school in 1913
was his personal experience during his tours of various villages in 1912.
In these tours he observed that many young children were naked, without
schooling, and indulged in gambling. When asked the reasons for the idle-
ness of the village children, the villagers told him that the traditional pri-
vate schools had been closed, and there were no financial resources for
founding new ones. It dawned on him that ‘if this situation is not changed,
in ten or more years time, will not all these villagers become barbaric?’25
Founding a village school was not all plain sailing, for he had to practise
a great deal of persuasion among village elders from his own clan to allow
him to use the ancestral temple as temporary school premises for teaching
purposes. The Tan clan in Chi Mei was then divided into seven lineages
with each running an ill-maintained traditional private school. Each of
these private schools had fewer than twenty students, as girls were not
allowed education. By establishing a primary school in Chi Mei for all
children of the Tan clan, and by financing it with his own resources, Tan
Kah-kee finally persuaded the village elders to allow the Chi Mei primary
school to be established. When the school was finally opened in February
1913, there were 150–160 students enrolled, divided into five different
levels, to be taught by seven teachers.26 The move to establish this primary
school at Chi Mei may well have been a modest effort by Tan Kah-kee in
terms of financial contribution. However, it represented a substantial
achievement in educational promotion in T’ung An district. For in 1913
there existed a district-run primary school and four other modern private
schools, with over 400 students enrolled from a population of over
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200,000 people in the whole T’ung An district. The enrolment figure of

150 students for the Chi Mei School represented 25 percent of the total
enrolment of primary school students in the district.27 While Tan Kah-
kee’s pioneering endeavour had the effect of inducing his fellow country-
men from other districts to follow his example, his modest effort in 1913
was soon to commit him to provide secondary, tertiary, professional and
vocational education in Chi Mei and Amoy, making them a cultural, edu-
cational and intellectual centre in South China.
While still in Chi Mei in 1913, Tan Kah-kee took the trouble to inves-
tigate the state of education in Fukien. He inspected the T’ung An District
Primary School and found it ‘corrupt’ in that the district head had the sole
right to appoint the school’s headmaster, who, in turn, was responsible for
enrolling students. Whenever a new district head was installed, there fol-
lowed a new headmaster and a new batch of students. This system was so
damaging that there had been no graduates since its inception at the turn
of the century.28 He visited the Foochow Normal School in northern
Fukien, the one and only teachers’ training college for the province, and
found it just as ‘corrupt’.29 He discovered that this college only enrolled
eighty students each year for two classes, and many of these never went
through open and competitive entrance examinations as they were the
sons of government officials, college teachers, rich merchants and rural
gentry. While he was disappointed with the uneven standards of the
entrants, he was even more appalled by the lack of enthusiasm and convic-
tion in taking up teaching as a career among its graduates. His findings
were like the writing on the wall: there would be a serious shortage of
primary school teachers for years to come. His educational tours during
1913 convinced him that he had a role to play to ‘salvage the degeneration
of education in Fukien province’30 by founding and financing a normal
school for teachers training with poor but talented sons from Southern
Fukien as its students.
His burning desire to promote education in his home province took a
bolder stride in 1916 when he was well on the way to becoming a multi-
millionaire. He sent his brother, Tan Keng-hean, back to Chi Mei to found
a secondary school and a normal school. His brother was empowered to
embark on school-building programmes and to recruit teaching staff for
them. Although Tan Keng-hean merely carried out what his brother had
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92 TAN KAH-KEE
planned for the two institutions, he should be credited with the smooth
and successful operation in getting them off the ground. In fact, he did
more than that. Apart from building programmes and the appointment of
teaching staff, he was also laboured with the daunting task of recruiting
needy but talented students from among over thirty districts in southern
Fukien. By March 1918, both the schools were officially opened, with
over 120 students being enrolled for teachers training courses. In order to
reduce the financial burden of students and their parents, Tan Kah-kee
provided the teacher-trainees with free education, accommodation and
food, while students attending the secondary school needed only to pay
for their food. The cost of building and financing these two institutions
came to $300,000 during 1917 and 1918.31
After the establishment of these two schools, problems came thick and
fast from the expected quarter, namely, staff. Both Tan Kah-kee and Tan
Keng-hean had problems recruiting locally all the teachers required.
Unfortunately they also appointed mediocre headmasters for the Chi Mei
Schools. As a result the first three headmasters either left of their own accord
or were relieved within a two-year period between 1918 and 1919. It was
not until 1920 when Tan Kah-kee, then in Chi Mei, appointed Yeh Yüan
(1891–1955), a graduate in economics from the Peking National University
and a native of Fukien, as the headmaster, that stability was restored and
progress achieved. After Yeh Yüan’s appointment, Tan Kah-kee decided that
he would refrain from intervening in the administrative and educational
matters of the schools. Despite mounting student unrest between 1920 and
1928 and numerous student demands to remove Yeh Yüan as headmaster
because of his intolerance towards student political activities, Tan Kah-kee
persevered with him through thick and thin right to the end. On one occa-
sion Tan Kah-kee received a cable from student agitators demanding the
sacking of Yeh Yüan. He cabled back, saying ‘It is easy to gather ten thou-
sand troops, but it is not so easy to recruit a commander’.32
Although intoxicated with educational endeavours in China and in
Singapore, Tan Kah-kee’s restive mind never stopped thinking about prac-
tical learning and applied science. As early as 1917 in Singapore Tan Kah-
kee had formulated the idea of founding a marine navigation school in Chi
Mei. The concept was crystallized partly because he had benefited finan-
cially from his shipping line during the war, and partly due to his belief
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
that China’s vast coastlines and water could be more fully exploited for
fishing, shipping and navigation.33 He started by writing to a marine
school in Shanghai, enquiring into the availability of staff for recruitment.
The reply revealed that there were two excellent graduates who would,
however, need sponsors to send them to Japan for further studies. Tan
Kah-kee agreed to sponsor them on condition that they returned to Chi
Mei to help establish his marine and navigation school. Thus, upon their
graduation in Japan in 1919 they arrived at Chi Mei in 1920 to found a
marine school for him. Tan Kah-kee bought all the equipment and
machines from Germany to be installed into a fishing boat for training and
practice purposes. In 1923 he bought from France a mechanized trawler
for the school, partly for navigation practice and partly for solving the
employment problem of its graduates. In 1925 this marine school was
transformed into a marine and navigation school, thus fulfilling his origi-
nal objective of training students for fishery and shipping navigation. The
achievement in this area was at best moderate as the school could only
manage to turn out some twenty graduates per year.
In the same year as the marine school was founded, Tan Kah-kee estab-
lished a girls’ normal school, a kindergarten teachers’ training school, and
a school for commerce. His rationale for educational expansion was that
it was better to have more schools than less. Because of this he was pre-
pared to sacrifice quality for quantity at this stage.
In 1923, he wrote from Singapore to Yeh Yüan, urging him to select a
suitable site at T’ien-ma mountain in T’ung An district for founding an
agricultural department to be attached to the Chi Mei Schools. This
department was eventually established in June 1926, at a cost of over
$100,000.34 The experiments to develop the potential of this school met
with failure and it was eventually closed down in 1947 due to insufficient
equipment, staff resources and unemployment of graduates.35
In March 1927 all the educational institutions in Chi Mei were stream-
lined with the name ‘school’ being tagged behind each of them. Thus, in
Chi Mei, Tan Kah-kee established and financed a group of educational
institutions which included a boys’ primary school, a girls’ primary school,
a men’s normal school, a boys’ secondary school, a marine and navigation
school, a commercial school, a girls’ secondary school (formerly a girls’
normal school), an agricultural school, a kindergarten teachers’ training
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94 TAN KAH-KEE
school and a specialist school for Chinese learning (soon to be incorpo-

rated into Amoy University), ten schools all told. They catered for students
primarily from Fukien and Kwangtung and, to a lesser degree, from South-
East Asia. As all these primary, secondary, and vocational schools were
centrally controlled by the Chi Mei Schools Board, they were generally
known as the Chi Mei Schools.
Besides this, Tan Kah-kee founded a kindergarten, a hospital, a library,
a science museum and an educational promotion board in Chi Mei. The
Educational Promotion Board, which operated from 1924 to 1932, was
instrumental in establishing and subsidizing some seventy primary and
secondary schools in southern Fukien.36
The Chi Mei Schools had gone a long way from their modest beginning
in 1913. By 1923 the schools had a teaching staff of some 170, with a
student population close to 2,000.37 Out of these students, 1,400 lived in
dormitories without any charge for accommodation. The student popula-
tion steadily increased, and by 1932, it had reached 2,700.38 During the
Chinese Civil War (1946–9), many of the school buildings were either
damaged or destroyed. The student population in Chi Mei hovered around
1,600 in 1947.39
Although Tan Kah-kee was more inclined towards quantity in educa-
tion, he was certainly not unconcerned about its quality. He was emphatic
about the virtue of recruiting the best staff and students available for his
schools. Moreover, he was equally conscious of creating a favourable
working and learning environment for staff and students by upgrading
various sporting amenities and facilities. Last but not least, he was always
preoccupied with the provision of moral education in his schools. Apart
from the two-school mottoes he personally laid down: ch’eng (sincerity),
and i (perseverance), he hoped that his schools would mould the character
of a generation of students who would be disciplined, frugal and patri-
otic.40 He was against student unrest and strike actions in the name of
‘freedom’ and ‘patriotism’, castigating them for being disrespectful of
teachers. He argued that if students did not respect their teachers and
moral standards, it was not possible for them to be respectful to their fami-
lies and patriotic to their country.41 Because of his deep-seated belief in
such Confucian virtues as discipline and respect for teachers, he never
bowed to student pressure to remove Yeh Yüan and other teachers from the
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staff of his Chi Mei Schools during the 1920s. Instead, he instructed
politically-active student strikers to leave the schools when they pleased.42
In Singapore his attitudes toward student unrest were the same. He con-
demned the politically-oriented and communist-controlled student union
of the Chinese High School for committing such sins as non-recognition
of the Republic of China at Nanking, humiliating teachers and school
patrons, making unacceptable demands, inciting students from other
schools to establish their own student unions, and creating student unrest.
He dared students to organize more student unions at the cost of being
expelled from the Chinese High School.43 His harsh criticism of students’
political actions was uncompromising. It was largely conditioned by his
own view that secondary school students should concentrate on studies
and not become involved in politics and partly prompted by the fact that
the British authorities would not hesitate to close down the Chinese
High School because of student unrest. As president of the Chinese High
School between 1930 and 1934, he made doubly sure that closure of the
school would not occur.
Being a practical and rational man, Tan Kah-kee first and foremost
confined his educational development to Chi Mei. When opportunities
were present he then cast his lines further to include his home district,
Tung An. This began in January 1920 when he wrote a lengthy letter from
Chi Mei to his fellow Tung An men in Singapore, proposing the establish-
ment of a T’ung An Education Association to raise funds overseas for
subsidizing schools in T’ung An district in such key areas as school fees,
repairing school premises and recruitment of teaching staff.44 In the letter,
he revealed that he and his brother, Tan Keng-hean, would lead the way
by donating $10,000 for both, plus $5,000 as an annual subscription to the
association. The T’ung An businessmen in Singapore responded well by
organizing a management committee with office-bearers and by donating
a sum of over $100,000 by June 1920.45 However, because of the severe
economic recession between 1920 and 1922, the committee was only able
to collect $35,442 from committed donors. By 1922 this sum of money
had been used to subsidize the founding of over forty schools in T’ung An
district.46 As contributions dried up in Singapore, the role of promoting
education in the district and in southern Fukien was taken over by the
Education Promotion Board of the Chi Mei Schools in 1924. And between
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96 TAN KAH-KEE
1924 and 1932 the board allocated some $170,000 to subsidizing over
seventy schools in Fukien.47 The board was dissolved in 1932 when Tan
Kah-kee’s financial resources in South-East Asia were dwindling fast at
the height of the Great Depression.
Tan Kah-kee’s educational endeavours in Chi Mei and Tung An earned
him a name as an educational promoter in Fukien and overseas. However,
his founding of Amoy University in 1921 brought him fame in China and
in South-East Asia. While the impact of the founding of Amoy University
remains to be analysed, the legend of founding it not only guaranteed him
status as a pang leader in Singapore and elsewhere, but consolidated his
position as a community leader.
The founding of Amoy University did not come suddenly. It had been
simmering in his mind for some years. He consulted Dr Lim Boon-keng
on it and received much encouragement from him.48 However, some of his
other friends ridiculed his idea of founding a university. In 1918, when a
council was formed by the Reverend J. S. Nagle for the founding of an
Anglo-Chinese College in Singapore, Tan Kah-kee was appointed as one
of the councillors for fund-raising.49 His intention to found a university in
Fukien was finally and publicly aired on the eve of his departure for
China in May 1919. In July 1919, as the founder of the Chi Mei Schools,
Tan Kah-kee launched a vigorous campaign for the founding of Amoy
University, after having surveyed a suitable site at an old military drilling
ground of Cheng Ch’eng-kung in Amoy, some five miles from the city.
Only two years later, on 6 April 1921, Amoy University was officially
opened with an initial intake of 120 students, nearly half of these being
from South-East Asia.
It was a combination of factors and circumstances which prompted Tan
Kah-kee to embark on this daunting task. At the back of his mind, the most
important drive for founding a university was ‘patriotism’.50 By ‘patriot-
ism’ was meant his intention to promote the educational well-being of
China generally, and to produce specialists in all fields of activity for mod-
ernizing China. He was well aware that China as a nation was under foreign
threat with her doors swung wide open for foreign penetration. According
to Tan Kah-kee, ‘if we do nothing and forfeit our responsibilities, the end
results would be unthinkable’.51 In his view, the modern world was com-
petitive, it was a matter of ‘the survival of the fittest’ which counted, and in
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order to survive as a nation in a competitive world, one of the first and

foremost tasks was to promote education and enterprise.52 Who then would
be better equipped to build a nation, to wipe out the relics of political dic-
tatorship and to promote education and enterprise than university graduates
and specialists, armed with modern scientific, technical and specialist
knowledge?53 His glowing perception of the role of graduates in the trans-
formation of China was further revealed in a letter to the headmaster of the
Chi Mei Schools in 1923. In that letter, he emphasized the importance of
universities in bringing about an orderly China. His own role in this was to
utilize his financial resources to maintain the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy
University, to educate several thousand undergraduates and to turn out sev-
eral hundred graduates annually. He believed that ‘ten years hence, with
five to seven thousand graduateṡ scattered in various institutions and
organizations, there is hope of attaining an orderly China’.54
No doubt altruism played a major part in his drive for education promo-
tion. There were, however, some practical considerations which were of
substantial importance and should be mentioned here. These concerned pay-
ment of death duties. As Tan Kah-kee himself was aware, under Straits
Settlements law, children of the deceased did not have the sole right of inher-
iting the properties and assets of their deceased parents. In other words, the
benefactors would have to pay considerable death duties. On the other hand,
the property and assets of the deceased would be exempted from death duties
if they were willed to education, charity and community welfare pro-
grammes. Tan Kah-kee made this point clear in his speech on 13 July 1919,
at a public rally for founding Amoy University in Amoy.55 More than that,
Tan Kah-kee announced at that historic meeting that he had already willed all
his properties as an educational foundation for the Chi Mei Schools. These
included shop premises and warehouses, vacant land of 300,000 sq. ft., and
7,000 acres of rubber estates. Profits derived from the above would be uti-
lized to maintain both the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University.56
His arguments for a university in Fukien were persuasive. For a start,
he reminded everyone that Fukien, with a population of 30 million, did not
have a university, while her neighbours, Kwangtung, Chekiang and
Kiangsu, had many public and private tertiary institutions and medical
schools.57 There existed in China over ten universities, half of which were
run by foreigners. While these foreign-financed universities provided
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98 TAN KAH-KEE
courses on theology, literature and medicine for students, they ignored

such disciplines as agriculture, engineering and commerce. He would like
to see Amoy University provide these important faculties which were
totally absent from foreign universities in China.58 Moreover, education in
Europe and the United States of America flourished due largely to the
support of private benefactors.59 Thus, it was quite proper for individuals
in China to found a private university. Finally, Tan Kah-kee hoped to set
an example for his numerous rich fellow-Overseas Chinese to promote
education in South-East Asia and in China, instead of squandering their
wealth on wasteful entertainment and weddings.60
However, it was his idea to solve a perennial problem closer to home —
staffing — which finally tipped the scale for the establishment of Amoy
University. As well-qualified teachers for secondary schools were hard to
come by, it was logical that Amoy University would perform a crucial role
in producing graduates for manning teaching posts in Chi Mei and else-
where.61 Conversely, the founding of Amoy University would provide an
outlet for graduates from his Chi Mei Schools and those in Fukien and
overseas. It was a stone to kill two birds.
Thus, on 13 July 1919, at a public rally at Amoy, attended by some 300
guests, Tan Kah-kee made a rousing speech, expounding the need to
establish a university in Amoy, and proposing to donate $1 million as a
start for its foundation. Besides this, Tan Kah-kee announced that he was
to set aside a sum of $3 million for the maintenance of the university, to
be paid annually in twelve instalments, that is, $250,000 per year for
twelve years.62 He believed then that after the foundation of the university,
funds from wealthy Chinese in South-East Asia would flow in to assist in
its growth and development. He was to learn a bitter lesson from this
somewhat naïve and optimistic belief.
In order to expedite the process of bringing the university into being, Tan
Kah-kee decided to appoint a vice-chancellor at the earliest possible
moment. In 1920, Wang Ching-wei, then visiting his friend Ch’en Ch’iung-
ming in Changchou, Fukien, was invited by Tan Kah-kee to inspect his Chi
Mei Schools. Tan Kah-kee was sufficiently impressed with Wang’s ability
that he decided to appoint him as vice-chancellor. Although Wang accepted
the offer he was soon to change his mind because of his heavy political
commitments to the Kuomintang in Canton. This plan having fallen
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through, Tan Kah-kee decided to be more prudent by inviting ten promi-

nent Chinese educators and academics to sit on a planning committee to
sort out academic matters and to recruit staff. Members invited included
Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, vice-chancellor of the National Peking University, Huang
Yen-p’ei, an educationist in Kiangsu, Yeh Yüan, headmaster of the Chi Mei
schools, Wang Ching-wei, the high-ranking Kuomintang leader, Lee Teng-
hui, vice-chancellor of Chinan University, Nanking, Teng Ts’ui-ying, an
official at the Ministry of Education in Peking, and four others. In October
1920, Tan Kah-kee met with them in Shanghai for a conference where Teng
Ts’ui-ying was recommended for appointment as vice-chancellor of the
new university. Teng accepted the appointment but remained in Peking
until soon after the official opening of the university on 6 April 1921, much
to the displeasure of Tan Kah-kee. However, what enraged Tan Kah-kee
even more was Teng’s absence from campus soon after the commencement
of the academic term, leaving the administration of the university to the
trust of his two colleagues. It was later discovered that Teng Ts’ui-ying had
not even resigned from the Ministry of Education. Tan Kah-kee’s relation-
ship with the new vice-chancellor reached breaking point when the latter
demanded that Tan Kah-kee hand over the promised $4 million to the
University Council for building projects and for speculation in agricultural
land in Manchuria. Tan Kah-kee rejected this ‘adventurist’ idea outright,
and Teng Ts’ui-ying tendered his resignation only a month after the official
commencement of the academic term.63 Weeks before Teng’s resignation
students on campus had been agitating against him, and demanding his
resignation on the grounds that he was never seen in the university. Tan
Kah-kee was sympathetic to student actions and grievances on this occa-
sion and was the first to sign a petition demanding Teng’s resignation. He
sympathized with the students nicknaming Teng Kua-min hsiao-tsang
(absentee vice-chancellor). This ended one of several unhappy episodes for
Tan Kah-kee in the course of his long association with the university.
With Teng’s departure, Tan Kah-kee cabled his friend in Singapore,
Dr Lim Boon-keng, urging him to take over the position as vice-chancel-
lor. Dr Lim’s response was lightning fast and favourable. He arrived in
June 1921 to begin his new career as the vice-chancellor and continued
until 1937 when the Nanking government took it over and ran it as one of
the state universities of China.
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100 TAN KAH-KEE
Dr Lim Boon-keng was a man of great personality and integrity, a man

of many talents and achievements and a man for all seasons. For many
years he had featured prominently in many areas in both China and
Singapore. He was one of the first Queen’s Scholars, a medical practi-
tioner, a profound speaker and debater, a founder of the Straits
Chinese British Association (1900) and the Singapore Chinese Chamber
of Commerce (1906), a Tung Meng Hui and Kuomintang leader in
Singapore, a personal friend of Dr Sun Yat-sen, a community leader, an
active anti-opium campaigner, a Confucian scholar and philosopher, a
banker and rubber industry promoter, a legislative councillor, whose
advice was often sought and highly appreciated by succeeding colonial
governors from Sir John Anderson to Sir Laurence Guillemard, and now
an academic and the vice-chancellor of Amoy University. His resourceful
and fruitful career earned him the award of an OBE (fourth class) by Sir
Arthur Young in 1918, for his ‘good work on behalf of war charities’,64
and in 1919 the University of Hong Kong recognized his scholastic and
leadership qualities by conferring on him an honorary Doctor of Law
degree. Dr Lim Boon-keng had many admirers, among them Sir Laurence
Guillemard and Tan Kah-kee. While Sir Laurence recognized the keen-
ness of his intellect, the soundness of his judgement, and his zeal in the
service of the government,65 Tan Kah-kee heaped even higher praise on
him, naming him the most outstanding person among millions of the
Overseas Chinese, ‘who was well versed in Western materialistic sciences
and Chinese cultural spirit’.66 In addition, Tan Kah-kee lauded him for his
spirit of fraternity and self-sacrifice in taking on the job as vice-chancellor
at the cost of sacrificing his own material comfort, either winding up his
lucrative medical practice and numerous enterprises or entrusting them to
his friends and relatives in Singapore.67 At Amoy University, Dr Lim
Boon-keng was able to establish a medical school and a hospital to train
students to care for the Chinese masses. For Dr Lim Boon-keng his new
assignment at Amoy might mean a new personal challenge. Lim’s public-
spiritedness and stern moral fibre in taking on the task earned Tan Kah-
kee’s lifelong respect and affection. These two were to work together
through thick and thin to make the university successful and vibrant, and
to develop its potential in the challenging era of revolutionary change in
China.
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In getting the university off the ground and stabilizing its growth, both
Dr Lim Boon-keng and Tan Kah-kee were confronted with numerous
problems of a financial and political nature. For Tan Kah-kee the major
concern was essentially the supply of financial resources, averaging
between $250,000 and $500,000 per year. In order to put the university on
a proper financial basis, he worked strenuously, making money in
Singapore and Malaya from his own commercial and industrial enter-
prises. In addition, he attempted on numerous occasions to solicit funds for
Amoy University from among some of the wealthiest Overseas Chinese in
Singapore, Malaya and Indonesia. Sadly, on each occasion he failed rather
miserably.68 After these failures Dr Lim Boon-keng was to make three
overseas trips to these three countries between 1926 and 1935 to drum up
financial donations from among the Chinese in these areas. Each time
promises were made by the donors but they were not always kept.
However, his 1927 fund-raising trip collected a sum of over $200,000,
while his 1935 trip netted over $300,000.69
Apart from the problem of funding, neither Dr Lim Boon-keng nor Tan
Kah-kee ever quite came to grips with student unrest at their university. For
a start, neither belonged to the generation of May Fourth which demanded
more radical change in Chinese society. Many of the students in Amoy
University were influenced by the writings of Dr Hu Shih (1891–1962),
Ch’en Tu-hsiu (1879–1942), Li Ta-chao (1888–1927) and Lu Hsün (1881–
1936), who attacked Confucianism and advocated democracy, science and
even revolution for solving China’s socio-political problems, In addition,
they all encouraged the use of the vernacular as against wen-yen, classical
Chinese writing style. In this context it was little wonder that students
generally were not at home with Dr Lim Boon-keng’s political and educa-
tional philosophy. The thrust of Dr Lim Boon-keng’s educational philoso-
phy was to mould the character of students through the teaching of
Confucian ethics. He wanted to turn out graduates who were what
Confucius would regard as ‘gentlemen’. Based on his conviction of the
importance of moral training, Dr Lim Boon-keng personally drew up a
curriculum including such courses of study as comparative religion, phi-
losophy, sociology, literature, sciences and politics for his students.70 More
than that, Dr Lim Boon-keng tried to produce a generation of graduates
who were morally sound (that is, gentlemen), linguistically competent
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102 TAN KAH-KEE
(English as a second language), and technically and professionally liter-

ate.71 His moral teachings were overtly or latently resisted by students, who
were ever politically and ideologically-oriented. One of his ablest gradu-
ates from Amoy University, Tan Yeok-seong, was critical of his obsession
with Confucianism and his anachronism as a scholar in the age of change.
Tan Yeok-seong lamented the fact that Lim was behind the times, and was
inevitably swept away by the tidal waves of historical forces for change.72
Both Dr Lim Boon-keng and Tan Kah-kee were well aware of dishar-
mony and cliquishness among the staff as one major factor in student
unrest. The socio-educational backgrounds of the teaching staff were
varied; many of them were graduates from different traditions and institu-
tions in Japan, Europe and the United States. Tan Kah-kee in 1924 blamed
a minority of the academic staff for inciting students to strike and asked
them to leave his university.73 The dissension among the staff was also
caused by unequal distribution of funding among rival departments, and a
lack of funding in some cases.74
Incidentally, both Tan Kah-kee and his brother, Tan Keng-hean, then
recuperating at home, saw the virtue of moral education. In the aftermath
of student unrest in Chi Mei in 1922, Tan Keng-hean corresponded fre-
quently with his brother in Singapore concerning the state of education in
Chi Mei and Amoy. Tan Keng-hean, tagged as erh-hsiao-chu (Second
Founder), was keen on promoting the idea and practice of T’iao-ho-fa
(Harmonizing System) among students and staff in both the Chi Mei
Schools and Amoy University as part of moral education. Tan Keng-hean
learned it from a Mr Ito from Tokyo, a Japanese founder of the system,
who looked after his health during 1923 when Tan Keng-hean was recu-
perating there. Put simply, T’iao-ho-fa was a system of deep-breathing
and mental relaxation, a technique which, if acquired, would purify the
mind and heart and improve individual health, will and self-control. With
a pure heart, cool mind, and a strong will against worldly inducements and
corruption, there would not be any staff discontent and student upheaval.75
While moral teachings were imparted to students, this was one of the
techniques to help bring about a moral education. Although Tan Kah-kee
did not object to his brother’s obsessions with this system, he does not
seem to have taken positive steps to incorporate it into the curriculum.
Without firmer support from his brother, Tan Keng-hean was destined to
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play second fiddle in the intellectual and educational development in Chi

Mei and Amoy to Yeh Yüan and Dr Lim Boon-keng.
Being the ‘Second Founder’, Tan Keng-hean helped assiduously to
manage both educational institutions. His managerial responsibilities were
great, onerous and strenuous, having to deal with the volatile Yeh Yüan,
student unrest and occasional local military interference with the Chi Mei
Schools. As a result his health deteriorated. Having suffered from various
complaints, including tuberculosis, ulcer, insomnia, hypertension, haemor-
rhoids, and appendicitis, in early 1926 Tan Keng-hean was back to Tokyo,
under Ito’s care again. He made some improvement during the year at a
cost of $4,000 per month. While Tan Keng-hean was fighting for physical
survival, Tan Kah-kee in Singapore was desperate for economic survival.
In December 1926 Tan Kah-kee’s financial conditions were so desperate
that he sent a cable to his Amoy branch, advising it not to remit more than
$1,000 per month to his brother. In addition, the ‘urgent’ cable instructed
his brother to return to Chi Mei.76 Tan Keng-hean virtually pleaded with his
brother not to cut off the financial supply, arguing that his health was of
paramount importance to his social and educational work.77 It was not until
Tan Keng-hean had tearfully protested and threatened to unload his duties
as erh-hsiao-chu and to retire from public life altogether that Tan Kah-kee
relented.78 Tan Keng-hean finally returned in January 1927 from Japan to
Shanghai and Hanchow for recuperation. It is worth noting that he died in
1936 in Hanchow as a Buddhist monk, leaving behind a widow, two sons
and a daughter. One of his sons, Tan Keong-choon, played a prominent part
in the affairs of Singapore’s Chinese community as president of the
Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1984.
Despite sporadic student unrest and financial pressures Amoy University
did not fare too badly by all accounts during the ‘reign’ of Dr Lim Boon-
keng. In terms of bricks and mortar there was an impressive record of over
forty buildings being completed, and over 3,000 rooms used on campus.
These buildings included all the usual amenities pertaining to a university,
namely student dormitories, gymnasium, a sports ground for track and
field events, a science laboratory, a library, and buildings for a medical
school, an engineering school, an arts faculty, physics, law, commerce and
education faculties, zoological and biological museums, and a meteoro-
logical observatory, The university library, starting with a modest
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104 TAN KAH-KEE
collection of 200 books, had by 1930 acquired a collection of close to

150,000 volumes.79
Apart from a medical and an engineering school, Amoy University had
five faculties in 1930: Arts, Physics, Law, Commerce and Education.
These faculties had under their respective jurisdiction some seventeen
departments, including Chinese literature, Western literature, philosophy,
history, sociology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoology, biology,
politics, economics, law, education, banking, accountancy and industrial
and commercial management.80 However, due largely to financial pres-
sure, Amoy University was reorganized in 1936 with the amalgamation of
departments and faculties. Then there were only three faculties, Arts,
Physics and Law and Commerce, with Education being incorporated into
the Arts Faculty, and only nine departments, a far cry from the heyday in
1930 when seventeen departments were operating.
Student intake each year fluctuated between 300 and 600, until 1937. It
is surprising that only some 571 students had actually graduated from
Amoy University by 1937.81 Amoy University made further progress after
1949. In 1961 it had 3,460 students, of which 312 were from South-East
Asia. In that year it employed 752 academic staff, compared to some 60
in 1924 and 80 in 1930.82
Liberal at heart, Dr Lim Boon-keng recruited his staff according to
their qualifications and academic standing, regardless of their political or
ideological leanings. It is to his credit that he was able to attract to the
university such literary personalities and academics as Lu Hsun, Lin
Yutang, and Ku Chieh-kang, Cheng Te-k’un and a host of others.83
Bearing in mind that Amoy University was often plagued by financial
problems, student unrest and warlord intervention in Fukien, its survival
and slow but sure growth were in themselves achievements.
It would be unfair to expect Tan Kah-kee to have done any more, as he
had invested some $8 million in his educational institutions in Fukien, out
of which $4.4 million was spent on Amoy University.84 He could have
accepted the frequent advice to close down the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy
University but chose not to heed it on the grounds that it would be far too
damaging to society in China.85 He was philosophical about his own fate
by continuing to support his educational institutions, saying that ‘if my
own business enterprises collapse because of financial commitments to
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the educational institutions, then it is my own personal fortune or misfor-

tune and has nothing to do with society’.86 In the wake of the closing down
of his business empire in 1934 it was thus not surprising that Tan Kah-kee
earned himself a tag chin-chia hsing-hsüeh (emptying family tills for
education).
His perennial commitments to the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy
University aside, Tan Kah-kee also generously donated funds for the
establishment and maintenance of schools in China and in Singapore
throughout the period under study. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 show the extent of
his educational undertakings.
While Chinese society in both Singapore and Fukien expected its able
and wealthy to shoulder and fulfil their social responsibilities in educa-
tional promotion, it also looked to them for charitable works and contribu-
tions. Tan Kah-kee was not only charitable in temperament and disposition
but was also practically and extensively involved in charitable works. His
contributions to charity were in two major areas: donations and provision
of leadership. He never sat on the fence when opportunities arose for
action or when he was in a position to render assistance. By being so
active, Tan Kah-kee was merely carrying on the fine tradition of the
Chinese in Singapore and Malaya in the nineteenth century of community
self-help in times of stress and need. Whereas prior to 1915 the Singapore
TABLE 4.1
Donations to Schools in China
Year Name of school Donations $ (Straits)
1917 Lin Nan School, Canton 10,000
Kiangsu Vocational School, Kiangsu 10,000
1926 Anglo-Chinese School, Changchou 3,000
Commercial School, Quemoy Island 500
1919 Fukien Commercial School, Amoy 3,000
1923 Linan University, Canton 10,000
Pun Shih Middle School, Swatow 500
1926 Ch’uanchou P’ei-yuan High School 3,000
Sources: Kuo Min Yit Poh, 14.7.1917; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 8; NYSP, 24.7.1926;
NYSP, 4.3.1926; KMYP, 11.3.1919; Sin Kuo Min Press, 25.6.1923; NYSP, 30.12.1926.
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106 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 4.2
Donations to Schools in Singapore, 1907–1941
Name of school Donations $ (Straits) Year
Tao Nan School 1,000 1907
2,000 1911
10,000 1911–1929
(a yearly subscription of 600)
Chung Wan Girls School 500 1928
Ai Tong School 10,000 1923
5,000 1925
(for Ai Tong and three other schools)
3,000 1919
1,000 1918
Nanyang Kong Shang School 1,000 1927
1,000 1929
The Chinese High School 30,000 1918
8,000 1926
9,000 1927
100,000 1923–1927
(one source mentions this figure)
10,000 1923
9,000 1919–1934
(a yearly subscription, of 600)
Anglo-Chinese School 30,000 1919
Raffles College 10,000 1929
Ch’i Fa School 500 1922
Pulau Tekong Ai Hua School 2,400 1922–1929
(a yearly subscription of 300)
Yang Cheng School 500 1923
Kwang Yang School 250 1922
Chung Nan School 1,000 1925
Nanyang Normal College 10,000 1941
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Tong Chai Medical Institution had been the principal body for organizing
and centralizing fund-raising campaigns for charity,87 the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, the
Ee Ho Hean Club, and the Hoi Thin Club, together with a host of Chinese
social and territorial associations, came to share the leadership and
responsibilities for charitable works in the post-1915 era.
Between 1915 and 1941 Tan Kah-kee personally led five major fund-
raising campaigns for charity on behalf of various community organizations,
which fully tested his leadership qualities and forceful leadership style.
His first major involvement in fund-raising campaigns for charity took
place in 1917 when he was popularly elected chairman for the Tientsin
Flood Relief Fund of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce. This
was an extensive campaign involving all sectors of the Chinese commu-
nity in Singapore. The campaign took various forms for fund-raising,
including drama troupe performances, variety shows, Teochew operas,
sporting events, and sales of goods. An incomplete figure for the three-
month campaign was $57,000,88 although Tan Kah-kee personally claimed
to have collected $200,000.89 This was hailed as a major breakthrough for
fund-raising because it was a community effort, rather than a pang or
sectarian effort, as had been the case previously.90
In 1918 Tan Kah-kee was elected treasurer of the Kwangtung Flood
Relief Fund under the auspices of the Tong Chai Medical Institution. This
campaign lasted seven months and netted a sum of $48,000 for the relief
of victims in various parts of Kwangtung province.91 The chairman of this
fund was his close friend, Lim Nee-soon, a wealthy Teochew rubber and
pineapple planter and estate owner, and the vice-chairman was Ng Sing-
phang, a Cantonese with an immense feeling for humanity and social
responsibility. Although it was a time-consuming job for Tan Kah-kee, he
was actually playing second fiddle in the campaign to Lim Nee-soon and
Ng Sing-phang on this occasion.
A third major fund-raising campaign for the relief of flood victims in
both Fukien and Kwangtung took place in 1924 when again Tan Kah-kee
was elected chairman. This Fukien and Kwangtung Flood Relief Fund
was under the auspices of the Hoi Thin Club, an exclusively Cantonese
social and dramatic club, founded in 1917. It was a major achievement for
Tan Kah-kee to be chairman of an essentially Cantonese-sponsored fund,
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108 TAN KAH-KEE
a sign of recognition of his overall leadership and social standing by the

Cantonese pang in Singapore. Tan Kah-kee led the way by donating
$5,000, and collected $50,000 in a two-month campaign.92 The results
might have been far better had there been no rival fund-raising campaigns
launched by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Tung
Teh Reading Room for the same purpose.
In March 1925 the ever-active and charity-conscious Hoi Thin Club
again launched a fund-raising campaign for the protection of the health of
children in Singapore, entitled the Singapore Children Protection
Association Maintenance Fund. While Lady Guillemard, wife of the gov-
ernor of the Straits Settlements, was the honorary patron, Tan Kah-kee
was chairman. The fund had the support of the whole Chinese community,
resulting in the collection of $60,000 from a six-month campaign.93
The fifth and last major fund-raising campaign for Tan Kah-kee came
in 1934 in response to the disastrous Bukil Ho Swee fire in Singapore,
which caused some 7,000 people to be made homeless. On this occasion,
both the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Hokkien Huay
Kuan, under Tan Kah-kee’s leadership, set up rival committees for raising
funds. However, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, A. B. Jordan, stepped
in to mediate and coordinate all matters related to the relief for fire vic-
tims. Under the leadership of Tan Kah-kee, the committee set up by the
Hokkien Huay Kuan raised some $53,900 for relief, a substantial sum at
the end of the Great Depression.94
Tan Kah-kee’s donations to charity were less impressive than those to
education. Nevertheless, they represented a substantial contribution for
the pre-war era, as is shown in Tables 4.3 and 4.4. Table 4.3 illustrates the
sums provided by Tan Kah-kee himself for the years 1904–34, while
Table 4.4 shows his donations to charity from other sources as evidence
of his generosity.
The above discussion has illustrated the ways in which Tan Kah-kee
chose to fulfil his social responsibility, and his shrewd way of utilizing and
disposing of his wealth for the common good. In his lifetime he believed
in two principles concerning money, and practised them. The first principle
was that ‘wealth is painstakingly amassed by me and should therefore be
generously contributed by me’95 in any way he saw fit. A second principle
was more positive; he likened money to fertilizer which, to be useful, had
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TABLE 4.3
Charitable Donations by Tan Kah-kee, 1904–1934
Years Donations $ (Straits)
1904–3910 estimated 40,000
1911–1914 estimated 15,000
1915–1918 over 100,000
1919–1922 over 100,000
1923–1925 over 100,000
1926–1928 65,000
1929–1931 estimated 20,000
1932–1934 no figure given
Source: Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 405, 407,
410, 415, 417, 419–20.
to be spread around.96 Tan Kah-kee spread his wealth around for education,
charity, and for political modernization and the national survival of China.
In philanthropy Tan Kah-kee had few peers among his contemporaries. By
being charitable, he not only acquired prestige and respected social status,
but the way to community leadership and power.
One other major source for building a formidable social standing and
community leadership and power was through the establishment of an
intricate and complex kinship and patron-client network. The ability and
willingness of Tan Kah-kee to bring these interlocking relationships, either
overtly or tacitly, into community actions for common good enhanced his
own leadership status and power in the Chinese community of Singapore
and Malaya.
Tan Kah-kee had seventeen children, nine boys and eight girls.
Admittedly, not all his children married into powerful families.
Nevertheless, some of the marriages did help to bring wealthy families
together. Tan Kah-kee’s kinship connections were extended to Lee Kong-
chian, Lim Nee-soon, Chan Kang-swi, Chew Hean-swee, Chew Lian-seng
and Yap Geok-twee, just to name a few.
Tan Kah-kee’s selection of Lee Kong-chian as his son-in-law proved an
outstanding success as the latter was to prove a far-sighted, successful,
kind, generous, gentle, competent and popular banker, rubber magnate
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110 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 4.4
Tan Kah-kee’s Donations to Charity, 1916–1926
Year Name Donations $ (Straits)
1916 Our Day Fund for British War Casualties 1,300
1917 Our Day Fund 3,700
Tientsin Flood Relief Fund 500
1920 T’ung An Hospital 1,000
1922 Teochew Storm Relief Fund 2,000
1924 Fukien-Kwangtung Flood Relief Fund 5,000
Amoy Youth Club 5,000
Fukien Hospital for the Poor,
Foochow 1,000
Singapore Children’s Health
Protection Association Maintenance Fund 2,000
1925 Endowment Fund, Po Leung Kuk 3,000
1926 Teochew Storm Relief Fund 2,000
Amoy University Public Hospital,
Maintenance Fund 170,000
Amoy University Public Hospital,
Maintenance Fund 30,000
Sources: Song Ong Siang, p. 538; ibid., p. 550; Kuo Min Yit Poh, 8.12.1917; Sin Kuo Min Press,
26.6.1920; ibid., 19.8.1922; NYSP, 25.8.1924; NYSP, 7.8.1924; NYSP, 14.7.1925; Lat Pau,
13.3.1925; NYSP, 5.9.1936; NYSP, 23.2.1926; NYSP, 23.2.1926; SSGG, 1926.
and community leader from the 1920s until his death in 1967. His distin-
guished career culminated in his being appointed chancellor of the
University of Singapore in 1962 to succeed Malcolm MacDonald, then
British commissioner-general in South-East Asia. He was also credited
with assisting Tan Lark-sye to found Nanyang University in Singapore in
1956. His farsightedness led him to establish the Lee Foundation in 1952,
which has since provided inexhaustible funds for charity, education,
research, sports and worthy causes. One of his sons, Lee Seng-gee, was
named in 1983 by an American journal, American Finance Monthly, as
one of the twelve top bankers in the world.97
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During the 1920s Lee Kong-chian was seen as a man of promise. By

the 1930s, having survived the Great Depression, Lee Kong-chian built up
his own fortunes in rubber and banking to become a community leader in
his own right. He respected his father-in-law’s integrity and patriotism and
was morally indebted to him for his ‘apprenticeship’ in the firm of Tan
Kah Kee & Co. between 1916 and 1926. Tan Kah-kee exerted a profound
influence on Lee Kong-chian through the kinship and patron–client rela-
tionships. Tan Kah-kee encouraged Lee Kong-chian to take over the chair-
manship of the Singapore Chinese High School in 1934 from him. In
1939, Tan Kah-kee, being critical of the leadership of the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, led a movement among the Hokkiens to
elect Lee Kong-chian as its president.98 Lee Kong-chian was committed to
assisting the political cause of his father-in-law in whatever way he could
during the 1930s and 1940s.
There is evidence to suggest that some subtle pressure was put on Lee
Kong-chian by Tan Kah-kee to donate funds for education in Singapore
and in Fukien. In 1936, for example, Tan Kah-kee successfully solicited a
sum of $50,000 from Lee Kong-chian towards the purchase of a 400-acre
rubber estate in Johore for the Amoy University Maintenance Fund.”99 In
1941, when Tan Kah-kee encouraged the Chinese community to found the
Nanyang Normal College in Singapore for teachers training, Lee Kong-
chian was asked to donate a hefty sum of $110,000 towards its establish-
ment.100 Confucian moral obligations as derived from kinship and
patron–client relationships prompted Lee Kong-chian to sign his cheques
for donations. Lee Kong-chian continued to support his father-in-law’s
effort to rebuild both the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University in the
post-war years. Between 1950 and 1961, he, together with Tan Lark-sye
and his father-in-law, was reported to have contributed a sum of $8.8 mil-
lion (Chinese currency) for the rebuilding projects of the two said institu-
tions in Fukien province.101
Lim Nee-soon had an illustrious career and was a powerful Teochew
patriarch in his own right. He was a close friend of Dr Sun Yat-sen and
became one of the leaders of the Tung Meng Hui and the Singapore
branch of the Kuomintang in 1912. Economically, he was a wealthy
planter and plantation owner, earning himself the tag of ‘the pineapple
king’. He was a co-founder of the Singapore Chinese High School, and a
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112 TAN KAH-KEE
fellow member of the Ee Ho Hean Club with Tan Kah-kee. The relation-
ship between Lim Nee-soon and Tan Kah-kee was brought even closer
through the marriage of Lim Nee-soon’s eldest son, Lim Chong-kuo, to
Tan Lai-ho, the second daughter of Tan Kah-kee. By then Lim Nee-soon
had become a community leader in his own right, being president of the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce during the 1920s as well as
one of the most progressive leaders in the Chinese community, As he was
a Straits-born Chinese who could speak both English and Mandarin, he
was popular with both the China-born and the Straits-born communities
in Singapore.
Lim Nee-soon’s family name was much enhanced when his eldest
daughter was married to a son of the sugar baron of Java, Oei Tiong-ham,
while his second daughter married the second son of See Tiong-wah, the
leader of the Hokkien pang during the 1920s and a prominent community
leader in Singapore. Furthermore, Lim Nee-soon’s second son, Lim
Chong-pang, married the daughter of Lee Choon-guan, one of the multi-
millionaires and real estate owners in Singapore. All the families men-
tioned above were amongst the wealthiest and most powerful in South-East
Asia during their times.
Tan Kah-kee’s relations with Chan Kang-swi were as interesting as
they were important. These two men first met in 1918 in Singapore at the
founding of the Singapore Chinese High School. Their friendship was
cemented through the double marriages of their children in the 1920s.
Chan Kang-swi’s own career was impressive, being financially influential
in Malacca mainly as a proprietor of several rubber estates in Muar,
Malacca, and Negri Sembilan and of extensive real estate in Malacca,
Muar, Batu Pahat, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.102 He was a director of
many enterprises including the Ho Hong Bank Limited, and from 1932
the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited. He had been a Justice
of the Peace since 1916 and was president of the Malacca Hokkien Huay
Kuan, chairman of Trustees, Cheng Hoon Teng temples, president of the
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Straits Chinese British Association
(Malacca Branch), and the Malacca Chinese Club, and a member of the
Chinese Advisory Board. He donated half of the cost of building the P’ei
Feng Chinese School in Malacca and contributed generously to the
endowment funds of the school.
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Chan Kang-swi had a sizeable family himself. His various children

married into the families of Dr Ho Pao-jin, Tan Kah-kee and Tan Cheng-
lock (1883–1960). Tan Cheng-lock was one of the three wealthiest
Chinese planters, bankers and community leaders in Malacca. Although a
Straits-born Chinese, Tan Cheng-lock was closely associated with both
the Malacca Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Straits Chinese
British Association. Being English-educated and a sound speaker, Tan
Cheng-lock was nominated as an unofficial member of the Straits
Settlements Legislative Council for ten years between 1923 and 1933.
Like Dr Lim Boon-keng before him, the government invariably sought his
advice, which was highly appreciated by succeeding governors from Sir
Laurence Guillemard to Sir Cecil Clementi.103 In the post-war years, Tan
Cheng-lock was encouraged to organize the Chinese into a political party,
the Malayan Chinese Association, which aimed to counter the communist
insurgent forces and to mobilize the Chinese to work for political inde-
pendence for Malaya.
Chan Kang-swi’s support for Tan Kah-kee’s social, educational and
political causes was substantial. In 1930, for example, he was one of vari-
ous Chinese leaders who attempted to settle the dispute between Tan Kah-
kee and Aw Boon-haw (1882–1954) over the inscriptions on the stone
gates to the Singapore Chinese High School erected with Aw Boon-haw
and Aw Boon-par’s money. The gates stood at the entrance of the school
along Bukit Timah Road leading into the driveway and forming an arch.
Tan Kah-kee and many other school patrons had a strong objection to the
inscription on the stone gates, which ran ‘The Singapore Chinese High
School, donated by Aw Boon-haw and Aw Boon-par’. This gave the
impression that the school itself had been built with money donated by the
Aw brothers. The dispute was worsened by the clash of personality
between Tan Kah-kee and Aw Boon-haw. It ended in the gates being dis-
mantled after months of wrangling.
Closer to the heart of Tan Kah-kee was Chan Kang-swi’s moral and
financial support for the former’s educational cause. He made generous
donations to the founding of the Chinese High School and contributed in
1926 a sum of $10,000 to the Foundation Fund of the Amoy University
Public Hospital.104 In 1931 Chan Kang-swi responded to the appeal of Tan
Kah-kee by making a contribution of $150,000 towards the maintenance
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114 TAN KAH-KEE
of Amoy University library, a gesture greatly appreciated by Tan Kah-

kee.105 In 1941, when Tan Kah-kee founded the Nanyang Normal College,
Chan Kang-swi readily donated $20,000 towards it.106
Politically, Chan Kang-swi respected Tan Kah-kee’s leadership in rais-
ing funds for the relief of Chinese war victims between 1937 and 1941.
He not only donated money to the Malacca China Relief Fund, but was
actively involved in fund-raising campaigns locally. By so doing, he added
weight and conviction to the cause of the national salvation of China in
the wake of the Japanese invasion and occupation.
Tan Kah-kee’s friendship with Yap Geok-twee was close, sincere and
moving, although the latter was almost a generation younger. Yap Geok-
twee’s father, Yap Tua-pow, was a fellow countryman from T’ung An and
a relatively close friend of Tan Kah-kee. Yap Tua-pow operated a firm
called Chin Ho & Co., dealing in building materials and investments, and
when he died, Yap Geok-twee inherited it. In the 1920s Yap Geok-twee
was financially secure, having made his money in share trading and
speculation through the stock exchange. According to one source, his
money was made mainly by dealing in rubber and tin shares, the blue chip
shares of those days.107
As a director of the Chinese Commercial Bank in the 1920s Yap Geok-
twee was also its managing director on the eve of the Great Depression.
He was among a handful of banking officials credited with amalgamating
three small local Chinese banks into the Oversea-Chinese Banking
Corporation Limited in 1932, thus putting the Chinese banking system in
Singapore on a more secure and proper footing.
What sort of person was Yap Geok-twee? According to one of his
colleagues, Dr Yap Pheng-geck, he was a dynamo who was obsessed with
work. His appreciation of Yap Geok-twee deserves more public airing:
In the bank, he made it a point to know every customer, his business and
how it was faring, his account and how it was operating. Every morning he
would look through the pile of cheques drawn by customers the previous
day, to review the pattern of their business and to keep tabs on how, why
and to whom such payments were made. He was always the first to be at
the bank every morning. By his personal example of not sparing himself,
he set such a pace of work that his staff willingly followed his example.
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This and other visible improvements made to the running of the bank
turned it into a hive of activity never known before. He was forceful and
decisive, very progressive in his views and constructive in his methods,
conscientious, and of undisputed integrity. He would tolerate no indiffer-
ence in the performance of duty. A masterful character and very reserved,
he shunned publicity, but he was a born leader of men.108
Tan Kah-kee and Yap Geok-twee got on well as fellow members of the
Ee Ho Hean Club during the 1920s. Tan Kah-kee was genuinely surprised
and grateful to him for donating $10,000 in 1928 towards the Shantung
Relief Fund, for the relief of victims of military clashes in Shantung prov-
ince between Chiang Kai-shek’s armies and the Japanese. That sum rep-
resented 20 percent of the funds raised among the members of the club.
Tan Kah-kee also donated the same amount on that occasion. In 1929 it
was no surprise that Yap Geok-twee was elected vice-president of the club
when Tan Kah-kee was himself president. In 1931 Yap Geok-twee
responded to Tan Kah-kee’s appeal for financial aid to Amoy University
by donating a sum of $50,000.l09 During the period of Chinese national
salvation (1937–41), Yap Geok-twee proved to be an effective and loyal
supporter of Tan Kah-kee’s political leadership. Financially, Yap Geok-
twee was the first to donate a lump sum of $50,000 (or $100,000 in
Chinese currency) to the Singapore China Relief Fund under the leader-
ship of Tan Kah-kee.110 In 1938 Yap Geok-twee bought $10,000 worth of
Chinese Government Liberty Bonds, at the instigation of Tan Kah-kee.
Politically, Yap Geok-twee and Chew Hean-swee were among the first
Chinese in Singapore to urge Tan Kah-kee to lead a fund-raising campaign
in the wake of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Both Yap
Geok-twee and Chew Hean-swee were committed to donating substantial
sums of money at the start. And when the Singapore China Relief Fund
was eventually founded in August 1937, Yap Geok-twee’s $50,000 dona-
tion was announced by Tan Kah-kee while another $50,000 was promised
by a friend of Yap Geok-twee. Chew Hean-swee, Chua Han-leong and
Lum Mun-tin each donated $10,000 (or $20,000 Chinese currency).111
More importantly, both Yap Geok-twee and Chew Hean-swee went on to
team up with Tan Kah-kee and others as office-bearers of, first, the
Singapore China Relief Fund (1937–41), then the Southseas China Relief
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116 TAN KAH-KEE
Fund (1938–49) and, finally, the Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council

(1941–2), sanctioned by the British authorities but led by Tan Kah-kee.
While the first two organizations were for fund-raising for China’s war
victims in the conflict of the Sino-Japanese War, the latter organization
was to help the British war effort in Singapore against the impending
Japanese invasion of the island. Tan Kah-kee’s relationship with Yap
Geok-twee became even closer when his youngest son, Tan Guan-aik,
married Elizabeth Yap, daughter of Yap Geok-twee, in the post-war
years. This was a case of close personal friendship widening kinship
relationships.
In his lifetime Tan Kah-kee had numerous clients, which in itself
boosted his social standing. As a patron and patriarch, Tan Kah-kee had
clients who came from at least three sources, his ex-employees, students
and graduates from Tao Nan and the Singapore Chinese High School and
those from his Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University. Many of these were
naturally grateful to him for employment and education, others felt mor-
ally bound to support his community and political leadership in whatever
way they could. Some even went on to follow in his footsteps by provid-
ing employment and education to the Chinese in various parts of South-
East Asia.
Tan Kah-kee’s relationships with Tan Boon-khak (1886–1966) and Tan
Lark-sye (1896–1972) were classic examples of how a patron–client rela-
tionship operated. Both Tan Boon-khak and Tan Lark-sye were his clans-
men from Chi Mei and Tan Lark-sye was a student of the Chi Mei School.
Both migrated to Singapore and found employment with Tan Kah-kee.
Although they were groomed by Tan Kah-kee as entrepreneurs, both
thrived on and excelled in rubber planting, milling and trade. In 1924,
these two brothers branched out in Singapore, founding their own firm,
Aik Ho Rubber Co., and went on to be multi-millionaires during the 1930s
as rubber millers, traders, and estate owners. In 1939, when a movement
was organized to raise a sum of $300,000 from Chi Mei Schools graduates
overseas for repairing buildings damaged by Japanese air bombardment,
Tan Lark-sye donated $150,000.112 In 1941 Tan Kah-kee again success-
fully solicited a sum of $20,000 from Tan Lark-sye for the purpose of
founding the Nanyang Normal College. On the eve of the Japanese occu-
pation of Singapore, Tan Kah-kee advised Tan Lark-sye to remit some
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money back to China for post-war economic and educational development

in Fukien. Tan Lark-sye responded favourably by remitting a sum of $7
million in Chinese currency (about $700,000) through the Bank of China
and the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation in Singapore.113
In the immediate post-war years, Tan Kah-kee was quick to appreciate
Tan Lark-sye’s generous move to help him restore his rubber mills in
Perak with financial assistance of over $400,000. However, Tan Kah-kee
did not reap much financial benefit from it as his rubber mills and estate
were almost completely ruined during the Emergency in Malaya which
started in June 1948.114
Tan Kah-kee’s patron–client relationships with Hau Say-huan of
Singapore, Lau Geok-swee of Penang, and many more Hokkien pang
leaders in the Malay States, may also help to explain why he remained a
pre-eminent patriarch and an almost unchallengeable community and
political leader in the 1930s in both Singapore and Malaya. On this aspect,
more will be elaborated in Chapter 5.
One added status symbol that Tan Kah-kee possessed was the owner-
ship of a Chinese newspaper, the Chinese Daily Journal of Commerce,
more commonly known as Nanyang Siang Pau, between 1923 and 1936.
And between 1946 and 1950, Tan Kah-kee was a major shareholder of the
Nan Chiau Jit Pao, closed down by the British authorities in September
1950.
His venture into the newspaper industry in 1923 was prompted by three
major considerations, which were both pragmatic and ideological. As Tan
Kah-kee’s rubber manufactory at Sumbawa Road and various other enter-
prises were expanding after his return from Chi Mei in 1922, he found it
necessary to establish a printing plant for printing labels for his manufac-
tured goods, cartons for packaging, and numerous invoices and receipts
for goods sold. Once a printing plant was set up, he found starting a news-
paper to advertise goods produced by his various enterprises a money-
saving device as he did not need to pay out a substantial sum for
advertisements in other Chinese newspapers, such as Lat Pau (1881–
1932), Sin Kuo Min Press (1919–39) and Union Times (1906–38). During
the period prior to 1937, Nanyang Siang Pau was never a money-making
concern, largely due to the fact that the circulation was comparatively
small, selling about 1,200 copies per day during the 1920s and 5,000
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118 TAN KAH-KEE
copies in 1935,115 and also to its negligence in tapping the potential of

advertising. However, it became a money-making concern after 1937 in
the wake of the Sino-Japanese War, as daily circulation shot up to some
30,000 copies for its morning and evening editions.116 By 1937, Nanyang
Siang Pau was no longer owned by Tan Kah-kee as it had been bought by
George Lee, a younger brother of Lee Kong-chian.
Practical considerations not withstanding, one other major motive
which prompted Tan Kah-kee to publish the paper was an ideological
one — to promote commerce and impart commercial knowledge, to
stimulate educational growth and to uphold Chinese community inter-
ests.117 In the first issue of the Nanyang Siang Pau, dated 6 September
1923, Tan Kah-kee wrote an article entitled ‘Relationships between
Enterprises and Education’. In it he elaborated the objectives for founding
the paper, that is, to promote commerce and education. In his view the
roots for the development of commercial enterprises lay in the growth of
education, while the role of a university was to train commercial, educa-
tional and political talents for society and country. Conversely, the promo-
tion of education depended on financial resources and the availability of
financial resources depended on business enterprise. Having expounded
the importance of and interrelationship between commerce and education,
Tan Kah-kee appealed to his countrymen generally, and to his fellow-
capitalists in particular, to promote education and to support Amoy
University. With their support, he envisaged that some 20,000 graduates
would be produced by Amoy University within a period of twenty years
to provide leadership for China’s agriculture, industry, commerce, educa-
tion, political organizations and the national parliament.118 While reiterat-
ing the objectives of the paper as demonstrated by Tan Kah-kee, the
editor-in-chief, Fang Huai-nan, emphasized the non-partisan and apoliti-
cal policy of the paper. By non-partisan and apolitical was meant that
Nanyang Siang Pau would avoid getting itself involved in party and par-
tisan politics.119 This non-partisan policy was rigidly adhered to up to the
eve of the Tsinan Incident of May 1928. When Fang published articles
attacking the warlord government in Peking in October 1923 Tan Kah-kee
imposed the most severe penalty by sacking his editor-in-chief.120 Fang
had his own interpretation of the sacking, saying that he had wanted to
resign all along because of his disagreement with Tan Kah-kee over
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various matters,121 presumably matters concerning editorial policy. Barring

this incident, the paper went on to provide much space and information on
commerce, industry and finance. Its reports on market prices were more
detailed and reliable than those of its counterparts. Moreover, the paper
was more attentive to educational matters, allocating prominent columns
to educational reports.122
From May 1928 onwards, when Tan Kah-kee himself became heavily
involved in China politics by leading the Shantung Relief Fund in
Singapore, his paper promptly became much more politically-oriented by
reporting political and military affairs in China. By 1931 Nanyang Siang
Pau was regarded by the Chinese Secretariat in Singapore as being ‘pro-
nationalist’,123 thus greatly deviating from its former position as a non-
partisan newspaper. Like most Chinese newspapers during the 1930s
Nanyang Siang Pau caught up with nationalist fervour, supporting Chiang
Kai-shek’s government against the looming threat from Japan and the
Japanese invasion of China from 1937 onwards. As a consistent supporter
of Chiang Kai-shek and his government, it could hardly be regarded as a
non-partisan newspaper.
In 1946 Tan Kah-kee and his supporters founded the Nan Chiau Jit Pao
with a capital of $500,000. Tan Kah-kee was among its largest sharehold-
ers, having invested a sum of $25,000 towards its establishment.124 Although
the management of Nan Chiau Jit Pao emphasized, on numerous occa-
sions, that the paper did not belong to any political party or clique, its
editorials and editorial policy could not conceal its affiliation with the
Democratic League in China. The China Democratic League was then
hailed as the third party in China, beside the Kuomintang and the Chinese
Communist Party — a party for peace, unity, reform and democracy. As it
was a party of Chinese intellectuals, particularly of the left, the China
Democratic League was critical of Chiang Kai-shek’s rule, thus invoking
the wrath of the Kuomintang. In Singapore the Nan Chiau Jit Pao became
the organ of both the Singapore branches of the China Democratic League
and Tan Kah-kee. While upholding the principles of peace, unity, reform
and democracy for China, the paper lashed out at Chiang Kai-shek’s dicta-
torship, and at his government’s relentless ambition to prosecute civil war
at all costs. On the other hand, it rendered sympathy and moral support for
Mao Tse-tung and his armies in their struggle to reunify China.
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120 TAN KAH-KEE
By so doing, Nan Chiau Jit Pao fought numerous polemics concerning

China politics against various Kuomintang-controlled or pro-Kuomintang
newspapers in Singapore and Malaya, including Nanyang Siang Pau, Sin
Chew Jit Poh and Chung Shing Jit Pau of Singapore, and Kwong Wah Yit
Poh of Penang.
Suffice it to say here that Tan Kah-kee in the post-war years was forced
to drop his non-partisan leadership in response to the Chinese Civil War
which had been waged since July 1946. He had to take sides and on this
occasion he supported Mao Tse-tung and his cause. As he was personally
committed to supporting Mao Tse-tung in the political arena and in the
Press, so was Nan Chiau Jit Pao right through to the end.
What should concern us here is not so much that Tan Kah-kee gradually
and visibly changed his non-partisan stance in politics and in his newspa-
pers, but the importance of his possessing a newspaper in relation to the
building up of his own image. In other words, did his Nanyang Siang Pau
and Nan Chiau Jit Pao enhance his social standing within the Chinese
community in Singapore and Malaya? If it did, then how? Quite apart
from the fact that the ownership of a newspaper brought prestige per se,
there is no doubt that a newspaper could help advance the social status of
its owner in at least two ways. In the first place, it would allow Tan Kah-
kee’s goods and his own name to be advertised, publicized and circulated
more widely among readers in various parts of South-East Asia and East
Asia. As his own paper and many others reported his political leadership
and activities daily after the Shantung Relief Fund in 1928, Tan Kah-kee
soon became a household name. People in the region came to know Tan
Kah-kee as a public-spirited man — a philanthropist, a Nanyang capital-
ist, the founder of Amoy University and many schools, an industrialist, a
community leader and a political leader, recognized and accepted by both
the Chinese and British governments.
In the second place, his newspapers were consciously or unconsciously
utilized for advancing his own beliefs, whether social, cultural or political.
Through utilizing his papers for educational promotion, social and com-
munity advancements and for China-oriented political objectives, Tan
Kah-kee directly or indirectly influenced public opinion and moulded the
community mind for change. The classic example is Nan Chiau Jit Pao’s
toeing his line for Mao Tse-tung and against Chiang Kai-shek during the
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Chinese Civil War. Nan Chiau Jit Pao’s overt support for Mao won con-
siderable Chinese community approval and rallied the anti-Kuomintang
forces for Tan Kah-kee. It may have damaged his prestige as a non-partisan
leader in the 1940s; it certainly did not damage his prestige as a shrewd
judge of men and events for picking an underdog — Mao Tse-tung — as
the winner for ruling China. Although Nan Chiau Jit Pao may have long
ago become defunct, it no doubt served its purpose of helping to bring
about ideological and political change among the Chinese in South-East
Asia in general and in Singapore and Malaya in particular.
Through his financial, industrial, educational, charitable, social and
political endeavours as well as through kinship and patron–client relation-
ships, Tan Kah-kee had built up an impeccable social position by the late
1920s. One ultimate criterion for his social standing was the government
as well as community recognition of his leadership through the award of
honours and appointments to government or quasi-government positions.
The first sign of British recognition of Tan Kah-kee’s socio-economic
standing came in 1916 when his application for naturalization as a British
subject was approved. For the British, naturalization was an honour and
a reflection of the applicant’s standing in his own community, but for Tan
Kah-kee it was necessary to become a British subject in the First World
War in order to be the owner of two ships. In 1918 a further recognition
was made when Tan Kah-kee was appointed a Justice of the Peace. Being
a JP, Tan Kah-kee could be regarded by the British as a community
leader, who was obliged to help the British to maintain law and order
within the Chinese community in times of crisis. As a rule the appoint-
ment of JP was for life unless rescinded. Thus, Tan Kah-kee was a JP in
Singapore until his return to China in 1950. A third and more substantial
recognition by the British of Tan Kah-kee as a community leader because
of his socio-economic status and his leadership qualities took place in
1923 when Tan Kah-kee was appointed a member of the Chinese
Advisory Board, which had been founded in 1889. This was a sounding
board for the Chinese Protectorate (later known as the Secretariat for
Chinese Affairs), who presided over meetings attended by nominated
pang leaders within the Chinese community. Board meetings were con-
vened irregularly each year to sort out problems and air complaints per-
taining to the Chinese community. As this was a consultative board on
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122 TAN KAH-KEE
Chinese affairs, it is difficult to assess how much it achieved. Nevertheless,

Tan Kah-kee sat on the board and attended most meetings until his res-
ignation in 1933.
By far the most significant recognition of Tan Kah-kee’s leadership
qualities and social standing was the British legitimization of his political
leadership after the Shantung Relief Fund in 1928. With this legitimiza-
tion, Tan Kah-kee went on to lead the Chinese in South-East Asia during
the era of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) to contribute a staggering sum
of $400 million (in Chinese currency) towards the relief of war victims in
China.125 For a mono-lingual Chinese-educated immigrant from Chi Mei,
the British acceptance and tolerance of his political leadership was as
much a political breakthrough as a personal achievement. On the eve of
the Japanese invasion of Singapore the numerous invitations and appeals
by the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Shenton Thomas, to Tan
Kah-kee to help the British defend the island were clear indications of his
dominant socio-political status. He could not have achieved more prestige
than when the governor recognized him as the most important Chinese
community and political leader in Singapore for mobilizing the Chinese
population for civil defence.
The recognition of Tan Kah-kee as a community leader by the Chinese
government came belatedly. However, when it did arrive it added an aura
to his rising prestige and fame as a community leader. In the years after
the 1911 Revolution, the various Chinese governments in Peking never
recognized his leadership and leadership qualities in Singapore until 1929
when the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee in Nanking appointed him
as an honorary adviser. The committee had been set up in 1928 by the
Kuomintang government for the protection of the Overseas Chinese in
such areas as education, migration, labour conditions, cultural propaganda
and so on. It is quite apparent that most of the appointees from Singapore
and Malaya were well-known Kuomintang members.126 Tan Kah-kee
became its adviser until 1936 when he finally resigned.
In 1935, Chiang Kai-shek, in recognition of Tan Kah-kee’s contribu-
tion to education in China generally and in Fukien in particular, awarded
him a meritorious medal (second class). Although this was a belated ges-
ture, the award further consolidated his personal relationships with Chiang
Kai-shek and facilitated his impending assumption of political leadership
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during the era of National Salvation (1937–45). In 1938, Tan Kah-kee was
nominated as an overseas member of the People’s Political Council in
Chungking, the war-time capital of China. This was a final recognition of
his socio-political status and leadership. As Tan Kah-kee was physically
absent from Chungking by circumstance, he could not take an active role
in parliamentary proceedings. However, he was not idle either. He gained
immense national fame in October 1938 when, after having failed to per-
suade Wang Ching-wei to discard his peace attempts with Japan, he sent
a twenty-two word cable to the parliament in Chungking, then in session.
The cable proposed a motion aimed at stopping Wang from starting peace
negotiations with Japan without mentioning his name. It read, ‘Before
enemy leaves our land, civil servants talk peace are deemed as traitors’.127
This was a stroke of genius which ended with the motion being hotly
debated and passed. It embarrassed Wang Ching-wei greatly, but did not
prevent him from collaborating with Japan in 1939. This became known
as the ‘cable motion’ affair.
During the Chinese Civil War, Tan Kah-kee’s siding with Mao Tse-tung
and attacks on Chiang Kai-shek made him persona non grata in Kuomintang
China. While his prestige as a community and political leader sank to a
low ebb in Kuomintang circles, Mao Tse-tung’s respect for him
increased appreciably. By then, regardless of partisan politics, Tan Kah-
kee had firmly established himself as a national figure, with a sound and
proven record in most fields. In 1940, when Tan Kah-kee was on a com-
fort mission to China, Mao Tse-tung had been quick to appreciate his
political contribution to China’s war effort. Mao praised him highly in
1945, epitomizing him as ‘Hua-ch’iao ch’i-chih min-tsu kuang-hui’
(Overseas Chinese flag, national glory). In January 1949, nine months
before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Tse-tung
personally sent him a cable, inviting him back to participate in the estab-
lishment of the new government and the new China.128 A delighted Tan
Kah-kee cabled back, courteous and modest in attitude, saying that he was
a political men-wai-han but would return to China after the Chinese winter
in December to congratulate him personally.129 He did return to China in
May 1949 and stayed on until February 1950, to tour provinces liberated
by the communist forces. The 1949 trip was to pave the way for his final
exit from Singapore.
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124 TAN KAH-KEE
One final result of pre-eminent social standing concerns Tan Kah-

kee’s community networks and power base. It was in these areas that Tan
Kah-kee exerted his socio-political influences, mobilized his man-
power resources and support, and led the Chinese community to action.
With what prestigious community organizations was he associated? Did
he have complex interlocking community networks? What positions did
he hold in these community institutions? Did his positions within these
organizations increase his status, influence and power? How and why did
Tan Kah-kee achieve a breakthrough from a pang leadership status to a
community leadership status within a dialect-ridden and fragmented
Chinese community in Singapore? These will be examined and analysed
in the following chapter.
1. SCJP, 16 June 1969.

2. SSGG, 1918, p. 444.
3. Ibid., pp. 417–52.
4. NYSP, 14 August 1933, 30 September 1947.
1946, p. 420.
6. ST, 11 September 1954.
7. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., Chi Mei Chih, Hong Kong, Chiyu Banking
Corporation Ltd., 1963, p. 120.
8. Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, Ch’en Chia-keng hsing-hsüeh-chi,
Foochow, Fukien jen-min ch’u pan-she, 1981, p. 17.
9. Lat Pau, 16 April 1907, 27 April 1907, 7 May 1907.
10. Ibid., 23 April 1907.
11. Ibid., 30 July 1907, 30 December 1907.
12. Ibid., 14 January 1909.
13. Tan Kah-kee’s terms of presidency of Tao Nan being: 1911–12, 1917–
19, and 1922–9.
14. Lat Pau, 29 October 1910.
15. SCCC, Minutes, 7 June 1913, p. 19.
16. KMYP, 10 April 1917.
17. Ibid., 20 June 1918.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 18 June 1918, 10 April 1919.
20. SKMP, 30 March 1920.
21. Lat Pau, 1 February 1926.
22. NYSP, 18 April 1941.
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23. Yap Pheng Geck, Scholar, Banker, Gentleman Soldier, Singapore, Times
Books International, 1982, p. 20.
24. NCJP, 30 September 1947.
25. NYSP, 14 August 1933.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p. 5.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 410.
32. Tan Khuat-siong, ed., op. cit., p. 159.
34. Ibid., p. 10; Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, op. cit., p. 25.
35. Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, op. cit., pp. 25–6.
36. Hung Shih-shih, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng pan-chiao-yü, Jen-wu
ts’ung-k’an, No. 4, 1980, p. 26.
37. SKMP, 18 July 1923.
39. Ibid.
40. Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, op. cit., p. 27.
41. SKMP, 18 July 1923.
42. Ibid., 20 July 1923.
43. NYSP, 2 March 1931.
44. SKMP, 31 January 1920.
45. Ibid., 11 June 1920.
46. Ibid., 10 August 1922.
48. Tan Yeok-seong, Lin Wen-ch’ing chuan, Singapore, Amoy University
Alumni, 1970, p. 47.
49. JMBRAS, Vol. 45, Pt. 2, 1972, p. 98.
50. Fukien shih-li chi-mei-hsüeh-hsiao hsiao-chu Ch’en ch’uang-pan Hsia-
men ta-hsüeh yen-chiang-tz’u, Amoy, 1919, p. 2. The author records his thanks to
Mr Tan Keong-choon for providing a copy of this document, which contains the
text of a historic speech given by Tan Kah-kee on the occasion of the founding of
Amoy University.
51. Ibid., p. 1.
52. Ibid., p. 2.
53. Ibid., p. 1.
54. Tan Kah-kee’s view was quoted in a letter from Tan Keng-hean in Chi
Mei to him, dated 9 March 1923. This letter is part of six volumes of correspon-
dence of Tan Keng-hean, now in the hands of Tan Keong-choon.
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126 TAN KAH-KEE
55. Fukien shih-li chi-mei-hsüeh-hsiao hsiao-chu Ch’en, p. 8.

56. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
59. Ibid., p. 13. SKMP, 30 November 1920.
60. SKMP, 30 November 1920; Fukien shih-li chi-mei-hsüeh-hsiao hsiao-
chu Ch’en, pp. 2–3.
61. SKMP, 1 December 1920; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 13.
62. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 13; Fukien shih-li chi-mei-hsüeh-
hsiao hsiao-chu Ch’en, p. 9.
63. Wang Cheng-ping and Yü Kang, op. cit., p, 39.
64. GD/C 23, Secret and Confidential Despatch of the Governor, SS, to the
Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 March 1918.
65. Legislative Council of the SS, Proceedings for the year 1921, Singapore,
1921, p. B149.
66. NYSP, 16 June 1924; 21 June 1924.
68. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 15–17.
69. Hsia-ta T’e-k’an (Amoy University Bulletin), 1948, p. 5; NYSP, 2 August
1948.
70. Tan Yeok-seong, op. cit., p. 49.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid., p. 51.
73. NYSP, 16 June 1924, 21 June 1924.
75. Tan Keng-hean’s correspondence, six volumes, now in the hands of his
son, Tan Keong-choon in Singapore. The six-volume correspondence contains
numerous references to T’iao-ho-fa.
76. Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 5.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 74; Vol. 6, p. 26.
80. Ibid., p. 40.
81. Hsia-ta T’e-k’an, op. cit., p. 5.
82. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien ts’e, p. 90; NYSP, 16 June 1924;
ST, 2 January 1930.
84. NYSP, 2 August 1948.
86. Ibid.
87. C. F. Yong, ‘Tsao-ch’i ti T’ung-chi i-yüan’, SCJP, 29 April 1980.
88. KMYP, 10 January 1918, 14 January 1918, 25 February 1918.
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90. Ibid.
91. KMYP, 29 January 1919.
94. Ibid., 13 November 1934.
97. Lianhe Zaobao, 23 June 1983.
99. Ibid., p. 18.
100. Ibid., p. 307.
101. The figure of C$8.8 million as donated by Lee Kong-chian, Tan Lark-sye
and Tan Kah-kee can be found at the Hua-ch’iao Museum at Amoy, Fukien.
102. Julius S. Fisher, comp, Who’s Who in Malaya 1925, Singapore, 1925, p.
49.
103. On Tan Cheng-lock, see Soh Eng-lim, ‘Tan Cheng Lock, His Leadership
of the Malayan Chinese’, JSEAH, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1960, pp. 29–55, and
K. G. Tregonning, ‘Tan Cheng Lock: A Malayan Nationalist’, JSEAS, Vol. 10,
No. 1, March 1979, pp. 25–76.
104. Lat Pau, 23 February 1926.
105. NYSP, 20 November 1931; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 18.
106. Tan Kab-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 307.
107. Information provided by Sng Choon-yee at his home in Singapore, on 18
January 1976.
108. Yap Pheng Geek, op. cit., p. 28.
109. Tan Kah-kee, Nan ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 18.
110. Ibid., p. 43. NYSP, 16 August 1937.
111. NYSP, 16 August 1937.
113. Ibid., pp. 345–6.
114. Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, p. 76.
115. Hsü Yün-ts’iao, ‘Ma-lai-ya hua-wen pao-yeh-shih’, in Kao Hsing and
Chang Hsi-tse, eds., Hua-ch’iao-shih lun-chi, Taipei, The National War College,
1963, p. 156; Straits Settlements Blue Book for the Year 1935, Singapore, 1936.
116. Straits Settlements Blue Book for the Year 1938, Singapore, 1940, p. 748.
117. SKMP, 2 April 1923.
118. NYSP, 6 September 1923, 7 September 1923.
120. SKMP, 1 November 1923.
121. Ibid.
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128 TAN KAH-KEE
122. MRCA, No. 6, February 1931, p, 34.

123. Ibid.
124. Chui Kwei Chiang, ‘Malayan Chinese Newspapers and the Chinese Civil
War, 1945–1949’, JSSS, Vol. 38, Pts 1 & 2, 1983, p. 15. (Text in Chinese.)
125. Ta-chan yü nan-ch’iao, Singapore, Southseas China Relief Fund Union,
1947, p, 47; Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, p. 123.
126. MRCA, No. 11, July 1931, pp. 12–14; MRCA, No. 22, June 1932, p. 24.
Prominent Kuomintang members from Singapore appointed as honorary advisers
included Lee Chin-tian, Teo Eng-hock, Chew Hean-swee, Lim Nee-soon and Tan
Chor-nam.
128. NCJP, 10 February 1949.
129. Ibid.
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5
From Pang to Community Leadership:
Tan Kah-kee’s Power Base
… thirty to forty years ago, Sun Yat-sen visited Singapore and planned revo-
lutionary operations, he too came into contact with members of the Ee Ho
Hean. The Hokkien Protection Fund in the wake of the liberation of Fukien
province, followed by the Chinese National Fund (1912), all were launched
by the Ee Ho Hean. Others like the Shantung Relief Fund (1928) and vari-
ous fund-raising campaigns, were also started by the Ee Ho Hean….
Tan Kah-kee on the historical role of the Ee Ho Hean Club, 1936
The Chinese community in pre-war Singapore and Malaya was basically

a pang community rather than a class society. Pang is an age-old Chinese
concept to denote a socio-political grouping. When emigrants from the
two maritime Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Fukien settled in
South-East Asia, they used the word to mean dialect grouping of immi-
grants from a more or less well demarcated emigrating area, for example,
Foochow, Ch’uanchou, Changchou, Teochew, Canton, Ta-p’u, Hainan
Island, etc. Thus, immigrants from Fukien who spoke the Hokkien dialect
belonged to the Hokkien pang, likewise those from the Hakkaland of
Kwangtung the Hakka pang.
Literally, pang denotes a bloc, a band or a sub-community. However, to
identify it simply as a bloc, a band or a sub-community would miss the
complexity, dimension and tenacity of this rather historic concept and
institution. At least it misses the profound sense of belonging and the
attachment of the immigrants to the bloc or sub-community. Although
pang and nationalism can and have co-existed, pang could be said to be
an antithesis of nationalism and larger community spirit as it often tends
to stress the importance and vitality of bloc or sectarian interests. Pang has
at least three facets in content. First and foremost, it is a dialect grouping
129
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130 TAN KAH-KEE
catering for immigrants who speak a common and mutually intelligible

dialect. Secondly, it is also a territorial grouping for immigrants hailing
from a well demarcated emigrating area in South China who also happen
to speak the common dialect. Lastly, it can be loosely regarded as a voca-
tional or professional grouping insofar as immigrants who speak a com-
mon dialect and hail from a common emigrating territory often become
exclusively and distinctively engaged in certain or specific kinds of trades
and professions in Singapore. Therefore it could be said that pang consti-
tutes a combination of dialect, territorial and vocational groupings.
The concept of pang became an institution when various dialect groups
arrived in Singapore to take advantage of the island being opened as a free
port. The entrenchment of this institution and the complexity of the
Chinese community were recognized by Sir Stamford Raffles, when he
experimented with the so-called ‘Captain’ system. Under this system,
headmen of various dialect groups within the Chinese community were
generously given quasi-police, judicial and administrative powers over
their own pang.1 When the first Chinese Advisory Board was formed in
1889 by the Straits Settlements government, the British recognized their
existence and duly nominated leaders from various pang as members.
However, the Foochew and the Straits-born Chinese representatives were
not added until 1928.2 One other major factor for the institutionalization of
the pang was the establishment of pang organizations, or hui kuan, at vari-
ous levels, which advocated sectarian rather than larger community inter-
ests in an ever more competitive and increasingly parochial immigrant
society. Soon Chinese temples, burial grounds and secret societies were
also organized along pang lines. The first modern Chinese schools founded
in Singapore during the 1900s were financed by various pang for the chil-
dren of their members. Until well into the 1910s, these schools used pang
dialects as teaching media. It should be pointed out that the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1906, was basically an inter-
pang organization with its office-bearers being elected along pang lines.
Thus pang was practically everything, everywhere and very much alive in
pre-war Singapore. While it should be recognized that the institutionaliza-
tion of pang had brought pang unity and solidarity, there is little doubt that
it also had bred inter-pang rivalry, mistrust and conflicts over pang power
and leadership. Here lay some of the defects of the pang community.
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FROM PANG TO COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP 131
TABLE 5.1
Chinese Population of Singapore by Pang, 1881–1947
Pang
Year Hokkien Cantonese Teochew Hainanese Hakka Others
1881 24,981 14,853 22,644 8,319 6,170

% 28.9 17.0 26.0 9.5 7.0 11.6
1901 59,117 30,729 27,564 9,451 8,514
% 35.4 18.7 16.8 6.0 5.0 18.1
1911 91,549 48,739 37,507 10,775 12,487
% 47.0 23.0 17.8 5.1 5.9 1.2
1921 136,823 78,959 53,428 14,547 14,293
% 43.0 24.0 17.0 4.7 4.6 6.7
1931 180,108 94,742 82,405 19,896 19,317
% 43.0 22.5 19.7 4.7 4.6 5.5
1947 312,413 157,980 157,188 52,192 40,326
% 42.8 21.6 21.5 7.1 5.5 1.5
Sources: Various census reports relating to Singapore, 1881–1947.
One other fact of life concerning the pang is their size. Traditionally
and historically, the Hokkien pang in Singapore had always been the larg-
est single pang in terms of numbers, followed by the Cantonese, Teochew,
Hainanese and Hakka, as shown in Table 5.1.
The size of a pang within a pang-conscious community had some posi-
tive bearing on the power and influence of each pang and its leaders. It
goes without saying that the larger the pang, the more extensive its power
and consequentially the more influential its leaders. Larger pang definitely
enjoyed more favourable advantages than smaller ones. Firstly, they had a
wider choice of people as their pang leaders. Secondly, more human and
material resources could be tapped for pang interests and solidarity.
Thirdly, bigger pang allowed larger representation in community
affairs. This helps to explain why the Hokkien pang historically dominated
such major community institutions as the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce.
The size of each pang becomes more imposing when it is enhanced by
the economic strength of each pang. The Hokkiens constituted the most
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132 TAN KAH-KEE
powerful, resourceful, dynamic and wealthy pang in the Chinese commu-

nity. They formed the main bulk of the merchant-capitalist class, and had
been the cream of the Chinese business community since 1819. This has
been readily confirmed and recognized by both scholars3 and census col-
lectors4. In colonial Singapore, Hokkiens from the Changchou and
Ch’uanchou prefectures excelled in trade and commerce. They were
importers–exporters, manufacturers, industrial entrepreneurs (for exam-
ple, rubber milling and processing, coconut-oil pressing, pineapple pack-
ing, rice milling, confectionery, soap making, etc.), shippers, shipbuilders,
bankers, financiers, insurance company proprietors, rubber dealers and
planters. They had more than a lion’s share of Singapore’s economic cake.
It is not surprising that these Southern Hokkiens should have acquired
trading and commerical expertise and success, because their forefathers in
Fukien had been prominent traders, shippers and merchants trading with
Arabs, Portuguese, Spaniards, and South-East Asians from the eleventh
century onwards.5 Hundreds of years of mercantile tradition gave them an
edge over their counterparts from other pang in business dealings and
operation. Although it is true that the Northern Hokkiens — the Foochews,
Hokchias and Hinghuas — did have their own trading traditions in China,
the main bulk of them in Singapore, belonged to the working class. They
were often found as rickshaw pullers, barbers, proprietors of small eating
houses (namely, cafés and restaurants) and sundry goods storekeepers,
Leadership of a pang depended on the resources and resourcefulness of
individuals. It would seem that five major factors were critical: (a) wealth;
(b) ability; (c) a sense of philanthropy towards pang interests; (d) willing-
ness to sacrifice some time for pang members and activities, and (e) posi-
tions held in various pang organizations at various levels, such as the
village, district, prefecture and province.
In theory, one did not have to be a pang leader before becoming a com-
munity leader. In practice, however, it was difficult for an aspirant com-
munity leadership to succeed without having possessed a substantial pang
power base, as the Chinese community in the pre-war years was domi-
nated by pang. When, then, did a pang leader become a community
leader? The criterion was that he worked for the interests of the whole
Chinese community or led the community for common good. In the eyes
of the Chinese, this person was a community leader, who had cast his lines
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of operation beyond the barriers of pang. Secondly, if the aspirant went on

to hold a substantial position in such an organization as the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, then he was automatically taken for
granted as a community leader. All positions in the pang or community
organizations have been recognized as prestigious throughout the history
of the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. Many position-holders were
personalities in their times, and men of character and public-spirit. Some
had left their mark in history, but a great many remained minor figures,
playing a supporting role in society, whose images steadily had become
more and more blurred as time went by.
Tan Kah-kee’s rise to pang and community leadership was hard won,
for he had to fulfil all those five conditions mentioned above before reach-
ing the top of the pang and community ladders. He did not wait until he
was a millionaire or multi-millionaire before embarking on pang or com-
munity work. He did it when he could, through donations to charity and
educational institutions as well as by holding positions in pang and com-
munity organizations. His first pang involvement took place in 1907, three
years after he had started his own business career, when he became a
founding member of the Tao Nan School in Singapore. By 1911 he had
become its president and chief patron and continued in office intermit-
tently until 1929 when the Hokkien Huay Kuan, then under his leadership,
took over its financial burdens. Being closely associated with Tao Nan,
essentially a pang school, Tan Kah-kee intimately worked with his pang
leaders in maintaining the school and expanding its building projects.
During the 1910s he used the school board as one of his key institutional
bases for promoting Chinese education. His use of the position of presi-
dent of the school for rallying the Chinese in Singapore to found the
Chinese High School in 1918 is a case in point.
His second major pang operation was political in nature. This was the
Hokkien Protection Fund, lasting over a period of nine months between
November 1911 and August 1912. This fund-raising campaign was a
direct response to the declaration of independence by Fukien in the wake
of the Double-tenth Revolution of 1911. The military government of
Fukien, which had made the declaration, badly needed funds for maintain-
ing law and order, hence the founding of the Hokkien Protection Fund in
Singapore on 13 November 1911. On that day over 1,000 Hokkiens
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134 TAN KAH-KEE
congregated at the Thean Hock Keong (Temple) at Telok Ayer Street for a
meeting, presided over by Tan Boo-liat (1875–1934), then the Hokkien
pang leader, about setting up the fund. In the midst of great excitement at
the downfall of the Manchu regime, Tan Kah-kee, at the age of thirty-
seven was elected president of the fund, along with nineteen other office-
bearers. Although Tan Kah-kee had become a millionaire in 1911, he was
neither the richest, nor the most senior and powerful member of the pang
available to lead such a political movement. The fact that he was popularly
chosen said volumes about his leadership qualities and his rising popularity.
The campaign netted $120,000,6 and consolidated his position and pres-
tige as a formidable pang leader.
Tan Kah-kee’s social status as a pang leader rose enormously as a result
of his education promotion drives in both Singapore and Fukien, culmi-
nating in the founding of the Amoy University in 1921. By then, he was
not only a philanthropic pang leader, but fast becoming a national figure
in intellectual circles. His financing of the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy
University acquired for him the singular status of being the only Chinese
in the history of modern China to have accomplished such a feat.
By the time Tan Kah-kee returned to Singapore from his retirement in
1922, he was highly respected by his peers among the Hokkien pang
leaders and by the rest of the Chinese community. He consolidated his
rising status and reputation by convening a meeting among Hokkiens in
Singapore to discuss the disastrous effects of the planting of opium pop-
pies in southern Fukien. This meeting, held in October 1922, was attended
by over a hundred concerned Hokkiens to hear him speak on the situation
of poppy planting in their homeland and to decide what action the Hokkien
pang in Singapore could take to stamp it out. In his speech Tan Kah-kee
revealed that he had organized a society for banning poppy planting while
in Amoy and that he and a couple of anti-opium campaigners had even
gone to Foochow, the provincial capital, to lobby the governor, but without
success.7 After a lively debate, a resolution was passed that a cable,
expressing their opposition to poppy planting in southern Fukien be sent
to three important politicians in Fukien, the National Chinese Chamber of
Commerce in Shanghai, the Anti-Opium Society in Foochow, and the
World Anti-Opium Society in Europe.8 This meeting and the actions that
followed enhanced Tan Kah-kee’s reputation as a compassionate pang
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leader concerned with the welfare of his countrymen at home. They also
showed that Tan Kah-kee was a strong leader who had the courage of his
convictions in taking the matter right up to the highest circles and by seek-
ing to remedy the situation. It was an impressive performance on his part
for pang causes and interests.
Tan Kah-kee’s enormous economic power, charitable and educational
endeavours and rising social status paved the way for his assumption of
pang leadership in 1929. Although it took him two years to achieve the
pre-eminent position of Hokkien pang leader, it is debatable whether his
move in 1927 was originally intended as a means of capturing the leader-
ship from See Tiong-wah. See was the grandson of one of the most promi-
nent Hokkiens in the nineteenth century, See Hoot-kah, who was a large
real estate owner in the Straits Settlements.
The highest body of the Hokkien pang in Singapore today, as in the
past, is the Hokkien Huay Kuan, a name adopted in 1929. Between 1840
and 1916, it was called the Thean Hock Keong. Between 1916 and 1929,
it was known as the Thean Hock Keong Hokkien Huay Kuan. Up to 1937
this highest Hokkien pang organization was a society exempted from reg-
istration by the Registrar of Societies. By being such a society, Thean
Hock Keong enjoyed such privileges as exemption from lodging an
annual return of names and addresses of its office-bearers to the Registrar
of Societies. Thean Hock Keong was one of the oldest Hokkien pang
organizations which looked after such pang interests as burial grounds,
the settlement of disputes among pang members, fund-raising for victims
of natural disasters in China, the trusteeship of pang assets and properties,
the organization of a religious festival once every three years and, in the
twentieth century, the promotion of education. It was a social as much as
a welfare society. As such, it was an influential pressure group when it
came to defending or extending pang interests vis-à-vis the British author-
ities or other rival pang.
The history of the Thean Hock Keong, and later, the Hokkien Huay
Kuan, is interesting in more ways than one. Although it was never prop-
erly and democratically organized until 1929, it was often blessed with
sound, forceful, influential and successful leadership. It was disorganized
in that membership was never sought, registers of membership were never
kept, elections rarely held, annual accounts seldom properly drawn up and
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136 TAN KAH-KEE
audited, and meetings irregularly called. Paradoxically, its top leaders

from the beginning such as Tan Tock-seng (1798–1850), Tan Kim-seng
(1805–64), Tan Kim-ching (1829–92), Khoo Cheng-tiong (1820–96),
Chua Mien-kuay (1836–1903), Tan Boo-liat, and See Tiong-wah were all
able to maintain considerable pang unity and cohesion without being pre-
occupied with leadership challenges and personality clashes. Tan Kim-
ching, a son of Tan Tock-seng, ruled the Hokkien pang for over thirty
years until his death. He was a great rice merchant and a towering leader
in nineteenth century Singapore, being knighted by the Siamese king,
Chulalongkorn, and appointed as the Siamese consul in Singapore. In
1888, the Emperor of Japan conferred the Order of the Rising Sun, Third
Class, on him for courtesy and kindness in entertaining Prince Komatsu
on his visit to Singapore.9 With ability, wealth and fame, Tan Kim-ching
provided effective service and leadership to his pang. His grandson, Tan
Boo-liat, at the age of twenty-two was elected in 1897 to the pang leader-
ship and went on to provide enlightened and honest service to the Hokkien
pang until 1916. Tan Boo-liat, a Straits-born Hokkien, was sympathetic to
socio-political change in both Singapore and China. He was credited with
persuading the Hokkien pang to establish the Tao Nan School, and with
supporting Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary cause by joining the Singapore
branch of the Tung Meng Hui (the United League), founded in 1906. In
1912, when the Tung Meng Hui was transformed into a political party, the
Kuomintang, he was popularly elected vice-president of this organization,
while Lim Boon-keng became its president. Tan Boo-liat became a close
friend of Sun Yat-sen and many Kuomintang leaders in China.10
With Tan Boo-liat’s departure for China in 1916, See Tiong-wah suc-
ceeded him as pang leader and held it until 1929. See was a comprador of
the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Singapore, having
followed in his father’s footsteps. Although Straits-born and English-
educated, he was closely associated with the immigrant Chinese commu-
nity, being president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
twice (1919–20 and 1923–4). During his thirteen-year leadership, not
much in the way of achievement had been recorded or could be boasted.
However, See should be credited with settling feuds between the Hokchia
and Hinghua rickshaw pullers.11 In 1924, See Tiong-wah led the pang in
raising a sum of $20,000 towards relieving victims of military disturbances
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
in T’ung An district.12 His pang leadership seemed secure enough until

1927 when concerned Hokkien members, headed by Tan Kah-kee, began
an attempt to reform and reorganize the hitherto disorganized Hokkien
Huay Kuan.
What prompted Tan Kah-kee to do this? What seems to have triggered
off this reformist mood on the part of Tan Kah-kee, then president and
treasurer of the Tao Nan School, and See Boo-ih, then president and treas-
urer of the Ai Tong School, was the general apathy of financial patrons of
both these schools towards their management. Both Tan Kah-kee and See
Boo-ih had failed to get the respective office-bearers of the school boards
for the year 1927/28 elected by financial patrons for lack of a quorum. So
both decided to take the matter to the Hokkien people by advertising it in
the Nanyang Siang Pau of 18 June 1927. The advertisement pointed out
the damaging apathy of the patrons and appealed to concerned Hokkien
people to attend a public meeting at the Hokkien Huay Kuan premises on
25 June to discuss solutions, including the possibility of amalgamating the
two school boards. On the day when the meeting was held, a mere twelve
people attended, much to the disappointment of Tan Kah-kee. However, at
the meeting someone suggested that the Hokkien Huay Kuan should be
empowered to exert a central control over all Hokkien pang schools as it
had an annual income of over $10,000.13 This was a welcome suggestion
because it would solve the chronic problem of having to find office-
bearers for each of the school boards each year. It is not clear whether Tan
Kah-kee had himself made the suggestion. What is amply clear now is that
Tan Kah-kee was encouraged to advertise in the Nanyang Siang Pau again
to convene a second public meeting to discuss the future of these two
schools.14 This time the meeting was to be held on 16 July, in the hope that
more would attend. At this second public meeting, attendance did improve
and the discussion was lively, constructive and action-motivated. See
Tiong-wah’s conspicuous absence was damaging to his pang leadership as
the meeting was on the management of pang schools. With Tan Kah-kee
presiding over its proceedings, three important resolutions were passed.
Firstly, all Hokkien pang schools in Singapore should be brought under
the control of the Hokkien Huay Kuan and be subsidized through its
financial resources. Further, a committee of twelve members should be
established to reform the Hokkien Huay Kuan and to look into solving
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
138 TAN KAH-KEE
some of the educational problems of the pang schools. Lastly, a question-

naire was to be drawn up to survey the state of pang schools in Singapore
with a view to providing financial subsidies.15 By then, it was clear that
this committee was empowered to reform not only pang schools but the
Hokkien Huay Kuan itself, its leadership structure and its accountability.
The tough mission of the committee soon caused it to come into conflict
with the pang leader, See Tiong-wah. The conflict became a clash of per-
sonality between See and Tan Kah-kee who was in the forefront of social
and community reforms.
Although it was the seemingly insignificant schools issue which trig-
gered the need for social reform within the Hokkien pang, it was Tan Kah-
kee who provided leadership to keep the issue going and to stir up pang
consciousness for reforming the Hokkien Huay Kuan. It was clear to all
socially-conscious Hokkiens in Singapore that the organization of the
Hokkien pang had become inadequate and antiquated. There was an urgent
need to change it for the better, in an era of rapid political change in China.
The personality and leadership clashes between See and Tan were
inevitable as See was slow to see the need to change the Hokkien Huay
Kuan and the Hokkien pang. In response to Tan Kah-kee’s challenge to
his leadership, See was reported to have gone so far as to write a letter to
the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, accusing Tan Kah-kee of being a ‘sub-
versive’ element.16 Tan Kah-kee was not amused and retaliated by casti-
gating him as a ‘comprador’. Worse still, Tan Kah-kee whipped up a
campaign by saying that a ‘comprador’ was unfit to lead the Hokkien
pang. As compradors normally worked for foreign concerns, it was easy
to impress on the Chinese that there might be a divided loyalty when the
crunch came. In any case, it was a technique effectively employed by Tan
Kah-kee in the conflict. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs, A. M. Goodman,
knew both men well. However, it was Sng Choon-yee, Goodman’s right-
hand man in the Chinese Secretariat, who sided with Tan Kah-kee and
finally sealed the fate of See Tiong-wah as the loser. Sng was socially and
personally closer to Tan and his support for Tan Kah-kee’s leadership was
because of Tan’s progressive outlook.17 Sng’s support for Tan Kah-kee
was consistent with what he had done in Penang during the 1920s when
he had actively supported such ‘progressive’ leaders as Lim Lian-tean in
the latter’s quest for community leadership.18
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
A basic factor in demanding the reform of the Hokkien Huay Kuan lay
in the disorganization of the institution itself. Being a person who greatly
admired organization, Tan Kah-kee found it abhorrent to witness all the
defects of the top pang organization mentioned earlier. He regarded the
‘degeneration’ of the Hokkien Huay Kuan as the most important motive
for reorganizing it and for assuming its leadership.19
The process of reorganizing the Hokkien Huay Kuan was slow, to say
the least. With its office at Tan Kah-kee’s Ee Ho Hean Club, the twelve-
man committee negotiated, on numerous occasions, with See Tiong-wah,
concerning membership, financial assets and resources, and the election
of office-bearers. It was eventually discovered that the pang organization
had no membership list, hence the impossibility of holding elections for
office-bearers.20 Thus, the first task for the committee was to recruit and
register new members and to raise funds for the reorganized body. All
Hokkiens living in Singapore, who had a proper profession and who had
paid a sum of five dollars or more as subscription fee, were eligible for
permanent membership.21 Needless to say, all members were eligible for
election. The fund-raising campaign and membership drive went on for a
good part of 1928. However, the Shantung crisis, arising from military
clashes between Chiang Kai-shek’s armies and the Japanese in the course
of the unification of China, erupted in May 1928. Tan Kah-kee had to
temporarily shelve his reformist efforts as he concentrated on a new fund-
raising drive for the relief of civilian war victims in Shantung. He led the
Shantung Relief Fund for nine months until January 1929, thus setting
back the timetable for restructuring the Hokkien Huay Kuan. But by
February 1929 elections were duly held to provide a forty-member body
of office-bearers with ten reserves who were to decide on the allocation of
positions. In March 1929 these forty successful candidates met for the first
time to elect themselves into two committees: an executive of five mem-
bers, and supervisory, also of five members, with five departments: gen-
eral affairs (eight members), education (seven members), economics (five
members), construction (five members) and welfare (five members).22 As
it was a historic occasion for the Hokkien pang, it is worth providing a full
list of this forty-member power structure, as shown in Table 5.2.
This was the original list. However, there were some changes in posi-
tions during 1929–30. When Dr Ho Pao-jin left for Malacca to take up a
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
140 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 5.2
Office-bearers of the Hokkien Huay Kuan, 192923
Chairman Members
Executive Tan Kah-kee Lee Choon-eng, Chia

Committee Thian-hock, Chiang
Hsi-pu, Tan Hi-soo
Supervisory Lee Chin-tian Ong Sean-say, Yeo
Committee Tiong-swee, Liong
Sau-san, Tay Sek-tin
General Affairs Hau Say-huan Chew Hean-swee, Ong
Department Kiat-soo, Ng Ban-soo,
Chua Toh-wah, Tang
Siong-phua, Lim
Kai-ching, Ang Poh-sit
Education Dr Ho Pao-jin Lim Kian-pang, Tan
Department Ban-ann, Lim Keng-lian,
Chow Chong-lin, Lim
Pang-gan, Chng
Phee-tang
Economics Chua Kah-cheong Yap Geok-twee, Lim
Department Bok-kee, Chua
Han-leong, Lee
Kong-chian
Construction Tan Eng-guan Tan Ching-kiat, Siaw
Department Chee-Iai, Chng
Phee-nam, Kwek
Koh-chieh
Welfare Dr Hu Tsai-kuen Wee Cho-hsian, Ho
Department Yen-pen, Ang Shun-yi,
Koh Kiat-seng
senior position as manager of the Malacca branch of the Ho Hong Bank

Limited, Lim Keng-lian succeeded him as chairman of the education
department. Yap Geok-twee replaced Chua Kah-cheong as chairman of
the economics department when the latter resigned.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
There were many urgent tasks ahead for all office-bearers. Suffice it to
say here that Tan Kah-kee headed the executive committee which super-
vised all other departmental affairs. Importantly he was the first China-
born to become president of the Hokkien Huay Kuan and was henceforth
annually returned as its pang leader until he left for China in May 1949.
Between 1929 and 1950, the Hokkien Huay Kuan became his most impor-
tant pang base, although it was only one of his power bases.
An analysis of the 1929 power structure of the Hokkien Huay Kuan
will show that they were all liberal and progressive leaders, and that the
old and the young members were evenly matched in terms of numbers and
power-sharing. While the older leaders controlled key positions in the
executive and supervisory committees as well as the general affairs
department, younger leaders like Dr Ho Pao-jin, Lim Keng-lian, Yap
Geok-twee, Tan Eng-guan and Dr Hu Tsai-kuen shared much power in
decision-making for their respective departments. Many of the members
of the education, economics and welfare departments were rising com-
munity leaders, wealthy bankers, businessmen and intellectuals. Many
among them were bilingual and more exposed to Western capitalism and
culture. Some were prominent Kuomintang leaders, including Lee Chin-
tian, Chew Hean-swee, Lee Choon-eng, Dr Ho Pao-jin, Ong Kiat-soo,
Lim Keng-lian and Hau Say-huan. The cream of the Hokkien pang in
Singapore was concentrated in the Hokkien Huay Kuan under Tan Kah-
kee’s leadership.
With the battle for leadership over, Tan Kah-kee and his supporters
embarked on reforming the Hokkien pang and created a strong sense of
pang pride, solidarity, and unity among the Hokkiens in Singapore. The
Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan became a powerful, cohesive and tightly-
knit body. It was a vibrant pressure group. In terms of size, it had a mem-
bership of over 1,000 in 1935.24
In terms of concrete and tangible achievements, there were many. The
education department, for example, centralized the control, planning and
finance of eight primary schools affiliated to the Hokkien Huay Kuan. The
construction department carried out extensive campaigns against out-
moded social customs and habits as well as traditional funeral rites, such
as exposing corpses for weeks before burial. In the post-war years, this
department was credited with the purchase of a 900-acre estate in Jurong,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
142 TAN KAH-KEE
later to become the site of Nanyang University, the first Chinese language
university outside China. The economics department propagated ideas of
economic expansion and investment in enterprises, while the general
affairs department gradually built up financial resources through the
recruitment of new members. Arguably, the Singapore Hokkien Huay
Kuan was the best run and most effective in its time in catering for the
needs of the Hokkien pang. Hokkien immigrants in Singapore and Malaya
came to respect and revere Tan Kah-kee’s organizational and mobiliza-
tional skills. By the time the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the
Hokkien pang was so solidly behind his leadership that it was ready to
contribute to China’s war effort against Japan.
The period when the Hokkien Huay Kuan was under Tan Kah-kee’s
leadership was one of massive socio-political changes within the Chinese
community in Singapore and Malaya as well as in China. The days when
this pang, loosely organized, could saunter along as a vaguely benign
institution had come to an end. Its role as a pang institution with which
the Hokkiens could merely identify was no longer adequate for the times.
In short, it had by 1929 lost its raison d’etre. Its reorganization and resur-
gence was precisely to cater to new needs and new visions of what the
Hokkien pang could and should do. The vital resources of the Hokkiens
such as money and manpower, organizational and intellectual talents,
were mobilized for socio-political action. In time this mobilization not
only served the Hokkien pang but also promoted Tan kah-kee to the politi-
cal leadership of the Chinese in Singapore and the rest of South-East Asia.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than in the case of the Singapore China
Relief Fund (1937–41) which was under his leadership and was finan-
cially and organizationally supported by the whole Hokkien community.
The Singapore China Relief Fund was one of many successful socio-
political campaigns Tan Kah-kee conducted. To a very large extent his
successes were due to his command of the largest pang — the Hokkien
Huay Kuan. It might have gone against his principles to exploit such a
powerful base. Nevertheless it was both a convenient and an irresistible
bastion from which he could fulfil his larger design of exercising purpose-
ful leadership of the Chinese in Singapore. Others in the community,
especially the putative leaders of the Kuomintang and communist forces,
did not necessarily share his vision or endorse his drive. But lacking Tan
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Kah-kee’s pang base and organization behind them there was precious
little they could do to counter him. When his position was finally endorsed
by the British authorities — in what appeared to be a continuation of the
policy of supporting the leader of the largest pang — Tan Kah-kee had
captured the leadership of the Chinese in Singapore.25 Behind the British
decision to allow him the privilege of leading the buoyant Chinese com-
munity in political action lay a plausible but largely simplified rationale —
that a pang organization was less likely to threaten the colonial power than
a party organization and that a pang-based community leader was less
likely to damage the colonial regime than a mass-based party leader.
One final major contribution by the Hokkien Huay Kuan to the Chinese
community in Singapore generally and to the Hokkien pang in particular
lay in two crucial areas. In the first place, its power structure was broadly
and democratically based, thereby allowing more Hokkiens to participate
in their pang affairs. In other words, the structure of the Hokkien Huay
Kuan permitted talented Hokkiens to rise to positions of leadership, thus
giving them an avenue of social mobility. In the second place, the reorgan-
ized Hokkien Huay Kuan served as a training ground for many future
leaders. Some served their apprenticeships there before branching out into
the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce to make even larger contri-
butions. Leading examples were Lee Kong-chian and Tan Lark-sye who
had been office-bearers of the Hokkien Huay Kuan before going on to
become presidents of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce in
the 1930s and 1940s.
During the latter part of the 1930s, the Hokkien Huay Kuan became
involved in the politics of Fukien. In 1938, for example, the Fukien pro-
vincial government attempted to sell bonds worth $1 million (Chinese
currency) to the Hokkiens in Singapore and Malaya. Those in Singapore
were expected to purchase 40 percent of the total. In response to the
request, Tan Kah-kee agreed to form an organization for selling the bonds
on the grounds that all Hokkiens should help in the defence of their prov-
ince and in the work of reconstruction.26 The response of the Hokkien
people in Singapore was positive.
In 1941, after the return of Tan Kah-kee from a nine-month comfort
mission to China, he launched a vigorous pang campaign to lobby and
pressurize Chiang Kai-shek to remove the ‘corrupt’ provincial governor of
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144 TAN KAH-KEE
Fukien, Ch’en Yi. With the support of the Hokkien Huay Kuan hierarchy,
Tan Kah-kee organized a convention in Singapore for Hokkien people in
South-East Asia. Over some three months the Hokkien Huay Kuan sent
invitations to various pang associations and individuals throughout the
region to attend a three day convention, commencing on 1 April 1941, The
objective of this convention was twofold. First, Tan Kah-kee wanted to
expose the misgovernment of Ch’en Yi in Fukien and to use overseas
Hokkien opinion and pressure to effect his removal. Second, he aimed at
founding a Nanyang Hokkien General Association as a permanent organi-
zation and pressure group to unite the Hokkiens in South-East Asia and to
help their homeland in times of need. Tan Kah-kee, on this occasion, suc-
ceeded on both counts. Pressure was brought to bear on Chiang Kai-shek
to remove Ch’en Yi, and the founding of the General Association in April
1941 marked another milestone in Tan Kah-kee’s path to power and lead-
ership, since he was unanimously elected president of the new association.
Thus, it can be said that Tan Kah-kee was the only Hokkien in South-East
Asia ever to represent the Hokkien interests in the whole area as their
pang leader. Attended by 318 Hokkien delegates representing some 112
Hokkien organizations in various parts of South-East Asia from the
Philippines to Malaya, and from Vietnam to the Dutch East Indies, the
convention marked a high point for Tan Kah-kee as a pang leader.
However, the Hokkien General Association as a pan-South-East Asian
pang organization was shortlived, because it was never revived after the
Japanese defeat in 1945.
Beyond the scope of pang activities, Tan Kah-kee was not un-receptive to
modern institutions, including the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce, the Tung Meng Hui, the Sin Chew Reading Room, the Straits
Confucian Association, the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association
and the Ee Ho Hean Club. He participated in them, if he did not lead them.
These formed some of his larger community networks and power bases
which deserve fuller consideration in the context of Tan Kah-kee’s commu-
nity and political leadership.
Tan Kah-kee was a founding member of the Singapore Chinese Chamber
of Commerce in 1906, having paid a $12 subscription fee as a member.27
The Chamber was well organized and supported by a membership
of 2,425 in 1906,28 then the biggest Chinese association of its kind in
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
South-East Asia. Members were largely but not exclusively from

Singapore; quite a few were from Penang, Malacca, the Malay States,
Sarawak, Borneo, Siam, and the Dutch East Indies.29 From its inception,
the Chamber was an inter-pang organization, and not a true or democratic
community organization. This was because membership, both individual
and corporate, was recruited along pang lines and the same applied to the
election of office-bearers of the Chamber. Out of a total of fifty-two
office-bearers in each election between 1906 and 1914, the Hokkien pang
was allocated 21 members while the Cantonese, Teochew, Hainanese and
Hakka jointly shared the remaining thirty-one positions. The Hokkien
pang office-bearers were elected by Hokkien pang members in the
Chamber and so were the rest of the non-Hokkien pang office-bearers.
More importantly, the 1906 constitution of the Chamber stipulated that the
office of president of the Chamber was to be rotated with each election
between the Hokkien and non-Hokkien pang in the Chamber. Without
exception, this convention had been practised since 1906. Between 1915
and the immediate post-war years, the number of office-bearers of the
Chamber was reduced from fifty-two to thirty-two, with the Hokkien pang
being allocated thirteen seats, while the non-Hokkien members had nine-
teen. While the 1915 reform may have improved the efficiency of the
Chamber with a greatly reduced number of office-bearers it, nevertheless,
restricted opportunities for social mobility among the members of the
Chamber. As an inter-pang body with office-bearers from divergent and
rival pang working together, the Chamber did provide a semblance of
unity and cohesion in the Chinese community of Singapore.
Tan Kah-kee’s more intimate relationships with the Chamber began in
1910 when he was elected to office for the first time by the Hokkien mem-
bers. In 1911, 1913 and 1914, he continued to be one of the twenty-one
office-bearers from the Hokkien pang, having polled well on each occa-
sion. In 1910, he polled 86 votes, taking the eighteenth position out of the
twenty-one Hokkien office-bearers. In 1911, he polled 135 votes, the
second highest vote among them. In 1913, he had 70 votes, taking elev-
enth placing. However, this was no disgrace to him as he was still in his
home village, Chi Mei, when the election took place. In 1914, his vote had
dropped back to 51, and he remained the same placing as in 1913.30
Between 1910 and 1914, Tan Kah-kee’s popularity was somewhat
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146 TAN KAH-KEE
overshadowed by other Hokkien leaders in the Chamber, including

Teo Sian-keng (1855–1916), a wealthy commission agent, who was presi-
dent of the Chamber in 1910 and its vice-president in 1911, and Lim
Peng-siang, a shipping magnate and industrialist, who was the Chamber’s
president in 1913 and vice-president in 1914.
Also between 1912 and 1914 there arose a rival Chamber in Singapore,
called the Chinese Merchants General Chamber of Commerce, or the New
Chamber. It was founded by the Tung Meng Hui and Kuomintang members
in Singapore, headed by Sim Chu-kim (1866–1915), Khoo Kok-wah
(1872–1932), Tan Siang-ching, Teo Eng-hock (1871–1958), Tan Ean-
khiam, Ong Kim-lien, Yap Tua-pow and a host of others.31 Tan Kah-kee was
on friendly terms with the leadership of the New Chamber, having been a
Tung Meng Hui member since 1910. He was sympathetic to their political
cause. However, it is doubtful whether he approved of its divisiveness and
partisanship. He remained a member and office-bearer of the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce, much to the displeasure of his political
friends. After the collapse of the New Chamber in 1914, many of its mem-
bers eventually joined the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and
did well in it during the 1920s and 1930s.32 The rise and fall of the New
Chamber was one of the many results of the 1911 Chinese Revolution.
Although Tan Kah-kee was no longer an office-bearer of the Chamber
after 1915, he was more than active as a member in 1916 and 1917. He was
instrumental in getting the Chamber to call an extraordinary meeting to
discuss a proposed Income Tax Bill, being debated at the Legislative
Council which would affect the well-being of the Chinese community.
At the extraordinary meeting, Tan Kah-kee, although he did not oppose the
concept of income tax per se, proposed an increased shop premises tax as a
substitute on the grounds that it was simple, feasible and manageable.33 Out
of 184 members who attended this meeting, 181 were persuaded by his
view and voted for his proposal which was subsequently submitted by the
Chamber to the government. Despite opposition to the original bill by the
Chamber, the Legislative Council passed it in 1917 as a wartime measure
for raising revenue for the British war effort. In 1917, Tan Kah-kee led the
Tientsin Flood Relief Fund, set up by the Chamber, for collecting funds to
relieve flood victims in North China. This was a truly community affair as
fund-raising reached down to all classes and all walks of life.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
In 1924 the Chamber’s elections saw Tan Kah-kee poll the highest vote
(72) among the Hokkien candidates in the Chamber.34 He could have car-
ried on to become the vice-president of the Chamber had he so wished.
However, it was not to be, for he withdrew from being an office-bearer of
the Chamber, thus depriving himself of a golden chance of being elected
by his peers to the leadership. Regrettably, available historical records do
not throw any light on the reasons for his withdrawal.
What was even more abrupt and verged on the incredible was his 1929
attempt to reform the Chamber, and at the same time found an even larger
Chinese association for the whole Chinese community. What brought
about his reformist mood during January and February 1929 was a com-
bination of factors and circumstances favourable for social change. The
unification of China had been consummated and Chiang Kai-shek was at
the helm; there was general exuberance in the Chinese community about
the revival of China as an independent and viable state. The enormous
response of the Chinese, particularly those in Singapore, to the Shantung
Relief Fund, added to the aura and mood for change. Tan Kah-kee’s own
pang organization, the Hokkien Huay Kuan, was being reformed with he
himself assured of becoming president of the reorganized body. So, at the
end of the meeting on 28 January 1929 to complete the nine month cam-
paign for the Shantung relief, Tan Kah-kee was entrusted to call a public
meeting at some stage to discuss the possibility of founding a Chinese
association for the whole Chinese population to undertake social, charita-
ble, educational and cultural works, without undue interference from the
Chinese Secretariat.
Obviously Tan Kah-kee had given a great deal of thought to reforming
the Chinese community in Singapore towards the end of the Shantung
Relief Fund campaign. On 4 February 1929 he published an article in the
Nanyang Siang Pau, entitled ‘A Proposal to Form a Chinese Association
and to Reform the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce,’ spelling
out the reasons and the need for both. It was a substantial document,
meant for publicity and for drumming up public support. His rationale for
both was persuasive, interesting and high-minded. The reasons for reform-
ing the Chamber were that many of the successful Hokkien and Teochew
candidates for office of the Chamber for the 1929–1930 term had resigned,
thus creating a crisis in the filling of Chamber positions by these two
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
148 TAN KAH-KEE
pang. He did not, however, provide reasons as to why these successful can-
didates had resigned. It was quite possible that they had resigned because
the Chamber, then under the conservative leadership of Lee Wee-nam, was
slow to recognize the unification of China under Kuomintang rule.
In other words, the Chamber was far too slow in rendering moral and
material support for the Kuomintang government in China. Secondly, Tan
Kah-kee argued that the Chamber did not have a proper constitution. What
the Chamber did have was the provisional constitution drafted in 1906 and
this provisional constitution was years out of date. Its council system, with
president and vice-president rotated between Hokkien and non-Hokkien
pang and with the rest of the thirty members as councillors without port-
folio, was philosophically not in tune with the committee system adopted
by the Kuomintang government. In Tan Kah-kee’s view, the committee
system would be more efficient in that the Chambers’s office-bearers
could be assigned to various and specific committees which were answer-
able to the Chamber. Thirdly he criticized the Chamber as a pang-ridden,
parochial and ‘feudal’ organization which hampered talented men from
assuming leadership. This was a harsh, but justifiable criticism in that the
election of office-bearers along pang lines, the rotation of leadership
between the pang and the inability of talented members from smaller
pang, the Hainanese and the Hakka, for example, to become president due
to lack of numbers, all ran against the democratic principle of a modern
society. In other words, Tan Kah-kee regarded all members of the
Chamber as Chinese nationals, regardless of their pang origins. He
thought that the best candidates should be allowed to run for office and be
elected to top positions without pang constraints being imposed on them.
Therefore, should Tan Kah-kee have his way, he would have made the
Chamber a truly democratic body, with the best men in the Chinese com-
munity available for the top jobs. Tan Kah-kee was the first Chinese in
Singapore to advocate the abolition of pang in the elections to the
Chamber. His view on this was revolutionary and way ahead of his con-
temporaries. Thus, he urged the Chamber to convene public meetings for
drafting and adopting a new and proper constitution; and that having been
done, new elections could be held to carry out other needed reforms.35
It is appropriate at this point to discuss his rationale for founding a
Chinese Association to represent the interests of the whole Chinese
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population in Singapore. In the same article published in the Nanyang

Siang Pau dated 4 February 1929, Tan Kah-kee argued that the Chinese
had established clan, pang, professional and community organizations in
Singapore but without a general and central body to unite them. The
Chinese Chamber of Commerce largely represented the interests of the
mercantile sector of the community, which limited it as the central body.
The birth of a central organization, such as the Chinese Association,
would bring about unity among the Chinese. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee
envisaged that the Chinese Association would incorporate various public
amenities and facilities such as a public library, a gymnasium, an audito-
rium, swimming-pools, and a wedding hall. As the Chinese Association
was to be a huge complex, it could also house the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce.36 Having expressed his own views about the inad-
equacies of the various existing organizations and the desirability of a
central body in the Nanyang Siang Pau of 4 February 1929, Tan Kah-kee
went on to convene a public meeting the next day at the Ee Ho Hean Club.
At the Ee Ho Hean meeting, attended by ninety-one people consisting
of his supporters, together with four representatives from a women’s asso-
ciation and three newspaper reporters, Tan Kah-kee chaired the session and
gave a well-prepared and lengthy speech. On the need to found the Chinese
Association, he again stressed that the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce could not and did not represent the interests of workers, stu-
dents and teachers, medical practitioners and agriculturalists. Moreover, he
made a pointed remark that the Chinese in other cities in South-East Asia
did have similar Chinese associations, while Singapore’s large Chinese
population was found wanting. More importantly, Tan Kah-kee added that
the Chinese Association could help China’s industrial enterprises, charity
and education, thus weighing in important socio-political considera-
tions.37 On reforming the Chamber, however, no new arguments were
added by Tan Kah-kee. Towards the end of the meeting two resolutions
were passed: one to present a petition to the Chamber, appealing to it to
accept six suggestions for reforms. These included among others the abo-
lition of the council system and the adoption of a committee system, the
drafting and adoption of a new constitution and the holding of a new elec-
tion.38 The second resolution was to set up a thirty-five-man committee for
dealing with matters pertaining to Tan Kah-kee’s twin proposal. A quick
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150 TAN KAH-KEE
screening of the leadership composition of the committee reveals that

most of them were members of the Ee Ho Mean Club and the Hokkien
Huay Kuan, with a sprinkling of leaders from other pang. Most of them
had worked with Tan Kah-kee in the Shantung Relief Fund and were
therefore his supporters. Again, the office for this committee was located
at the Ee Ho Hean, Tan Kah-kee’s club house.
It was a daunting and time-consuming task for Tan Kah-kee to reform
the Chinese community in three directions all at the same time. The reor-
ganization of the Hokkien Huay Kuan was under way and successful. The
reform of the Chamber took more time and, in the end, was only partially
successful. The Chamber received a petition signed by fifteen persons,
headed by Tan Kah-kee, requesting it to consider the six proposals men-
tioned earlier. There was some discussion at the Chamber on 13 February
1929, with the chairman Lee Wee-nam showing no signs of conceding
ground to Tan Kah-kee. According to Lee, he had sought lawyers’ opinion
to the effect that, if the Chamber was united, it had the right to make a
proper decision and to resist pressure.39 Finally it was decided that a three-
man committee should be set up which consisted of Lee Wee-nam, See
Boo-ih (the Chamber’s vice-president), and Chua Toh-wah (a Hokkien
member) to draft a tactful reply to the fifteen petitioners with a view to
placating Tan Kah-kee. The actual content of the committee’s reply to
Tan Kah-kee is not known; what is known now is that despite strong agita-
tion on the part of Tan Kah-kee and his supporters, the Chamber refused
to adopt the committee system of management, during the term of office
of Lee Wee-nam (1929–30).40 The Chamber’s intransigent stand on
reform prompted the Kuomintang and pro-Kuomintang members of the
Chamber to capture its leadership in the election of 1931–2 office-bearers,
with Lee Choon-seng (1888–1966), a Hokkien merchant of some standing
and a pro-Kuomintang member, being elected president, to replace Lee
Wee-nam. There was considerable conflict between the incoming commit-
tee and the outgoing one from the start. The new committee refused to
take up office unless the Chamber was prepared to abandon the old form
of ceremony of assumption of office — the lighting of three joss sticks
before an altar. Instead, it insisted on adopting the Kuomintang form of
ceremony — making three bows before the portrait of Dr Sun Yat-sen,
reading Dr Sun’s will, and observing a three minute silence. At first, the
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outgoing committee refused to accept this new proposal and refused there-
fore to surrender office. However, after a prolonged discussion, the two
rival committees reached an agreement by which the old committee was
to give up their office in the old form of ceremony while the new commit-
tee was sworn in with the performance of the new rituals.41 The perfor-
mance of these two ceremonies was held an hour apart on the morning of
6 March 1931.
The whole saga smacked of a community coming to terms with chang-
ing environment, times and mood. The ‘wind of change’ was sweeping
over China and Overseas Chinese communities could not stand immune
to it. What is interesting in this episode is that perhaps for the first time
since 1914 there was an explicit element of nationalist Chinese politics
involved. No longer could the Chamber continue to serve its own narrow
interests and make occasional overtures to China’s problems. Men like
Tan Kah-kee were reading the writing on the wall and they sought to act
on them. Their ascendancy was to spell profound changes for the Chinese
in Singapore and the institutions that represented them. It was a watershed
in the history of the Chamber, and a sign that a new era had come.
Tan Kah-kee was to emerge as the man of the hour, only to discover — not
without something of his own doing — that he had launched himself on
the path to greatness. Chinese politics and even chauvinistic patriotism
were no longer peripheral or marginal factors. Henceforth they animated
community life as much as the traditional concerns of local security,
social welfare and economic interest. Though they served as catalysts for
change and even unity of purpose, in time they also divided the commu-
nity as the conflicts and vicissitudes in China flowed on to the shores of
Singapore and Malaya.
Clearly these matters were not restricted to the élites of the Chinese com-
munity in Singapore. The success of the new guard led by Lee Choon-seng
and others within the Chamber reflected changing community attitudes and
perceptions. These in turn were influenced and moulded by the energies,
initiatives and visions of people like Tan Kah-kee, who was among the first
to press for change.
The Kuomintang influence in the Chamber leadership was at first
strong and unconcealed. At the first meeting of the new committee on
10 March 1931, it adopted two resolutions: (a) to accept the proposal
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152 TAN KAH-KEE
made by the Chinese Consul in Singapore to reorganize the Chamber in

accordance with the provisions of the KMT law regulating chambers of
commerce, and (b) to hold a mass meeting to discuss the advisability of
requesting the local government to declare a public holiday on 10 October
in place of the second day of the old Chinese New Year holidays.42
Enthusiasm for the Kuomintang in China must have been curbed by the
local British authorities, for the Chinese Secretariat was able to report in
September 1932 that the Chamber was largely controlled by Chinese busi-
ness interests represented by Hokkien and Teochew firms and attempts
made by the local Kuomintang party to secure control of it had failed.43
Did the 1931 leadership of the Chamber carry out the reforms sug-
gested by Tan Kah-kee in 1929? They did make an attempt to adopt the
committee system in March 1931 but due probably to British opposition,
the Chinese Secretariat in September 1932 was able to report that ‘it has
never remodelled its constitution on the Committee system laid down in
China for the organisation of Chambers of Commerce’.44 So, Tan Kah-kee
was to remain a disappointed man with his major proposals for reforming
the Chamber largely unfulfilled until the post-war years.
Tan Kah-kee’s campaign for founding the Chinese Association was
hectic and relentless. He had the backing of 77 Chinese organizations in
Singapore for his idea.45 The proceedings for its foundation were logical.
First, he established a five member subcommittee to draft a constitution
for the new association, with himself as chairman. Second, he called a
public rally on 9 March 1929 at the Chamber, attended by 126 members,
to get his idea accepted. At this meeting, some opposition from the
Teochew pang surfaced. At the end of the meeting, a committee for found-
ing the Chinese Association was formed. Third, this committee of the
Chinese Association met on 14 March to appoint him, Lee Kong-chian
and Chin Kee-sun (a prominent Cantonese leader) to meet the Secretary
for Chinese Affairs, A. M. Goodman, for the registration of the new asso-
ciation. According to Dr Ho Pao-jin, Goodman, after having been lobbied
by some Teochew leaders, declined to approve its registration.46 It was
quite possible that the British believed Tan Kah-kee possessed far too
much power and influence in the Chinese community, for good or bad.
Thus, the British refusal to have the new association registered ended the
saga of founding the Chinese Association for the time being. However, it
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did not stop Tan Kah-kee from championing it, as he was to do ten years
later. In 1939, Tan Kah-kee proposed that the new Chinese Assembly Hall
be erected on the padang of the Singapore Chinese Recreation Club to
bring the Straits-born Chinese into closer contact with the China-born. In
his view, the Assembly Hall should have accommodation for 1,000 per-
sons and the Chinese Consulate should be housed in it, together with a
public library. He was optimistic that the building of the hall would be
completed in twenty-one months in time for the celebration of China’s
final victory over Japan.47 It remained a pious hope for him as the hall and
the victory were not forthcoming.
In 1933, in recognition of his seniority as a member of the Chamber
and his social position in the community, Tan Kah-kee was nominated as
one of the six senior members to sit on the Chamber’s special committee.48
As a member of this committee, Tan Kah-kee was allowed to participate
in the process of decision-making within the Chamber for a year.
In 1939, Tan Kah-kee, outside the Chamber, wielded considerable influ-
ence in the outcome of the election results of the Chamber for 1939–40.
He called a meeting of Hokkien leaders in Singapore to support Lee
Kong-chian, instead of Lim Keng-lian, as the candidate for the president
of the Chamber. His campaign was accepted and supported by the
Hokkien members of the Chamber and saw Lee Kong-chian on his way to
the presidency.49 It was after Lee Kong-chian had been installed as presi-
dent that Tan Kah-kee revived the concept of a Chinese Assembly Hall,
similar to that of the Chinese Association a decade earlier.
Tan Kah-kee’s successful promotion of Lee Kong-chian to the presi-
dency of the Chamber, a position of considerable social prestige and influ-
ence, begs the intriguing question of why he himself never occupied it.
There were numerous opportunities for him to do so for three decades
after 1910. Given his views and reformist zeal he could have done much
to promote the Chamber and its contributions to community life. For
whatever reasons he appeared never to have been tempted by the position.
One could argue that it would have been easier for him to effect constitu-
tional and administrative change from within the Chamber with his
impressive personality and the force of his arguments, his organizational
ability and subtle manipulation of kinship, patron–client and pang rela-
tionships as a patriarch. He was highly critical of the pang structure of the
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154 TAN KAH-KEE
Chamber and made no bones about how parochial and undemocratic he

found its 1906 constitution. In spite of his valid criticisms there is still no
reason why he should not have reached the top of its hierarchy.
One contemporary view had it that Tan Kah-kee refused to become the
Chamber’s president on two grounds: (a) his disapproval of elections of
the Chamber along pang lines, and (b) his ideas of social change being far
too advanced and progressive to be acceptable to his peers within the
Chamber.50 This comment must remain speculative as it seems to prejudge
the acceptability of Tan Kah-kee’s leadership and ideas by his peers. It
seems one must look elsewhere for an explanation.
An area which might throw some new light on the question is the nature
of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce itself. As it was an inter-
pang organization with thirteen office-bearers provided by the Hokkien
pang and nineteen from the other five non-Hokkien pang, it suited a leader
who had a good command of dialects, and the time and patience to
achieve consensus and compromise. This did not suit the free-flowing
leadership style of Tan Kah-kee who had neither time nor patience.
Moreover, he had no command of dialects other than the Hokkien.
Thirdly, the Chamber as a non-political and non-educational body would
impose tremendous constraints on any leader who was bent on promoting
the social, economic, educational and political well-being of China. As a
leader irrevocably involved in China politics such as the Shantung Relief
Fund, Tan Kah-kee inevitably ruled himself out of the race for the presi-
dency of the Chamber. In other words, the Chamber was an unsuitable
organization for mobilizing the Chinese people in Singapore to play China
politics, to support China’s national aspirations and to promote socio-
political movements locally.
It is undeniable that Tan Kah-kee had considerable influence, and many
friends, supporters and admirers in the Chamber. However, it would be an
exaggeration to say that the Chamber was his major power base. Not being
an office-bearer of the Chamber after 1915, it was harder for him to build
any durable and meaningful friendship with many of the non-Hokkien
pang members and leaders within the Chamber,
Tan Kah-kee was a member of the Singapore branch of the Tung Meng
Hui which he joined in 1910. In his own autobiography, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu,
he wrote with delight that in that year he clipped off his pigtail and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
severed his relationship with the Manchu regime for the last time.
Although not an office-bearer in the Tung Meng Hui, he befriended many
of the more radical and progressive Chinese in Singapore, including Teo
Eng-hock, Lim Nee-soon and Tan Chor-nam, among others. As a member
of the Tung Meng Hui, Tan Kah-kee met Dr Sun Yat-sen and admired him
greatly.
As well as membership of the Tung Meng Hui, Tan Kah-kee also joined
the Hokkien-dominated Sin Chew Reading Room, founded in 1901.51
This and various other reading rooms in Singapore were front organiza-
tions of the Tung Meng Hui which provided revolutionary reading materi-
als to members, organized public meetings for propagating revolutionary
ideology, and recruited members for the Tung Meng Hui. There is no
record to document when Tan Kah-kee joined it; suffice it to say here that
Tan Kah-kee was one of its twenty-three office-bearers in 1912, holding a
position as one of the five members of its welfare department.52 He was
again returned as one of the eighty-one office-bearers in 1913, although he
was away from Singapore during the year.53 In 1914, when the numbers of
office-bearers of the reading room were reduced to forty-five, Tan Kah-kee
was still among them.54 However, from 1915 until 1941, the reading room
was on the decline as a political force and as Tan Kah-kee’s name no
longer appeared on its lists of office-bearers, it is assumed that he severed
his association with it after 1915.
When the Tung Meng Hui was transformed into a legitimate political
party, the Kuomintang, in 1912 in Singapore, Tan Kah-kee did not join it.55
It has remained a puzzle why he dissociated himself from the Kuomintang,
a rising and buoyant political force during 1912–13, with many of his
friends among its prominent leaders. On two occasions Tan Kah-kee took
the trouble to explain why he did not join the Kuomintang, or any other
political party for that matter. On the first occasion, he explained, ‘I could
not lead others and so I do not want to be led by others.’56 In other words,
what he meant was that he did not have sufficient supporters for him to
lead. On the second occasion, in 1947, when asked by a group of journal-
ists from Shanghai, then visiting Singapore and interviewing him, he
elaborated by saying ‘since the establishment of the Chinese Republic,
I never joined any political parties; this was so because the organization of
political parties must need mass support, and must have leaders. I thought
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
156 TAN KAH-KEE
to myself that as I could not lead others, I should not be led by others.’57
Were his utterances mere excuses or was there some truth in them?
The explanations provided by Tan Kah-kee were, to say the least, baf-
fling. One could construe that they reflected a strange mixture of arro-
gance and modesty. It was possible that he took the view that there was no
point in joining a political party unless he could lead it. Such a possibility
did not readily present itself in 1912, for example. At the same time there
was modesty because he personally believed he was not capable of pro-
viding leadership to others. There was some truth in his statements, but
certainly not the whole truth. Tan Kah-kee was neither a founding member
of the Tung Meng Hui nor the Sin Chew Reading Room. He joined both
as a protest against the Manchu regime for all the sins it had committed:
incompetent leadership, political corruption, economic bankruptcy, social
dislocation, submission to foreign aggression, and sinking international
status. By the time he joined the Tung Meng Hui in 1910, this semi-secret
organization had become better established with its leadership well
entrenched in the hands of some of the founders, including Teo Eng-hock,
Lim Nee-soon and Tan Chor-nam. He was certainly not the most senior
member, nor was he the most wealthy and influential. It is rather doubtful
whether Tan Kah-kee would have been elected among the top leaders had
he been in Singapore during the July 1913 elections of the Kuomintang.
He had left for China in September 1912 to visit Chi Mei for a year, during
which time the Kuomintang in Singapore was registered as a legitimate
political party by the British in December 1912 and became politically
active throughout 1913.58 This was an enormous organization with over
2,000 card-carrying members. They elected 124 office-bearers for office
in July 1913, with three honorary presidents (Tan Chay-yan, Teo Eng-
hock and Wu Chin-sheng), one president (Lim Boon-keng), and two vice-
presidents (Tan Boo-liat and Lim Nee-soon), plus numerous other
positions.59 If its various front organizations (namely reading rooms) and
its commercial arm (the Chinese Merchants General Chamber of
Commerce) were added to its power base, the Kuomintang forces in
Singapore were formidable indeed. It was capable of challenging the lead-
ership of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, then in the hands
of anti-Kuomintang forces. In response to the hectic organizational activi-
ties of the Kuomintang, the anti-Kuomintang forces within the Chamber
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
also founded their own political arm, the Singapore Branch Lodge of the
Kung Ho Tang of the Republic of China (or the Republican Party, for
short) in March 1913, to render moral, financial and ideological support
to the Republican Party in China, a rival of the Kuomintang. In the midst
of this political and ideological polarization within the Chinese commu-
nity in Singapore in 1913, Tan Kah-kee returned from Chi Mei. Numerous
overtures were made by both rival parties for him to join. He was in a no
win situation as he had friends and colleagues in both camps. Although he
was ideologically and politically more attuned to the Kuomintang, he
would have been in an invidious position as an office-bearer of the
Chamber had he joined it. In the end, he decided not to join either, giving
himself more room for manoeuvre as a non-partisan man.
In 1914, the Kuomintang forces in Singapore were on the decline due
to pressure being brought to bear by the Chinese Protectorate. The pro-
scription of the Kuomintang in China in 1913 by President Yuan Shih-k’ai
weakened the morale of party members in Singapore. In August 1914, the
Singapore branch of the Kuomintang dissolved itself, paving the way for
the birth of a new but illegal political organization, the Chinese
Revolutionary Party. As this new party could not openly mobilize the
Chinese in Singapore for political purposes, the political honeymoon of
the Kuomintang forces in Singapore and Malaya was over. In the 1920s
the fortunes of the Kuomintang forces were revived on two occasions, the
first being in the wake of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the second
the unification of China by Chiang Kai-shek in 1928. However, their for-
tunes were transient as their branches were banned by Sir Laurence
Guillemard in 1925 and again by Sir Cecil Clementi in 1930. Between
1925 and 1930 such repressive measures as deportation and imprisonment
were at times applied to the Kuomintang activists as deterrents. As penal-
ties for committing political crimes were severe, the life of many of party
activists was invariably made difficult, if not intolerable.
During the 1920s until the Shantung Relief Fund in 1928, the
Kuomintang members in Singapore were hostile to Tan Kah-kee, regard-
ing him as a ‘leader of the counter-revolutionaries’.60 He was accused of
being ‘an adherent of Wu Pei-fu [a central Chinese warlord] and Chen
Chin-min [a southern Chinese warlord], and is not in sympathy with
Dr Sun and the Tang comrades’.61 Moreover, he was castigated as a
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158 TAN KAH-KEE
political opportunist who had seized the occasion afforded by the Tsinan
Incident to ‘vindicate’ himself and become the president of the Shantung
Relief Fund.62 There is no firm evidence to show that Tan Kah-kee was
politically active before the Shantung Relief Fund. However, one episode
which could be construed as being anti-Kuomintang was his sacking of
the editor-in-chief of his Nanyang Siang Pau in November 1923 for
attacking the warlord-dominated Peking government. He sacked him on
the ground that the editor-in-chief deviated from the established non-
partisan policy of his paper. But his leadership of the Shantung Relief
Fund in 1928 silenced those Kuomintang critics who saw him as an
anti-Kuomintang counter-revolutionary.
Between 1928 and 1940 the propriety of Tan Kah-kee’s relationships
with local Kuomintang leaders and China’s Kuomintang hierarchy could
not be faulted. In 1930, for example, Hu Han-min (1879–1936), a promi-
nent Kuomintang right-winger in China, wrote to Teh Lay-seng, a
Malayan Kuomintang leader then living in Singapore, suggesting that ‘if
only you could get Tan Kah-kee to register as a tang member, he would be
most welcome’.63 Teh knew Tan Kah-kee well enough and he might well
have tried, but failed. In 1940, on a comfort mission to China, Tan Kah-
kee was put on the spot by the Minister for Organization of the Kuomintang
government at Chungking, and asked to join the Kuomintang. Tan Kah-
kee was subtle and tactful enough to explain that it was of no consequence
whether a man was a party member or not, provided he served his country
and society well.64 This was Kuomintang’s last attempt to enrol him as a
member. The breakdown of relationships between Tan Kah-kee and the
Kuomintang in China after 1940 is an interesting but complex topic,
which will be discussed in subsequent chapters.
After the Shantung Relief Fund in 1928, Tan Kah-kee had become a
socio-political force as a non-partisan political leader. By then he had real-
ized that there was no need to be affiliated to any political party in
Singapore or Malaya to promote and lead a socio-political movement. He
was well aware of the advantages of not being involved in organized party
politics as the British had adopted, since 1925, a policy to check the
spread of ‘subversive’ propaganda and ‘to prevent the formation of any
political societies the existence of which in Malaya might lead to local
disorder’.65 Had Tan Kah-kee been a Kuomintang or communist leader in
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Singapore, he would have been prevented by the British from leading the
Shantung Relief Fund in 1928. As a non-partisan Chinese nationalist,
Tan Kah-kee was well suited to lead a united front of all political colours,
shades and interests for the salvation of China during the 1930s. And he
did it in great style and with immense gusto.
Having been educated in Confucian classics when young, Tan Kah-kee
was, to a great degree, exposed to the Confucian ethical system and ideol-
ogy. This is borne out by the fact that he became involved in promoting
Confucian values as an office-bearer of the Straits Confucian Association
in 1927. The Straits Confucian Association was formed at the turn of the
century but was not officially exempted from registration under the
Societies Ordinance of 1889 until 1914.66 By then it had over 200 mem-
bers, most of whom were prominent merchants and pang leaders of the
Chinese community.67 It should be noted that the Confucian movement in
Singapore during the 1900s was led by leaders of the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce.68 Evidence to illustrate a close relationship
between the association and the Chamber was that in 1914 the address of
the association was 47, Hill Street, which was also the premises of the
Chamber. Although the Straits Confucian Association continued to exist
right up to the eve of the Japanese invasion of Singapore, it had become a
declining cultural force since the 1920s. Hence, it would be fair to say that
the Straits Confucian Association was only a marginal institutional power
base for Tan Kah-kee.
One other more important institutional power base of Tan Kah-kee was
the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association, founded in 1919 by
rubber dealers largely from the Hokkien pang. Although the Rubber
Dealers’ Association logically belonged to the category of modern institu-
tions, it is fair to say that it was also a pang organization due largely to the
fact that the Hokkien pang in Singapore dominated the rubber trade and
industry as well as the association itself up to present times.
When the association was registered under the Societies Ordinance on 31
May 1919, it had a membership of about fifty, each of whom paid an annual
subscription fee of $5.69 It is unclear, however, what role Tan Kah-kee
played in the foundation of this association as he had departed for China
at the time that the British authorities gave official blessing to it. It should
be noted here that Khiam Aik & Co., Tan Kah-kee’s rubber firm, was
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160 TAN KAH-KEE
elected as a corporate office-bearer of the association in 1924 and that it

was one of the five largest rubber traders among the Chinese in Singapore
during the 1920s.70 As rubber prices rose steadily during the 1920s, more
people entered the trade. By 1928, there were at least 261 rubber trading
firms recorded,71 and out of these 104 could be identified as members of
the association in 1928.72 Apart from the term of office in 1924, there is
no evidence to indicate that Tan Kah-kee took an active part in the man-
agement of the association which, before 1941, was invariably under the
control of a handful of his trusted friends, relatives and fellow provincials,
including Hau Say-huan, Lee Chin-tian, Tan Ean-khiam, Lee Choon-eng,
Chew Hean-swee, Chia Thian-hock, Chng Phee-nam, Chiang Hsi-pu, Lee
Kong-chian, Tan Lark-sye and Tan Boon-khak. From 1937 onwards, his
former employees, Tan Lark-sye and Tan Boon-khak, and his son-in-law,
Lee Kong-chian, completely dominated the affairs and leadership of the
association.73
Patron–client relationship could well have existed between Tan Kah-
kee and his fellow provincials and clansmen who controlled the associa-
tion. The association supported Tan Kah-kee’s leadership in the Shantung
Relief Fund by raising from its members a sum of $200,000, or 18 percent
of the total funds raised from the Chinese in Singapore during the nine-
month fund-raising campaign in 1928 and 1929.74 During the vigorous
campaign of the Tan Kah-kee-led Singapore China Relief Fund between
1937 and 1941, the association again made a grand effort by raising a
staggering sum of $1.29 million for the relief of war victims arising from
the Sino-Japanese War,75 These huge financial contributions made by
members of the association in response to Tan Kah-kee’s campaigns on
these two occasions, indicated the usefulness of the association as an insti-
tutional base to Tan Kah-kee. Although Tan Kah-kee was not in control of
the leadership of the association, it could still be regarded as one of his
power bases because his clansmen and fellow pang members firmly con-
trolled it.
Nevertheless, some of the leaders of the Singapore Chinese Rubber
Dealers’ Association were also his closest comrades-in-arms and staunchest
supporters for his socio-political cause; these included Hau Say-huan,
Chew Hean-swee and Lee Chin-tian (1875–1965). Politically, these three
persons happened to be prominent local Kuomintang leaders, Tan Kah-kee
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greatly respected their integrity and relied on them for their unselfish con-
tributions to his own political campaigns and to the mobilization of the
Chinese in Singapore for China relief. All these three persons were also
Hokkien Huay Kuan activists and Ee Ho Hean Club members.
During the 1920s Tan Kah-kee was the biggest rubber miller in
Singapore. However, when the idea of founding a rubber millers’ associa-
tion was floated in January 1925 by five of his rivals, including Aik Ho &
Company, owned by Tan Lark-sye and Tan Boon-khak, Tan Kah-kee
declined to be associated with the idea and refused to join it.76 The
Singapore Rubber Millers’ Association was registered on 10 November
1926 without Tan Kah-kee & Company participating.77 In 1928, this asso-
ciation had eight members. The association seemed to have survived the
debilitating world economic depression and prospered during the 1930s.
By the end of the Great Depression, it was reported that there were ten
Chinese rubber millers in Singapore, headed by the Lee Rubber &
Company and Aik Ho Company, which manufactured over 20,000 piculs
of rubber sheets per day.78 Although Tan Kah-kee never joined the associa-
tion, there is no doubt that most of its members were either his former
employees or his clansmen, or fellow provincials who happened, in this
instance, to be his commercial rivals.
Unlike his father, Tan Kee-peck, who was a staunch supporter of his
own Tan clan temple, Po Chiak Keng, Tan Kah-kee never showed much
interest in it. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee did not seem to have made any
attempt to convert it into one of his institutional and power bases. Instead,
some of his clansmen, such as Tan Ean-khiam and Tan Boon-khak, for
example, featured prominently as its leaders during the 1920s and 1930s.
When the Po Chiak Keng was established in 1879, it was exclusively a
Hokkien temple, built with funds donated by the Tan clans from Fukien.
By the 1920s, the Po Chiak Keng had expanded to include clansmen from
other dialect groups as members. Being an inter-clan organization, it was
a useful institutional and power base for any pang or community leader.
Tan Kah-kee could well have been a member of his district association,
the T’ung An Association, founded in 1929 by many other T’ung An lead-
ers in Singapore, including Tan Ean-khiam, Lim Kim-tian (1879–1944)
and Ang Keng-aw. This organization was basically concerned about the
welfare of the T’ung An folk in both Singapore and in T’ung An home
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162 TAN KAH-KEE
district. During the 1980s, under the able leadership of Soon Peng-yam,
the T’ung An Association had multi-storey premises, a sign of prosperity,
financial success and social respectability. In the 1930s and 1940s, the
T’ung An Association, under the leadership of his fellow district mem-
bers, persistently supported Tan Kah-kee’s socio-political cause because
of his patriarchal standing within the T’ung An community in Singapore.
One of the modern institutions which Tan Kah-kee utilized more than
most was the Ee Ho Hean Club. This legendary millionaire’s club was
exempted from registration on 10 October 1895,79 but became a registered
society on 4 May 1932.80 Admittedly not the oldest social club in
Singapore,81 it enjoyed a reputation for being politically involved in
Chinese affairs. Today it is still one of the most respectable social clubs for
Chinese businessmen in Singapore.
The history of the Ee Ho Hean Club may conveniently be divided into
three phases according to the location of the club premises. The first phase
began in 1895 and ended around 1910, during which its premises were in
Duxton Road.82 A second phase began with the clubhouse being shifted to
38, Club Street in 1910, and ended in February 1925 when it was moved
to the present premises at 43, Bukit Pasoh Road.83 The third phase began
with the founding of the Bukit Pasoh Road premises and takes us up until
today.
It is uncertain who founded the Ee Ho Hean Club. The one and only
version as provided by Tan Kah-kee himself refers to Lim Nee-soon and
seven other Chinese as its founding fathers.84 It is doubtful whether Lim
Nee-soon was one of the eight founders in 1895 as he would then be merely
sixteen years old. The other seven Chinese could have included some
prominent Hokkien personalities of the 1890s, such as Lee Cheng-yen
(1844–1913), a rich rice merchant and commission agent, and father of
Lee Choon-guan; Lim Ho-puah (1841–1913), a successful businessman
and a director of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Co., and father of Lim Peng-
siang, a shipping magnate; Gan Eng-seng (1844–99), a labour contractor,
landowner, philanthropist, and founder of the Gan Eng Seng Free School;
Tan Jiak-kim (1859–1917), a son of Tan Kim-seng, a prominent member
of the Legislative Council and a popular, charitable but conservative
British subject who was opposed to the idea of establishing schools for
girls in the colony and condemned the cutting of queues before the 1911
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Chinese Revolution;85 and Lim Boon-keng, who had already become an

outstanding public figure after his return from his studies in Edinburgh in
1893. When the Ee Ho Hean was founded, its members consisted mostly
of prominent Hokkien pang merchants in Singapore.86
Unfortunately the first phase of the club’s history is virtually undocu-
mented. It is not known who exactly were its leaders and what activities
were conducted. Suffice it to say here that the Ee Ho Hean Club was basi-
cally and overwhelmingly a Hokkien pang club, with younger but promi-
nent Hokkien leaders joining it during the 1900s. Among them were Tan
Boo-liat, the Hokkien pang leader, Lim Chwee-chian (1868–1923), the
‘Tungsten King’ of Malaya, and a man with shipping, mining and planta-
tion interests,87 and Tan Kah-kee.
The second phase of the club’s history at Club Street is better docu-
mented, although various gaps remain to be filled. It is clear that Lim
Chwee-chian became its president and remained so until his death in
1923. In 1917, Tan Kah-kee was elected vice-president of the club to
assist Lim in club affairs.88 It is quite possible that Tan Kah-kee had
become its vice-president previously, but there is no evidence to prove
this. Because of a dearth of information on its office-bearers and mem-
bers, it is not possible yet to analyse the leadership and membership of the
club. However, a copy of a revised 1924 club constitution does throw
much interesting light on membership, elections, office-bearers, meetings,
financial sources, banquets, celebrations, library, objectives, and sundry
matters.89
The 1924 constitution stipulated that membership of the club was con-
fined to Chinese, although reputable non-Chinese could be accepted as
special members. Any Chinese who had a proper profession and was
recommended by two members could join the club. Once accepted as a
member, he would need to pay a lump sum of $100 as joining fee, plus an
annual membership fee of between $36 and $120, to be paid quarterly.
Members were eligible for election, held annually. Twelve office-bearers
were elected each year. However, special clauses put a limit to the dura-
tion of the term of office of the president, vice-president and treasurer.
Neither the president nor vice-president would be eligible for re-election
to the same positions after a consecutive three-year stint, while the treas-
urer was not eligible for re-election after one year.
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164 TAN KAH-KEE
Members enjoyed various other privileges, including the use of the club
premises for parties, banquets, and celebrations of births, and the use of
the club library. It is an interesting social commentary that members were
advised not to invite prostitutes as companions when attending banquets
in the club in the company of European guests. It was felt necessary to
preserve Chinese national prestige and dignity.
Finally, any member, deemed by the office-bearers to be guilty of mis-
conduct, or to have contracted such complaints as tuberculosis, leprosy or
mental illness, or to have been convicted, could be expelled from the club.
The insertion in the constitution of this clause was because these would
bring the club into disrepute.
The objectives as stated in the 1924 constitution were not dissimilar to
those of other clubs in Singapore. The club’s main functions were social
and recreational. Surprisingly, the 1924 constitution also emphasized the
importance of reforming Chinese customs and habits, a rather serious and
ambitious objective. In the constitution, such forms of gambling as poker
and fan-tan were banned. As mahjong was not included on the banned list,
it can be presumed that it was allowed. Judging from the sixteen clauses
embodying the 1924 constitution, the Ee Ho Hean was not meant to be a
political club. However, when it became involved in China politics and
affairs after the Shantung Relief Fund, it often came into conflict with the
The Ee Ho Hean Club was a three-storey building, with the ground
floor serving as a reception area and dining room, the first floor primarily
for the English-educated and Straits-born members, and the second floor
for the China-born and Chinese-educated members. There was consider-
able social inter-mixing among them, on each floor and at dinners. As
members were largely from the Hokkien pang, both the Chinese-educated
and English-educated members often had to make themselves mutually
intelligible by speaking in Hokkien dialect.
There were many social activities at the Club Street premises. These
consisted of a set weekend banquet, hosted by a different member weekly,
for all members and their spouses. Guests were also invited. The cost of
hosting such a banquet was considerable, although it was an one-off affair
for a year or two before one’s turn came up again. During week nights,
members could book the dining hall for private functions, parties or
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dinners, as the occasion arose. The club president, Lim Chwee-chian, used
to celebrate his birthday on the Chinese New Year Day each year by
engaging a theatrical troupe to perform Chinese operas for two weeks.90
He was so popular and respected among members that all called him
‘Elder Brother’ as a sign of reverence. These operas were performed in
front of the clubhouse as a public function which often caused consider-
able traffic jams at both ends of Club Street. Other members at times
hosted such street operas on the occasions of weddings, births, the open-
ing of new business firms, or the buying of new houses, thereby adding
much glamour to the already famous millionaire’s establishment.
Tan Kah-kee gave credit to the Ee Ho Hean Club and its members for
starting and promoting some of the China-oriented socio-political move-
ments in Singapore in the wake of the downfall of the Manchu regime in
1911. He was correct when he said that the club engineered the Hokkien
Protection Fund in November 1911.91 An analysis of the twenty office-
bearers of this Fund confirms that twelve of them were indeed club mem-
bers, headed by Tan Kah-kee (president), Tan Siang-ching (treasurer), and
Lim Peng-siang (vice-treasurer).92
It should be noted that many of the key members of the Ee Ho Hean
Club happened also to be members of the Tung Meng Hui (1906–11) and
the Kuomintang (1912–14). In the eyes of the Chinese Protectorate and of
politically-conscious Chinese at the time, the club was leaning towards
Chinese nationalism generally and to Dr Sun Yat-sen’s political cause in
particular. It remained suspect as a pro-Kuomintang and nationalist social
club during the years after 1911. Between 1915 and 1927 when the
Kuomintang forces in China and Malaya were at a low ebb, the club and
its members were generally reticent in their support for them. It was not
until May 1928 when the Shantung Relief Fund was under way that the
Ee Ho Hean Club came into the limelight again.
In the third phase of the Ee Ho Hean history commencing in 1925, Tan
Kah-kee had already been its president for two years. It was during his
term of office, in 1924, that the new constitution was drawn up. Tan Kah-
kee went on to be its chief spokesman until 1947 when his clansman, Tan
Lark-sye took over its leadership. His attachment to the club was such that
from 1937 it was practically his home; he lived, dined, slept and worked
there.
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166 TAN KAH-KEE
His contribution to the welfare of members was considerable, ranging

from the adoption of the 1924 constitution, improved amenities and facili-
ties (for example, setting up a library), the imposition of new rules of
conduct (for example, the banning of opium smoking, and punctual
attendance at the weekly banquet on Saturday) to increased consciousness
of hygiene standards (for example, the use of common spoons for serving
food from communal plates and bowls when dining).93 More importantly,
Tan Kah-kee personally encouraged leaders from other pang to join his
club,94 making it a more truly inter-pang organization. He had a good eye
for talent and personally recruited some capable young members, includ-
ing Sng Choon-yee, Ng Aik-huan and Soon Peng-yam, to name a few. By
admitting leaders from other pang as members, Tan Kah-kee extended his
influence over other pang leaders for a common cause or action. Prior to
1928, the Ee Ho Hean Club had already been known as a nerve centre for
Chinese nationalism. It was known to be a den for ch’ang-lung wo-hu
(dragons and tigers), meaning talented leaders, who were capable of doing
extraordinary things. Tan Kah-kee relentlessly kept up the revolutionary
and reformist tradition by making it the headquarters of all his major
socio-political campaigns for funds for national salvation between 1928
and 1941. He did it by involving leaders from other pang in the cam-
paigns. Serving as a planning, contact and action centre, the Ee Ho Hean
Club was to become a formidable socio-political focus where members,
who were merchant-capitalists and recognized pang and clan leaders,
pooled their resources and took action for a common cause. It was indeed
a power house because each individual member not only had substantial
financial status, resources and social influence on his own, but also exten-
sive organizational networks and personal following. It was on this basis
that the club became the power base of Tan Kah-kee and an institution of
historical significance in the Chinese community of Singapore.
With solid backing from its members, Tan Kah-kee was able to launch
such mass movements as the Shantung Relief Fund (1928) and the
Singapore China Relief Fund (1937–41). An examination of their respec-
tive power structures will reveal that club members were well entrenched
in them. For example, out of the thirty-two committee members of the
Shantung Relief Fund, half were club members. More importantly, these
members held key positions, such as president, vice-president and
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treasurer.95 For the Singapore China Relief Fund, the picture was similar
with the Ee Ho Hean contributing fifteen to its thirty-one member com-
mittee.96 Again, its president, Tan Kah-kee, and treasurer, Lee Chin-tian,
were club members. Besides leadership, the club also contributed a sub-
stantial share of the organizational and mobilizationai techniques neces-
sary for fund-raising purposes.
The British monitored the play of Chinese nationalism in Singapore
and Malaya closely and viewed, with increasing apprehension and con-
sternation, the role played by both Tan Kah-kee and the Ee Ho Hean Club.
While the British reaction to Tan Kah-kee will be analysed in the next
chapter, it is fitting here to elaborate on how and why the British eventu-
ally decided to make the club responsible for its actions and answerable
to the British authorities in Singapore.
There were at least three major events which prompted the British to
do something about the club. The first was that its premises were used for
nine months in 1928–9 to whip up a political campaign for Shantung
relief. Goodman, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, then on leave (from
the end of February to 17 November 1928) was aghast at what he found
on his return. He promptly put pressure on Tan Kah-kee to wind up the
campaign while Tan Kah-kee, tactfully and evasively, provided ‘excusa-
ble’ grounds for delaying it,97 much to Goodman’s displeasure. Both Tan
Kah-kee and Goodman were well aware that the fund was not a registered
organization. For that matter, nor was the Ee Ho Hean Club, the head-
quarters of the fund, a registered political club, legally permitted to carry
out a fund-raising campaign of a nationalistic nature for a prolonged
period. What alarmed and irked Goodman more was the ‘illegal’ use of
the Shantung Relief Fund in May 1929 to convene a meeting to welcome
Madam Ts’ai Kung-shih at the Ee Ho Hean Club.98 Madam Ts’ai’s hus-
band had been a bizarre victim of the Tsinan Incident a year before, hav-
ing lost his life for China at the hands of the Japanese. Her visit to
Singapore was to collect funds for the founding of a secondary school in
Nanking to commemorate her husband’s death. As the meeting arranged
for 9 May at the Ee Ho Hean Club drew closer, tension at the Chinese
Secretariat grew. Goodman had intended to send in police officers to
monitor the function and to record speeches made but was dissuaded by
Sng Choon-yee on the grounds that his action would make the situation
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168 TAN KAH-KEE
more explosive. A compromise measure was reached with Sng going to

the Ee Ho Hean Club to gather data for a report to Goodman. Sng duly
arrived at his own club but did not personally attend the meeting to wel-
come Madam Ts’ai, held on the second floor. While on the ground floor,
information on the proceedings was relayed to him by Hau Say-huan as
arranged. There was some commotion upstairs when Madam Ts’ai made
her speech. Luckily, there was no violence. At the meeting chaired by Tan
Kah-kee, a resolution was carried to dispose of the remains of the
Shantung Relief Fund, amounting to $80,000, as a donation for the estab-
lishment of the Kung-shih School. In addition, another $80,000 was to be
raised in Singapore as a maintenance fund for the school.” Sng duly
reported back to Goodman and the ‘incident’ thus ended without compli-
cations for the time being. What Sng Choon-yee did not know, and there-
fore did not report, was that the $80,000 donation to the proposed school
was a sum which came from the so-called rubber surtax, an ‘illegal’ tax
raised by the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association during the
course of the Shantung Relief Fund campaign. Later on, in 1931, when
Tan Kah-kee and Lim Kim-tian were involved in a court case on this
issue, Sng Choon-yee was seriously in trouble with both Goodman and
Clementi for not including this vital piece of information in his report.
However, he narrowly escaped from being dismissed on the grounds that
he could not have obtained all the details of the meeting as he was not
physically present.100
What prompted the British to get tough with the Ee Ho Hean Club in
1932 was the so-called Tanaka Memorial Affair.101 Although this had more
to do with Tan Kah-kee personally, it also indirectly involved the club. The
crisis was precipitated when the Nanyang Siang Pau printer printed
20,000 copies of a Chinese version of the memorial for both the Hokkien
Huay Kuan and the Ee Ho Hean Club for circulation. According to the
memorial Japan aimed at conquering Manchuria, China and Asia as a
grand imperial scheme of the Japanese prime minister, Tanaka. Sir Cecil
Clementi, Governor of the Straits Settlements, believed the document was
a ‘pure invention fabricated for the purpose of propaganda’.102 However,
Tan Kah-kee and many Chinese in China regarded it as genuine. It is now
beside the point whether the document was faked. The fact is that Japan
did invade Manchuria (1931), North China (1932–6), China (1937–45)
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
and South-East Asia (1941–5) as mapped out in the memorial. The print-
ing of 20,000 copies of the memorial without the authority of the Ee Ho
Hean Club committee was considered a substantial breach of club rules by
the British. According to Sng Choon-yee, Sir Cecil Clementi wanted to
close the club down but must have changed his mind after consultations
with Goodman. A compromise solution was reached by penalizing the
club through taking away its status as an exempted society and making it
answerable to the Registrar of Societies for its actions. The club was
turned into a registered society on 4 May 1932. The club rode out the
storm under Clementi and tacked on to smoother sailing under Sir Shenton
Thomas, the last governor of the Straits Settlements before the fall of
Singapore in February 1942.
Between 1928 and 1941, the Ee Ho Hean Club was compact, with no
more than 100 members,103 many of whom were responsible and capable
leaders of the Chinese community of Singapore of the time. The political
success of Tan Kah-kee, beginning with the Shantung Relief Fund, can be
more properly understood by a brief analysis of the contributions of oth-
ers. Five individual club members, in particular, stood out in this respect.
They were Sng Choon-yee, Hau Say-huan, Chew Hean-swee, Lau Boh-
tan and Ng Aik-huan. Together they were the arch defenders and support-
ers of Tan Kah-kee from 1928.
Sng Choon-yee, an immigrant from Foochow at the age of twelve,
bilingual, conversant in all dialects except the Hainanese, an excellent
mixer and a likeable person, became a member of the Ee Ho Hean Club
in December 1926 on his arrival from Penang to take up an appointment
with the Chinese Secretariat in Singapore as the Chief Chinese Translator.
He teamed up with A. M. Goodman who had been his superior in Penang
and who had taken the post of Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Singapore
on the retirement of D. Beatty. Sng was promoted to the position of
Chinese Assistant for the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in 1932 and went
on to become the ‘right-hand man’ of A. B. Jordan, the last Secretary for
Chinese Affairs in the pre-war years.104 Being well respected by both
Goodman and Jordan for his views on the Chinese community, Sng was
well-placed to advise and to help smooth out difficulties in the Chinese
community for the British authorities. As he became better informed
about the Chinese community through his untiring involvements in its
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170 TAN KAH-KEE
affairs,105 Sng came to exert considerable influence within the Chinese

Secretariat on official policies or measures for it. Beyond the confines of
the Chinese Secretariat, his popularity was extended to the members of the
Ee Ho Mean Club who on no less than five occasions elected him as an
office-bearer of the club.106 Being a member and office-bearer, Sng was
morally and duty-bound to help the activities of the club. In the course of
his contacts with Tan Kah-kee, he built up an excellent rapport with him
and came to respect this simple and yet complicated man. Built on the
respect and rapport was his genuine admiration for Tan Kah-kee’s perfor-
mance and achievements in social responsibility. And out of this admira-
tion came his staunch support for Tan Kah-kee’s non-partisan leadership
as China’s national crisis grew from bad to worse.
To be sure, Tan Kah-kee’s impeccable integrity, his selflessness, his
leadership qualities and his personal friendship won Sng’s admiration and
respect. Sng’s support for Tan Kah-kee’s leadership was in some way a
reflection of his own smothered nationalistic feeling for China, then under
immense duress. More importantly, his final choice for Tan Kah-kee as the
leader of the Singapore China Relief Fund and the Southseas China Relief
Fund Union was made in the context and understanding that Tan Kah-kee
was more responsible, more prone to compromise, more answerable to the
British, and less likely to cause long-term damage to British rule in
Singapore and Malaya. Thus when looking back on his socio-political
campaigns between 1928 and 1941, Tan Kah-kee gladly acknowledged
the assistance provided by Sng Choon-yee and was most grateful to him
for it.107 Tan Kah-kee did repay part of his gratitude to Sng in December
1941, on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Singapore, by being persuaded
by Sng to attend a historic meeting at Government House, presided over by
Sir Shenton Thomas. The Government House meeting was for the organi-
zation of a Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council to assist the govern-
ment with the civil defence of the island.108 Tan Kah-kee’s assumption of
the leadership of the council was a noble act and a sign of loyalty towards
Singapore, his adopted land, and towards Britain, a nation at war. In the
immediate post-war years, however, as Tan Kah-kee’s political confidence
grew appreciably stronger and his political status higher, Sng Choon-yee’s
advice and assistance were rarely sought. The two remained friends right
through to the end of Tan Kah-kee’s life.
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As regards the other four, they have been claimed to have been the
staunchest supporters and defenders of Tan Kah-kee’s leadership and
socio-political cause. It is important to acknowledge their contributions by
examining their roles in the 1930s.
It was a coincidence that all four hailed from Nan An district, neigh-
bouring T’ung An district in Fukien. They all had things in common: a
flair for speech-making, excellent organizational skills, deep feelings for
China and her fate, a high standard of integrity, boundless energy, outgo-
ing personalities, and a common commitment to Tan Kah-kee and his
leadership. If Tan Kah-kee were the Minister for Defence, these were his
field commanders, competent, reliable and talented at that.
Professionally, both Hau Say-huan and Chew Hean-swee were rubber
traders, thus potentially Tan Kah-kee’s rivals. However, between 1932 and
1934, Hau was on the staff at Tan Kah-kee’s head office as an employee.
He was then made the manager of the Nanyang Siang Pau until his resig-
nation on 1 January 1936. After that, he joined the Asia Insurance
Company Ltd. under the control of the managing-director, Li Leung-kie,
a close personal friend. Lau Boh-tan was poor as a young immigrant, hav-
ing worked as a rubber tapper, and through sheer discipline and self-study,
he became bilingual. He entered into the building trade and quarry-mining
in 1931 and did rather well financially.109 In the latter half of the 1930s,
oral sources have it that he joined the police force in Singapore and was
attached to the Criminal Investigation Department. He was thus labelled
as a double agent in that he worked for the government and for Tan Kah-
kee through his activities in the Chinese National Emancipation Vanguard
Corps, a front organization of the Singapore China Relief Fund, and for
the fund itself. Ng Aik-huan, the youngest among the four, was a young
immigrant to Singapore and Muar before settling down in Singapore in
1929 and starting a firm, Hiap Long Guan & Co., at 143, Lavender Street,
as an agent for Chinese wine.110 During the 1930s he became so commit-
ted to China politics that he had little or no time for running his own busi-
ness. All four were financially well-to-do, but they certainly did not
belong to the millionaire category.
As these four were effective speakers and dynamic organizers, they held
important positions in places such as the General Affairs Department
of the Hokkien Huay Kuan and General Affairs and Propaganda
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172 TAN KAH-KEE
Departments of the Singapore China Relief Fund and the Southseas China
Relief Fund Union. Moreover, Ng Aik-huan, Lau Boh-tan and Lau’s younger
brother, Lau Aik-kee, were responsible for the founding of the Chinese
National Emancipation Vanguard Corps for promoting anti-Japanese
boycotts, harassing firms and businessmen which bought and sold
Japanese products, and for organizing young students and workers in each
district, town and state, to keep a vigil on ‘breakers’ of the boycott move-
ment.111 While Chew Hean-swee was to foster closer links with the
Kuomintang forces in Singapore, Hau Say-huan’s contribution lay in his
organizational skills by establishing over thirty regional branches of the
Singapore China Relief Fund and in his intimate association with the
working class at grass-root level. Lau Boh-tan’s contacts with the Special
Branch and the front organization of the Singapore China Relief Fund
proved invaluable to Tan Kah-kee’s fund-raising campaigns. Ng Aik-
huan’s role in forging relationships with students and youths for undertak-
ing the anti-Japanese boycott movement deepened Tan Kah-kee’s influence
among them. Thus, hectic organization for funds and against Japanese
goods, and incessant political propaganda for Chinese nationalism has-
tened the politicization process of the Chinese, improved donation intakes,
broadened Tan Kah-kee’s personal prestige and power, and converted his
socio-political campaigns into mass movements.
Tan Kah-kee was a Hokkien pang leader in 1910 when he was elected
president of the Tao Nan School and in 1911 when he presided over the
Hokkien Protection Fund. He did not, however, become the pang leader
until 1929 when he took over the leadership of the Hokkien Huay Kuan
from See Tiong-wah. Between 1910 and 1929, Tan Kah-kee fast became
a recognized and prominent community leader through his social, educa-
tional and political work for the Chinese community in both Singapore
and China. His association with the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce as an office-bearer between 1911 and 1914, his Tientsin
Flood Relief Fund campaign in 1917, his founding of the Singapore
Chinese High School in 1918, his establishment of the Amoy University
in 1921, his leadership in the Fukien and Kwangtung Flood Relief Fund
in 1924 and the Singapore Children Protection Association Maintenance
Fund in 1925, and, finally, his leadership in the Shantung Relief Fund in
1928–9, all marked him out as an outstanding, compassionate, dynamic
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
and dedicated community leader, whom no person, institution or govern-

ment could ignore.
Having built a pre-eminent social status and become the pang and a
community leader through the operations of interlocking community net-
works and power base, Tan Kah-kee was ready to cast his eyes further
afield — the assumption of the political leadership in the wake of intensi-
fied Sino-Japanese conflict in China. Despite the British wariness of his
leadership and political influence and in spite of the loss of his business
empire in 1934, Tan Kah-kee was politically in command.
1. ‘Notices of Singapore’, Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern

Asia, ed. by J. R. Logan, Vol. 7, 1853, p. 333; ibid., Vol. 9, 1855, p. 447. Cited in
C. S. Wong, A Gallery of Chinese Kapitans, Singapore, Ministry of Culture,
1963, p. 27.
2. SSGG, 1928, p. 234.
3. Tan Yeok-seong and Chen Ching Ho, eds., A Collection of Chinese
Inscriptions in Singapore, Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
1970, p. 17; Naosaku Uchida, The Overseas Chinese, Stanford, Hoover Institution
on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, 1959, pp. 31–2; Taku
Suyama, ‘Pang Societies and the Economy of Chinese immigrants in S.E. Asia’,
in K. G. Tregonning, ed., Papers on Malayan History, Singapore, Malayan
Publishing House, 1962, p. 200.
4. J. E. Nathan, The Census of British Malaya, 1921, London, Dunstable
and Watford, 1922, p. 79,
5. C. S. Rawski, Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South
China, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972, pp. 64–77.
6. Lat Pau, 16 August 1912; New Kew Poo, 17 August 1912.
7. SKMP, 30 October 1922–31 October 1922.
8. Ibid., 31 October 1922.
9. Song Ong Siang, One Hundred Years History of the Chinese in
Singapore, reprint, Singapore, University of Malaya Press, 1967, p. 241.
10. On Tan Boo-liat and nineteenth century Hokkien pang leaders, see C. F.
Yong, ‘Tsao-nien T’ien-fu-kung ti ling-tao-ch’en’, SCJP, 19 February 1929.
12. Ibid., 19 May 1924, 23 May 1924, 18 June 1924; Lat Pau, 20 May 1924.
13. NYSP, 12 July 1927.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 22 July 1927.
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174 TAN KAH-KEE
16. Information provided by Sng Choon-yee on 17 March 1974 at his home,

at 67, Farleigh Avenue, Serangoon Garden Estate, Singapore, during a lengthy
interview with the author.
17. MRCA, No. 7, March 1931, p. 34.
18. Ibid.
19. NYSP, 18 March 1929.
20. Ibid., 8 December 1927.
22. Tan Kah-kee advocated the establishment of three departments but his
motion was defeated by supporters of Tan Ban-ann, then a high court translator
and a former student of Tao Nan School, who proposed a five-department system.
However, Lee Kong-chian proposed only four departments with welfare and
construction being amalgamated. His proposal was also defeated. See NYSP,
6 March 1929.
23. NYSP, 6 March 1929.
24. Ibid., 17 March 1935, 8 June 1935.
25. For more detail, see C. F. Yong, ‘Pang, Pang Organizations and
Leadership in the Chinese Community of Singapore during she 1930s’, JSSS,
Vol. 32, Pts 1 & 2, 1977, pp. 31–52.
26. MRCA, No. 99, November 1938, p. 40.
27. Hsin-chia-p’o Chung-hua-shang-wu-tsung-hui ping-wu ting-wei liang-
nien chen-hsing-lu ho-k’an, Singapore, 1908, a printed Chinese document by the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, with lists of donors, founding mem-
bers and financial accounts for the years 1906 and 1907. No pages provided.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. SCCC, Minutes, 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914.
31. C. F. Yong, ‘Rivalry between the New and Old Chinese Chambers of
Commerce — Contending elites and power struggle within the Chinese commu-
nity of Singapore 1912–1914’, in the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, 75th Anniversary Souvenir Issue, Singapore, Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1982, p. 293.
32. Ibid., p. 297.
33. KMYP, 29 November 1916.
34. Lat Pau, 12 December 1924.
35. NYSP, 4 February 1929; SCJP, 4 February 1929.
36. Ibid.
37. SCJP, 6 February 1929.
38. Ibid.
39. Souvenir of the Opening Ceremony of the Newly Completed Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce Building, Singapore, 1964, p. 168. Quoted from
the SCCC Minutes, 13 February 1929. (Text in Chinese.)
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40. MRCA, No. 7, March 1931, p. 11.

41. Ibid., pp. 12–13.
42. Ibid., p. 14.
43. MRCA, No. 25, September 1932, p. 18.
44. Ibid.
46. An interview with Dr Ho Pao-jin in Singapore in 1976 at his office at Far
Eastern Bank, Cecil Street.
47. MRCA, No. 102, February 1939, p. 29; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu,
reprint, Singapore, Tan Kah-kee, 1946, p. 82.
48. Straits Settlements Directory 1934, p. 867.
50. Tan Ee-leong, ‘Tsung-shang-hui tung-shih chung ti wu-min-yin-hsiung’,
Economic Monthly, No. 34, 10 February 1970, p. 39. (Text in Chinese.)
51. Straits Settlements Annual Reports for 1902, p. 164.
52. Lat Pau, 1 June 1912.
53. Nam Kew Poo, 5 May 1913.
54. Ibid., 7 May 1914.
55. NL 5938 GD/C 73/1930, Governor, SS, to Lord Passfield of Passfield
Corner, CO, 8 March 1930, p. 3; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 97.
58. C. F. Yong and R. B. McKenna, ‘The Kuomintang Movement in Malaya
and Singapore, 1912–1925’, JSEAS, Vol. 12, No. 1, March 1981, pp. 118–19.
59. Nam Kew Poo, 18 July 1913.
60. FO 371/13926, A. M. Goodman, The Malayan General Branch of the
Kuo Min Tang of China, 19 August 1929, p. 14.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. FO 371/14350/5902, Activities of Kuomintang in Malaya, 22 October
1930, p. 8.
65. CO 273/537/28053, Enclosure 1, Joint Memorandum of Goodman and
Allen on the Kuo Min Tang in Malaya, 1926, 7 January 1927, p. 9, This policy
was repeated twice. See CO 273/537/28053, Governor, S.S. to C.O., 16 February
1927, p. 1; FO 371/13925/388, Registration of Kuomintang in Malaya, which
includes a despatch of 20 December 1928 from the S.S. Officer Administering the
Government, p. 2.
66. SSGG, 1915, p. 527.
67. NYSP, 10 July 1933.
68. Yen Ching-hwang, ‘The Confucian Revival Movement in Singapore and
Malaya, 1899–1911’, JSEAS., Vol. 7, No. 1, March 1976, pp. 33–57.
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176 TAN KAH-KEE
69. Hsin-chia-p’o shu-chiao-kung-hui nien-chien, Singapore, Rubber Trade

Association of Singapore, 1957, p. 35.
70. NYSP, 11 June 1924.
71. Ibid., 20 July 1928.
72. Ibid.
73. Hsin-chia-p’o shu-chiao-kung-hui nien-chien, Singapore, Rubber Trade
Association of Singapore, 1957, p. 35.
74. Ibid., p. 34.
75. Ibid., p. 35.
77. SSGG, 26 April 1940, p. 1,589.
78. SCJP, 14 May 1934.
79. SSGG, 22 April 1932, p. 686.
80. Ibid., 4 May 1932, p. 844.
81. The first Chinese social club in Singapore was the Chew Wan Lim Club,
established in 1849 by the Teochew pang. It is still functioning today.
82. SCJP, 16 June 1969.
85. C. F. Yong, ‘A Preliminary Study of Chinese leadership in Singapore,
1900–1941’, JSEAH, Vol. 9, No. 2, September 1968, p. 265.
86. Nanyang Year Book, Singapore, Nanyang Siang Pao Press, 1951,
p. Z 298. (Text in Chinese.)
87. C. F. Yong, ‘Lim Chwee-chian’, SCJP, 10 August 1980.
88. KMYP, 29 October 1917.
89. Ee Ho Hean Club Constitution, Singapore, Ee Ho Hean Club, 1924. This
Chinese document covers sixteen clauses and takes ten pages. An original copy
of this constitution is at the disposal of Mr Tan Keong-choon, Singapore.
90. SCJP, 16 June 1969.
91. NYSP, 5 September 1936; Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Ckia-keng yen-lun-chi, p.
75.
92. Lat Pau, 13 November 1911; Nam Kem Poo, 17 November 1911.
93. SCJP, 16 June 1969.
94. Nanyang Year Book, Singapore, 1951, p. Z 298.
95. NYSP, 18 May 1928.
96. Ibid., 16 August 1937; SCJP, 16 August 1937.
98. Ibid., 8 May 1929.
99. Ibid., 10 May 1929.
100. Information on the Ee Ho Hean Club provided by Sng Choon-yee at his
home in Singapore on 10 March 1974.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
101. On the Tanaka Memorial Affair, consult CO 273/576/82164, Sir Cecil

Clementi to CO., 10 December 1931.
102. Ibid., p. 1.
103. NYSP, 24 May 1928, 28 May 1928, 30 May 1928, 7 June 1928, 11 June
1928; Sin-chou shih-nien, Singapore, 1940, p. 962.
104. An interview with the Rev. A. B. Jordan, the Secretary for Chinese
Affairs of the Chinese Secretariat, 1934–41, at his home at Nottingham, England,
on 24 April 1974, confirms that Sng Choon-yee was his ‘right-hand man’ in the
105. Sng Choon-yee revealed to me on 21 April 1979 that he was a member
of some ten social clubs in Singapore, including the Ee Ho Hean, Goh Loo, Tung
Yan Club, Garden Club, Kiao Shang Club at Robinson Road, run by Hokkien rice
merchants and others, but not a member of Weekly Entertainment Club, headed
by Aw Boon-haw. Tung Yan Club was a front organization of the Kuomintang in
Singapore during the 1910s and 1920s.
106. Lat Pau, 10 February 1927; NYSP, 29 January 1929, 6 February 1930, 6
February 1931, 17 January 1937.
107. NYSP, 5 September 1936, 16 August 1937, 11 October 1938; C. F. Yong,
Chinese Community Structure and Leadership in pre-war Singapore, Singapore,
South Seas Society, 1977, pp. 189–91. (Text in Chinese.)
108. Ibid., p. 190.
109. NCJP, 10 April 1947.
110. Who’s Who in the Far Eastern Archipelago, Vol. 2, Penang, 1934, p. 23.
(Text in Chinese.)
111. An interview with Ng Aik-huan at the Asia Insurance Building, Cecil
Street, Singapore, on 17 December 1982,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
6
From Community to Political Leadership:
Tan Kah-kee in Command
Nan-ch’iao (Nanyang Chinese) patriotism towards China is beyond party

boundaries.
Tan Kah-kee on the nature of Chinese
nationalism in South-East Asia, 1946
TAN KAH-KEE’s personal political experience commenced with the Sino-

French War (1884–5) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5). On both occa-
sions, he happened to be at home in Chi Mei, hearing and sensing the peril
China was in. His latent anti-Manchu feelings were steadily being built up
during the 1900s with the visits of Chinese reformists and revolutionaries
to Singapore. These political exiles attempted to enlist Overseas Chinese
support and to propagate their contending ideologies on reform, revolu-
tion and modernization of China.
Tan Kah-kee never met K’ang Yu-wei (1858–1927), a reformer and
leader of the royalist movement, who visited Singapore in 1900 to pro-
mote his political and educational cause. K’ang made a great impact on
the hua-ch’iao community with its leaders launching a reformist and a
Confucian movement. To K’ang’s credit, many Chinese community lead-
ers were so impressed by his educational preachings that they established
the first modern Chinese primary schools in Singapore. Tan Kah-kee
could well have been an admirer of K’ang Yu-wei, but he was never noted
as his supporter.
On the other hand, Tan Kah-kee met Sun Yat-sen three times in Singapore
and was most impressed with him. The first meeting in 1909 between them
was arranged by Lim Nee-soon, then already an important leader of the
Singapore branch of the Tung Meng Hui.1 Again, they met one night during
1909, before Sun’s departure in May for Europe and the United States.
178
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FROM COMMUNITY TO POLITICAL LEADERSHIP 179
During the evening meeting at Bin Chin House, Tai Gin Road, the head-
quarters of this semi-secret political organization, Tan Kah-kee had the
good fortune to witness the proceedings of an important Hui meeting.
Among many things discussed was one concerning the design of a party
flag, which had flared up as a contentious issue. At the meeting, all had no
objection to the design with the blue sky and a white sun in the flag, but
were divided about the red colour for the symbol of earth in it. In a pensive
mood, Sun Yat-sen listened to all arguments, hoping they would achieve
some kind of compromise. A receptionist disrupted the proceedings bring-
ing Sun Yat-sen a glass of drinking water. A drop of red ink fell from his
brush into the glass, dramatically reddening the water. Sun Yat-sen lifted it
and drank it all up, proclaiming that ‘red is a sign of luck’. Hence, the con-
summation of the design for the party flag — a white sun floating across
the blue sky while reddening the earth all over.2 Incidentally, this design
was later to be adopted as China’s national flag under Kuomintang rule. Tan
Kah-kee reminisced about this in 1956 when he and Chi Mei students com-
memorated the ninetieth anniversary of the birthday of Sun Yat-sen.3
Tan Kah-kee met Sun Yat-sen a third time on 15 December 1911 when
Sun Yat-sen arrived by ship from Europe on his way to Shanghai to organ-
ize a new government in the aftermath of the Double-tenth Revolution.
Like many Tung Meng Hui members, Tan Kah-kee also went on board to
welcome Sun Yat-sen and promised to raise $50,000 if and when he per-
sonally needed it. Later in 1912 when Dr Sun sent a cable for the money,
Tan Kah-kee duly remitted it to him.4 The 1911 encounter was the last
time the two men were to meet. For Sun Yat-sen it was his eighth and last
visit to Singapore. The three meetings with Sun Yat-sen cemented Tan
Kah-kee’s personal friendship with the founder of the Chinese Republic.
In 1910, Tan Kah-kee formally joined the Tung Meng Hui in Singapore,
throwing in his lot with the rising revolutionary forces of Sun Yat-sen. As
a sign of protest, he also lopped off his queue. There is no written record
to show how active Tan Kah-kee became in the anti-Manchu activities
during the months prior to the 1911 Chinese Revolution. Suffice it to say
here that his decisive response to the independence of Fukien in
November 1911 and his promise to raise a sum of $50,000 for Sun Yat-sen
in December the same year pointed to Tan Kah-kee’s leadership qualities,
political far-sightedness and acumen.
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180 TAN KAH-KEE
The 1911 Revolution saw the polarization of political groupings in

Singapore and Malaya. The Tung Meng Hui members represented the
revolutionary forces while the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
reformists represented the anti-revolutionary clique, among the silent
majority within the Chinese community. Tan Kah-kee could well have
been in an intolerable and invidious position had he not been able to keep
his distance from the partisan squabbles and power struggles during 1912
and 1913. The first event which helped keep him out of the partisan con-
flict was his timely assumption of leadership of the Hokkien Protection
Fund, founded by the Hokkien pang in Singapore in November 1911. In
the midst of the Double-tenth Revolution, Fukien declared its independ-
ence from Manchu rule. The news of Fukien independence reached
Singapore from two sources, one Reuters5 and the other Wong Nai-siong,6
the founder of Sibu, Sarawak, father-in-law of Dr Lim Boon-keng, and a
revolutionary sympathizer then living in Foochow. Wong Nai-siong
cabled Teo Eng-hock and Tan Chor-nam to the effect that an independent
Fukien province needed finance urgently. Teo and Tan in turn brought the
cable to the Ee Ho Hean Club to consult Tan Kah-kee, Teo Soon-sian, Tan
Cheng-siong, and Lim Nee-soon.7 Those consulted decided that the
Hokkien pang in Singapore should be mobilized for providing financial
support to the newly independent province. To this end, a public rally of
the Hokkiens in Singapore was convened at the Thean Hock Keng at
Telok Ayer Street, on 13 November 1911. At the historic meeting Tan
Kah-kee was elected president of the Hokkien Protection Fund. This was
a massive pang and political movement and Tan Kah-kee was fully occu-
pied with a fund-raising campaign lasting nine months. His preoccupation
with the fund campaign along pang lines allowed him to disentangle him-
self from the raging political storms stirred up by the contending revolu-
tionary and reformist factions. The other event which kept him totally out
of the partisan politics of the period was his prolonged visit to Chi Mei.
By the time he had returned to Singapore in September 1913, partisan
politics had begun to subside, thus saving him the trouble of getting him-
self ideologically and politically involved with one or the other faction
struggle.
As the Hokkien Protection Fund, the first pang and political campaign
ever led by Tan Kah-kee, had considerable ramifications and impact on his
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career, it is fitting to document the operation and analyse its historical

significance in the context of Tan Kah-kee’s subsequent pang, community
and political leadership.
The organization and operation of the fund were comparatively simple
and straightforward. The fund had its headquarters first at the Thean Hock
Keng, then at the Tao Nan School, but never at the Ee Ho Hean Club itself.
In organization, the fund had twenty office-bearers, with two presidents,
two treasurers, two auditors, two general affairs members and twelve oth-
ers with no specific portfolios. Apart from the stipulated duties which
each office-bearer was expected to perform, everyone in the office had to
work as a team for fund-raising. A day after the foundation of the fund, an
extra thirteen Hokkiens were co-opted into the fund-raising team, making
it thirty-three in all. These thirty-three members were to raise funds pri-
marily from Hokkien corporations and firms rather than individuals.
However, individuals did donate considerable funds initially, among them
Tan Kah-kee ($1,500), Teo Soon-sian ($1,500), Tan Cheng-siong ($1,500),
Lee Choon-guan ($2,000), Lim Peng-siang ($2,000) and Tan Siang-ching
($2,000).8 Also the fund staged a variety show in January 1912 and netted
a sum of $13,600 for the protection of Fukien.9 The nine-month campaign
would have been considerably more successful, had more publicity in the
local Chinese newspapers been given, and more manpower resources
mobilized. By comparison, the Kwangtung Protection Fund, founded on
20 November 1911 by the Kwangtung pang raised a staggering $128,00010
by 27 December 1911 to make Kwangtung’s independence more secure;
the better results of the Kwangtung Protection Fund were due to the utili-
zation of more human and institutional resources.
For Tan Kah-kee, the historical significance of his nine-month exposure
as the fund leader lay in the entrenchment of his pang status and leader-
ship, in his capacity for hardwork and skill in organization, as well as his
discipline and dedication in carrying the campaign to a conclusive end.
In other words, the Hokkien Protection Fund provided him with an oppor-
tunity and a training ground for the assumption of future pang, commu-
nity and political leadership.
Between September 1913 and May 1928, it seems paradoxical that Tan
Kah-kee was culturally, educationally, socially and economically active
and even aggressive while remaining politically dormant and inarticulate.
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182 TAN KAH-KEE
Was his conspicuous silence over warlord governments and politics in

China a reflection of the dismal morale of the general public inside and
outside China in an era of warlordism? Or did his political inarticulation
and inaction represent a personal protest against where China was heading
under warlord rule? It was probably a combination of awkward political
circumstances in China and in Singapore as well as expediency that kept
Tan Kah-kee politically quiet for all the years up to 1928.
During these years of comparative silence, Tan Kah-kee’s love for
China was channelled at a feverish pace through educational and indus-
trial promotion. He was optimistic and positive that his Amoy University
would produce thousands of graduates to man various institutions all over
China and to help bring about an orderly society.11 He firmly believed that
education was an agent for modernizing China. His conscious adoption of
a non-partisan policy for his Nanyang Siang Pau, at the cost of sacking a
pro-nationalist editor, Fang Huai-nan, in 1923, is a case in point. He was
also under considerable pressure from the British authorities not to get his
paper involved in political propaganda against warlord governments in
China. To penalize Tan Kah-kee for the political sin committed by Fang
Huai-nan, the British did in fact impose a three-month suspension of the
paper commencing 1 November 1923.
Tan Kah-kee, having taken a non-political and non-partisan stand in
politics, took no part in the organization of the 1925 Sun Yat-sen memorial
service, which turned out to be an outstanding success in terms of the size
of the attendance (over 100,000)12 and sympathy invoked within the
Chinese community. Nor did he take part in the second anniversary
memorial service in honour of Sun Yat-sen in 1927, which resulted in the
disastrous ‘Kreta Ayer Incident’ in which six Chinese youths were killed
by police fire. These two memorial services were organized by the
Kuomintang members in Singapore, many of them his friends, relatives
and former Tung Meng Hui members. The significance of the Kreta Ayer
Incident was that it was the last time the Kuomintang forces in Singapore
were allowed to lead the Chinese community in political campaigns.
Yet Tan Kah-kee responded positively and forcefully to the unification
of China in 1927–8 under Chiang Kai-shek. He was among the first
Chinese to rejoice at the unification of China and to approve of
Kuomintang rule in China. In 1928, he personally wrote a notice in
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Chinese to the effect ‘Support for the Nanking government is our main
objective’, and asked the manager of the Nanyang Siang Pau to have it
hung at the office for all to see.13 His rationale for doing this was that since
all major foreign powers had already recognized the Nanking government
under Chiang Kai-shek, it was the duty of Chinese nationals to do like-
wise. In fact, Tan Kah-kee did more than that; he and his friend Lim Nee-
soon went so far as to cable their mutual acquaintance Wang Ching-wei,
then in Germany, urging him to cease his enmity towards the Nanking
government. Tan Kah-kee admitted that he did this for China and not for
Chiang Kai-shek per se.14 His action was prompted by his belief that
China needed peace and stability to embark on reforms and modernization
programmes. There was no room for leadership clashes, factional rivalry
and civil strife. For patriotism and nationalism, for blind loyalty and obsti-
nacy, and for good or for bad, Tan Kah-kee firmly supported Chiang Kai-
shek and his regime right through to the China Comfort Mission in 1940
when he was more able to formulate his own personal opinion about the
nature, direction, operation and leadership of the Kuomintang regime in
Chungking. But in 1928 Tan Kah-kee was mildly intoxicated and exhila-
rated with the illusion of the birth of a ‘new’ China which had eluded him
for seventeen years. As a Chinese national at heart, Tan Kah-kee was
prepared to do more for his country and people to wipe off years of forlorn
hope, imposed political silence and suppressed passion. And wipe off the
humiliation he did with a vengeance when the Tsinan Incident exploded
on 3 May 1928. It afforded him an occasion to participate in China poli-
tics, for which he had few regrets.
Tan Kah-kee had been watching the movements of Chiang Kai-shek’s
Northern Expedition Army from its inception in July 1926 with great
interest and expectation. During the northern drive against the warlords in
1927, Chiang Kai-shek captured Wuhan, Shanghai and Nanking and
swept through much of the lands of Southern and Central China. His drive
to capture Peking in 1928 met with stiff Japanese military intervention at
Tsinan, the capital of Shantung province. This resulted in heavy Chinese
military and civilian casualties, the civilian casualties being recorded as
3,625 dead and 1,455 wounded. The Japanese intervention was directed
by young militant Japanese Kwantung Army Officers, then stationed in
Southern Manchuria, ostensibly to protect their nationals in Shantung.
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184 TAN KAH-KEE
While the bloody military clashes provoked a widespread anti-Japanese

boycott in China, it was to unleash an unprecedented nationalistic fervour
in the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya in the form of two
political mass movements: one fund-raising for war victims and the other
a prolonged and hostile economic boycott of Japanese goods.
The Singapore Chinese response to the Tsinan Incident was swift, deci-
sive and widespread, for within a week a boycott was under way. This
prompted the Chinese Consulate-General in Singapore to issue a notice
dated 8 May advising the Chinese to keep calm and to await proper solutions
by the Chinese government in China.15 The notice also touched on the eco-
nomic boycott of Japanese goods, saying that ‘this belongs to one’s patriotic
and peaceful actions deriving from one’s own conscience’.16 In October
1928, R. Ingham, Acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Singapore, made an
assessment of the movement to the governor to the effect that (a) the boycott
had been persistently maintained in Singapore with serious results to
Japanese trade, and (b) no incidents had occurred in the course of the boy-
cott but a considerable amount of intimidation was believed to have been
exercised by a secret or fictitious body, the ‘National Salvation Corps’.17
In December 1928, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, A. M. Goodman, who
had returned from his leave in November, reported that the Japanese boycott
was being maintained and that ‘impetus has been given to the movement by
the continued existence in the Colony of the Shantung Relief Fund
Committee’.18 Goodman added that ‘the anti-Japanese movement has led to
little disorder but it is effective; there is no public feeling against it, no
attempt to oppose it on the part of traders who have habitually dealt in goods
of Japanese origin’.19 Thus, it is clear that this militant, ‘illegal’, ‘unregis-
tered’ and underground boycott movement carried on unabatedly right
through to the early months of 1929.
While the boycott movement disrupted Japanese trade and commerce
in Singapore and whipped up a general anti-Japanese feeling in its wake,
it is now proper to turn our spotlight on Tan Kah-kee and the Shantung
Relief Fund. Where did it all start? What role did Tan Kah-kee play in this
fund-raising mass movement? What effects did this have on Chinese soci-
ety in Singapore generally and on Tan Kah-kee in particular?
It is now clear that the Ee Ho Hean Club started the Shantung Relief
Fund. However, it is a cloudy and contentious issue as to who, within the
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club, initiated it. Was it Tan Kah-kee? Was it the president, Lim Nee-soon?
Was it a combined initiative from both? Or was it the committee which
promoted it? All these have remained interesting but somewhat peripheral
questions. On 11 May 1928, a notice on behalf of the club was being cir-
culated in the Chinese community and appeared in the Nanyang Siang Pau
saying that the Ee Ho Hean Club intended to call a public rally at an appro-
priate date at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce to discuss
Shantung relief. The notice also appealed to Chinese individuals and
organizations to respond as co-founders of the public rally.20 Within four
days 122 community organizations responded, including schools, guilds,
social clubs, clan associations, territorial institutions, cultural bodies, read-
ing rooms, and professional organizations.21 A public rally at the Chinese
Chamber of Commerce took place on 17 May and was attended by over
1,000 delegates. The Chamber was so packed with people that those who
were late in arriving could find little room to stand.22 While a British police
inspector and Sng Choon-yee were inside the hall noting the proceedings,
a dozen Indian policemen were posted outside it to maintain law and order.
The proceedings of the public rally began at 2.20 p.m. with Chew
Hean-swee proposing that Tan Kah-kee should preside over the rally as
chairman. No objections were raised. However, Tan Kah-kee himself
declined. Chew made the proposal a second time to the cheers of the
attending delegates before Tan Kah-kee finally took his seat as chairman.
Tan Kah-kee made a solemn but effective speech, advising the meeting
not to discuss the economic boycott as it was already under way. Instead,
he proposed that a fund-raising campaign be organized for ‘the burial of
the dead, the healing of the wounded and the reunion of separated family
members’.23 As usual, Tan Kah-kee advised the delegates not to break any
local law which might prompt British intervention in the fund-raising
endeavours. This historic and electrifying rally had an added touch of
drama when one speaker from the Sankiang pang preached that all
Chinese should be ‘sanguine’ like he was, as he slashed one of the fingers
of his left hand with a razor, following which he was consoled and com-
forted. The meeting then elected a committee of thirty-two along pang
lines, with Tan Kah-kee as president and Tan Chiew-cha, a Teochew and
a fellow Ee Ho Hean member, as vice-president. The committee was to
use the Ee Ho Hean Club as its headquarters, and to elect themselves into
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186 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 6.1
Operational Structure of the Shantung Relief Fund Committee
President Tan Kah-kee (EHH).
Vice-President Tan Chiew-cha (EHH).
Treasurers Lee Cbin-tian (Head, EHH), Chia Thian-hock (EHH),
Lim Kim-tian (EHH), Ng Sing-phang (EHH),
Wooi Woo-yan (EHH).
Auditors Chew Hean-swee (EHH), Lim Teck-foo.
General Affairs members Oei Aik-yen (Head, EHH), Li Leung-kie (EHH),
Tan Siong-phua (EHH), Ch’iu Chi-hsian (EHH).
Secretaries Dr Ho Pao-jin (Head), Ping Chin-choa
Fund-raisers all other office-bearers without specific portfolios
Source: Nanyang Siang Pau, 18.5.1928.
various positions that same evening, creating the Shantung Relief Fund
Committee and the beginning of a nine-month long campaign for funds.
As shown in Table 6.1, members of the Ee Ho Hean Club held key
positions in the Shantung Relief Fund Committee.
While it is true that the Ee Ho Hean Club dominated the executive
power of the Shantung Relief Fund, it has also to be admitted that the
Kuomintang forces in Singapore made up a large part of the executive
power. For a start, they controlled the leadership of the treasury, auditing
and secretariat. And so it would be reasonable to say that the Shantung
Relief Fund was a united front movement under the leadership of Tan
Kah-kee. Even so, Tan Kah-kee encountered considerable opposition and
rivalry from two sectors of the Chinese community. There is evidence to
show that Aw Boon-haw, the ‘Tiger-balm king’, organized his own cam-
paign for funds vis-à-vis that of the Shantung Relief Fund. Aw Boon-haw
had his own ‘business and personal quarrels with Tan Kah-kee’ and was
much aggrieved that despite his promise to subscribe $5,000 he was not
elected a member of the Shantung Relief Fund Committee.24 Aw Boon-
haw was reported to have given his support to Teo Eng-hock, a prominent
Kuomintang leader in Singapore, who ‘has been all along desirous of
getting hold of the management of the Shantung Relief Fund’.25 Like Aw
Boon-haw, Teo Eng-hock failed to get himself elected onto the committee.
This was the beginning of an open leadership contest between Tan Kah-kee
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and Aw Boon-haw, a contest going right through the rest of the pre-war
years. The other sector which competed against the Shantung Relief Fund
was the Nanyang Communist Party founded in 1928. This party was quick
to capitalize on the Tsinan Incident to further its own propaganda and
recruitment of members. It held a ‘monthly commemoration’ on the third
day of each month to promote anti-Japanese propaganda and activities.26
The communists were reported to have attempted to stir up trouble
between employers and employees, urging the latter to resist compulsory
deductions from their pay for the benefit of the various relief funds.27 They
complained that these deductions only went to swell the ‘Imperialist’
funds for the maintenance of ‘Imperialist’ Armies in China.28 In this con-
nection, it was rumoured that the burning down of one of the Sumbawa
Road factories of Tan Kah-kee was the work of his employees from whose
wages deductions were made for payment to the Shantung Relief Fund.29
Under the direction of Tan Kah-kee, the Shantung Relief Fund Committee
made a number of key decisions on 17 May 1928. These included regular
office hours each day for committee members (3.30 p.m.–5.30 p.m. and
7.30 p.m.–9.30 p.m.), the extension of numbers of fund-raising members by
including those from the 122 original sponsoring bodies, extensive publicity
in four Chinese newspapers in Singapore, remittance of funds to the treas-
ury of the Nanking government for relieving war victims, and appeals to be
made to various charitable organizations in Malaya to launch similar fund-
raising campaigns for Shantung relief. As a result of appeals, similar funds
were organized in major towns in Malaya.
This massive fund-raising campaign was soon to engulf the whole
Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya, becoming a mass political
movement, reaching down to grass-roots and across pang lines. The
Ee Ho Hean Club emerged, as a result, as the nerve-centre of Chinese
nationalism. The Chinese Protectorate closely monitored its activities,
first with tolerance, then with misgivings, apprehension and trepidation. It
took the Acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs, R. Ingham, a good three
months’ consideration to recommend that ‘steps should be taken to close
down the fund on account of illegal activities associated with it and with
the anti-Japanese boycott’.30 However, it was not until January 1929 when
further pressure was brought to bear on Tan Kah-kee that the fund was
finally declared closed on 31 January. By then Tan Kah-kee had enjoyed
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188 TAN KAH-KEE
extended political leadership at a time of heightened nationalistic feelings

among the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya. How and why the British
tolerated Tan Kah-kee’s leadership is beside the point here. What is of
significance is how, through the organization and operation of the
Shantung Relief Fund, Tan Kah-kee was able to sustain a mass political
and nationalist movement, unprecedented in scale and depth in the politi-
cal history of the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya. It was only to be
surpassed by the Singapore China Relief Fund a decade later.
The success of the Shantung Relief Fund depended largely on Tan Kah-
kee’s organizational concepts, sophisticated organizational techniques,
and leadership qualities. At the first enlarged meeting between the com-
mittee and delegates from the sponsored organizations held at the Ee Ho
Hean Club on 22 May, Tan Kah-kee advocated the adoption of two organi-
zational principles: centralization of fund-raising under the fund and
popularization of fund-raising reaching down to all pang and classes.31 In
organizational techniques, Tan Kah-kee favoured the decentralization and
compartmentalization of fund-subscriptions. In other words, he encour-
aged the establishment of many fund-raising bodies provided the dona-
tions were channelled through the Shantung Relief Fund. Thus, there was
the emergence in June of two affiliated funds: a Ladies’ Relief Fund led
by Mrs Lim Boon-keng and Mrs Lee Choon-guan, and a Harbour and
Marine Relief Fund headed by Lim Kim-tian, one of Tan Kah-kee’s fellow
T’ung An men. The Ladies’ Relief Fund aimed at collecting subscriptions
from women, and the Harbour and Marine Relief Fund from transport
workers, sailors, and carriers working at the Singapore River and
Singapore waterfront. The Shantung Relief Fund established fourteen
other fund-raising corps as well, each responsible for one specific zone in
Singapore. These fourteen corps were manned by 145 fund-raisers from
all pang who were to collect door-to-door subscriptions in each street
within their stipulated zones. Finally, Tan Kah-kee encouraged all Chinese
clan, pang, social, cultural, professional, and religious organizations as
well as schools to raise funds themselves for Shantung relief. All subscrib-
ers and their donations were acknowledged in the Chinese newspapers
every day throughout the duration of the campaign. One organizational
oversight was that Tan Kah-kee did not make any attempt to get the
Straits-born Chinese community organized for Shantung relief. However,
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individuals from this community did respond generously to donation

appeals.
The Shantung Relief Fund was a popular campaign for it reached right
down to the grassroots and the bottom rung of the Chinese community,
including rubber factory workers, taxi drivers and prostitutes. In June
1928, for example, some thirty-eight brothels made donations totalling
$2,260, to the fund.32 This sum represented one night’s ‘takings’ of the
ladies from Singapore’s ‘red light’ areas. Other forms of fund-raising were
experimented with, with considerable success. These included the staging
of variety shows, theatrical performances and Teochew operas, a special
donation from Chinese commercial firms, a monthly subscription from
employees working in Chinese rubber firms and a ‘rubber surtax’ under
the management of the Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association, imposing a
ten cent levy on each picul of rubber sheets imported into Singapore. The
following table shows major contributions made by Chinese individuals
and institutions towards Shantung relief:
TABLE 6.2
Contributions by Chinese Individuals and Institutions to Shantung Relief
Name Sum donated $ (Straits)
Eu Tong-sen (a millionaire) 12,000
Ee Ho Hean Club members (47 donations; both Tan Kah-kee
and Yap Geok-twee donated $10,000) 52,600
Goh Loo Club members (31 donations) 8,800
Wine and Spirit Association 13,100
Drapers’ Association 10,000
Sugar Merchants’ Association 10,000
Pawnshop Brokers’ Association 10,250
The Harbour and Marine Relief Fund 30,000
Chinese vernacular drama shows 5,762
Hoi Ting variety shows 12,000
Chew Wah Lim Club Teochew operas 19,616
The Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association (through rubber 200,000
surtax)
Sources: Nanyang Siang Pau, May 1928–January 1929; Hsin-chia-p’o shu-chiao-kung-hui
nien-chien, Singapore, Rubber Trade Association of Singapore, 1957, p. 34.
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190 TAN KAH-KEE
The Shantung Relief Fund swept Singapore’s Chinese community like

a bush fire, for within eighteen days of the campaign starting, $500,000
had been raised.33 In the first hundred days, $1 million was netted.34 By
the end of the campaign on 31 January 1929, the Chinese in Singapore had
donated $1.34 million towards Shantung relief while Overseas Chinese
elsewhere subscribed $5 million (in Chinese currency). However, out of
the $1.34 million, some $80,000 had yet to be collected. As the Fund no
longer legally existed after its closure, the disposal of this sum of money
became a contentious issue which brought about several intriguing and
complicated litigations in the Supreme Court of Singapore.
From all accounts, the Shantung Relief Fund was an unqualified suc-
cess in terms of donations and the support it received. A reporter of the
Nanyang Siang Pau was prepared to estimate that one-third of Singapore’s
Chinese population, or over 100,000, had participated in it one way or
another.35 Goodman, being less precise, concurred that the anti-Japanese
feeling was ‘universal’ and that ‘in Singapore practically every Chinese
rich or poor has subscribed, from Straits-born Chinese such as Eu Tong
Sen, M.B.E., and S. J. Chan, the present member of Council, down to
rickshaw pullers and singing girls’.36 He also conceded that most Chinese
in Malaya had ‘probably’ subscribed to the Shajtung Relief Funds.37
To be sure, Tan Kah-kee had tasted the nectar of political power for
over nine months as president of the fund, but the taste was to turn rather
nasty in the aftermath. What complications did it bring to him? What was
the historical significance of the fund for the Chinese community in
Singapore and Malaya?
For the British, the Shantung Relief Fund found them floundering with
indecision before a mass movement led by community leaders. While they
were quite prepared to take a tough line against Kuomintang branches and
communist elements, they were unsure of how to deal with such a com-
munity leader as Tan Kah-kee who belonged to no political party. No
doubt both Ingham and Goodman found it frustrating to try to exert politi-
cal control over a man of imposing social standing with considerable mass
support. Besides, Tan Kah-kee’s evasive tactic of prolonging the campaign
must somehow have reduced their trust and goodwill towards him.
For the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya, the open and
sustained campaigns of the various Shantung Relief Funds were historic.
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The fund surpassed any of the previous political movements arising from
the 1911 Revolution, the 1919 May Fourth Movement and the 1925 May
30th Movement in scale and in importance. While these funds mentally
and ideologically prepared the Chinese to be more vocal and responsive
to China-oriented politics and affairs, they succeeded in making the
Chinese communities in these two territories more politicized. Moreover,
the Shantung Relief Funds broke pang limitations and barriers, making
the Chinese more ready to be committed to community goals. Further, the
various funds served as training grounds for future political activists in
time of national crises to support Tan Kah-kee’s leadership for the cause
of China. Finally, it is important to note that the Shantung Relief Funds
set the pattern of mass mobilization of the 1930s when similar organiza-
tional principles, forms and techniques were used.
For Tan Kah-kee, the Shantung Relief Fund enhanced his already
impressive and impeccable social standing as a competent, seasoned and
formidable campaigner and community leader. He had come a long way,
assuming the manner and role of a political leader who could not be
ignored by either the Chinese or the British governments. He was to be the
spokesman for the Chinese community on Chinese political matters when
opportunities arose. While the Nanking government admired and respected
his leadership qualities the British were calculating his potential ‘threat’
to their regime. His rising political confidence and status are evidenced by
his bold defence of the Chinese boycott in Singapore in reply to condem-
nation of Chinese hostility by the director of Mitsubishi in a Tokyo news-
paper. On this occasion, Tan Kah-kee published a lengthy rebuttal in the
Nanyang Siang Pau blaming the Japanese aggression in China for the
Chinese reactions in Singapore and Malaya.38 Again, Tan Kah-kee’s cable
to China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Cheng-t’ing, in February 1929 in
response to Japan’s cessation of talks over the settlement of the Tsinan
Incident is another case in point. In this telegram, Tan Kah-kee urged
China to get tough with Japan concerning indemnities. In addition, he
implied that an economic boycott of Japanese goods was continuing una-
batedly and that there was no need for China to arrive at a settlement on
Japanese terms.39
With the successful ending of the fund, Tan Kah-kee was able to turn his
attention to reforming the Chinese community in Singapore. He succeeded
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192 TAN KAH-KEE
in reorganizing and restructuring the Hokkien Huay Kuan, making it one

of his key power bases. However, his attempts in February 1929 to change
the constitution of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and to
establish the Chinese Association to incorporate all contending interests in
Singapore were largely a failure,40 as we have already seen.
Elated and relieved though Tan Kah-kee certainly was at the conclusion of
the fund, he knew little then what was in store for him in its aftermath —
much mental agony and many sleepless nights. As mentioned earlier, the
source of the trouble was the disposal of $80,000 then not yet collected and
handed over. So at the end of the fund it was decided to set up a four-man
trusteeship to handle the unresolved financial matters, a sensible and neces-
sary move as the fund became defunct. As a result, Tan Kah-kee, Lee Chin-
tian of the Hokkien pang, and Li Leung-kie and Liu Teng-theng, of the
Cantonese and the Hakka pang were duly elected.41 It should be noted here
that out of the $80,000 outstanding, $60,000 came from rubber surtax yet to
be collected by the Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association.
In May 1929, Tan Kah-kee, having consulted the officials of the
defunct fund, decided to dispose of the remaining $80,000 by establishing
a school at Nanking in honour of Ts’ai Kung-shih, a Chinese diplomat,
who died tragically at the hands of the Japanese in the wake of the Tsinan
Incident.42 But a controversy began to blow up when some seventy-six
members of the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association demanded
that an extraordinary meeting be convened to discuss the disposal of
$60,000 collected from the rubber surtax. These members, headed by Lim
Kim-tian, then already a supporter of Aw Boon-haw, were in favour of the
money being donated to the North China Drought Fund, under the chair-
manship of Aw Boon-haw.43 The extraordinary meeting was duly called
amidst intensive lobbying from Lim Kim-tian and Tan Kah-kee support-
ers. As Tan Kah-kee had the numbers within the association and in the
rubber trade, the results were not unexpected, and the ‘disputed’ money
was returned to the defunct Shantung Relief Fund.44 Tan Kah-kee had won
the first round of the leadership contest, but the issue did not end there.
Strange and incredible as it might seem, the cheque for $60,000 duly
banked by Tan Kah-kee into the Shantung Relief Fund account with the
Ho Hong Bank Ltd. was returned to him ‘uncredited’ by the bank’s man-
ager, Seow Poh-leng. The ‘unwanted’ cheque was in turn sent back to the
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Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association which issued it, to the

amazement and embarrassment of all concerned. The association’s presi-
dent, Hau Say-huan, negotiated with Seow Poh-leng without success, so it
was left to the lawyers of both parties, the association and the bank, to
contest the issue in the Supreme Court. This began a period of litigation
over the issues of ownership and disposal of the cheque. This seemingly
uncomplicated court case dragged on for two years until July 1931 when
the Supreme Court judges handed down a verdict in favour of the associa-
tion.45 In the course of the long-running court battle, Seow Poh-leng justi-
fied his action by ‘deeming’ the cheque a ‘disputed’ one because he had
received a written statement from both Lim Kim-tian and Kwek K’ai-
sheng, members of the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association,
opposing it being credited to the Shantung Relief Fund account.46 Whatever
the grounds, Seow Poh-leng, supported by the managing director of the
bank, Lim Peng-siang, sadly misjudged the wisdom of his action as a bank
manager on this occasion.47
No sooner had the first litigation ended, than there began a second liti-
gation with Lim Kim-tian as plaintiff contesting the issue of the control
and disposal of the $60,000. He sued Tan Kah-kee and seven other
Shantung Relief Fund Committee members on two grounds, (a) the
Shantung Relief Fund Committee had been defunct, so they had no right
to dispose of the money in the way they chose, and (b) the Tsinan Incident
had been resolved, so there was no need to remit the money back to China
for whatever purposes they thought fit.48 His case was dismissed by the
Supreme Court in April 1932,49 but Lim Kim-tian appealed against the
judgement of the court about his liability to costs. His contention was that
the motive of his action was to protect a charity fund belonging to the
public and that, that being so, he could not be held responsible for the
costs of the lawsuit.50 On 5 August 1932, the Court of Appeal upheld Lim
Kim-tian’s appeal by judging that the fund had to pay the full costs of the
litigation for both bodies.51 The Shantung Relief Fund Committee gave
notice of appeal to the Privy Council but dropped the appeal after a visit-
ing Chinese official, Ch’en Min-shu, had successfully mediated between
the two parties.52 The final settlement agreed that the balance of the fund,
amounting to $73,539 (in Chinese currency, or S$40,000) was to be remit-
ted to China to be spent on a worthy charitable cause. This sum of money
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194 TAN KAH-KEE
was eventually sent by Tan Kah-kee to the Ministry of Finance, Nanking,

for the relief of flood victims in Shantung province in September 1933.53
The aftermath of the Shantung Relief Fund was costly in more ways
than one. It was estimated that a sum of $60,000 had been wasted by the
fund in the courts in connection with litigation, not to mention the costs
the Ho Hong Bank Ltd. had incurred.54 The litigation goes to show that
Tan Kah-kee’s rivals, Aw Boon-haw and Lim Kim-tian, had their own
personal followings, financial resources and institutional bases. The
Shantung Relief Fund brought leadership clashes out into the open and the
wound was so deep that no amount of goodwill could bring Tan Kah-kee
and Aw Boon-haw together again.
Although Tan Kah-kee had won a decisive moral victory in the litiga-
tion and in personality clashes, his leadership role and management of the
Shantung Relief Fund was belatedly challenged by the British. Three
major factors caused the rift between the British and Tan Kah-kee. The
first was the issue involving the rubber surtax which surfaced in the first
litigation between the Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Association
and the Ho Hong Bank Ltd. Sir Cecil Clementi, who arrived in Singapore
in February 1930 as the new governor, was in an aggressive mood, and
intent on stamping out Chinese nationalism of all forms and shades. He
was ‘furious’ at being confronted with yet another case of the so-called
imperium in imperio.55 In his perception, the Kuomintang in Malaya and
Singapore already intended to create an imperium in imperio. Now the
imposition of a rubber surtax by the Shantung Relief Fund Committee,
headed by Tan Kah-kee, was a flouting of colonial law.
The ‘Tanaka Memorial’ affair of 1931 and 1932 caught Tan Kah-kee
redhanded, so to speak. Tan Kah-kee had no doubt in his mind that the
Memorial presented by the Japanese Prime Minister, Tanaka, to the
Japanese Emperor on 25 July 1927 was a genuine document which spelled
out Japan’s territorial ambitions on China. However, Clementi, after hav-
ing been advised by Britain’s Ambassador to Japan, Sir Francis Lindley,
was equally adamant that the Memorial was a ‘pure invention fabricated
for the purpose of propaganda’.56 When Goodman, Secretary for Chinese
Affairs, reported that 5,000 copies of the Memorial in Chinese had been
printed by the Tan Kah-kee-owned Nanyang Siang Pau Press for distribu-
tion by the Hokkien Huay Kuan and that both the Hokkien Huay Kuan and
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the Ee Ho Hean Club had in fact ordered 10,000 copies each, Clementi
became so irate that he directed Goodman to exert pressure on Tan Kah-
kee. Tan Kah-kee sensed serious trouble and duly bowed to the wishes of
the British authorities by cancelling the orders.57 So exasperated and
determined was Clementi to prevent its circulation that he instructed
Goodman to inform various prominent Chinese in Singapore and Malaya
about the document being a ‘forgery’. In addition, the colonial censor was
instructed to ‘intercept any further copies that may reach the Colony’.58
The third black mark against Tan Kah-kee was his involvement in the
‘illegal’ boycott movement against Japanese goods during the Shantung
Relief Fund campaigns. It was by chance that the British authorities came
to get hold of written evidence implicating Tan Kah-kee, This happened
during the hearing of the second litigation between Lim Kim-tian and the
Shantung Relief Fund committee members in 1932 when suggestions
were made that the Shantung Relief Fund committee was an illegal asso-
ciation under the Societies Ordinance. Accordingly on 6 April 1932, Tan
Kah-kee applied for registration of the fund. When minute books of the
years 1928 and 1929 were produced by Tan Kah-kee in support of his
application, the Registrar of Societies refused to register it on the grounds
of the fund’s involvement in the boycott movement.59 More seriously, the
minutes of the fund committee showed that on four occasions Tan Kah-
kee gave moral support to the anti-Japanese boycott movement, which
could fairly be construed as his being directly or indirectly involved in it.60
An extract of his speech minuted on 2 July 1928 was particularly
damaging:
The duties of this committee [of the Fund] are not only to raise funds but
also to sever economic relations absolutely. This committee must carry on
the boycott until the Tsinan affair is settled. Japan’s object in encroaching
on Shantung is to take Manchuria. For our country’s sake we must back up
the Government and boycott is our only weapon. Boycott and the raising of
funds are closely connected.61
Clementi could not keep his calm and poise any longer; he intended to
take the most drastic action — to deport Tan Kah-kee back to China. As
deportation decisions had to be made at the Executive Council, he therefore
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196 TAN KAH-KEE
called a meeting on 11 May 1932 to discuss the Tan Kah-kee affair.

Obviously, on the scheduled meeting of the Executive Council, Clementi
did not have unanimous support. In any case, Tan Kah-kee was a British
subject and technically could not easily be banished from his adopted land,
although under an amended ordinance introduced by Sir Arthur Young, his
citizenship could be revoked. Instead, a compromise solution was reached
and the following minutes of the Executive Council are self-explanatory:
Council considers the activities of certain leading Chinese in connexion

with the Shantung Relief Fund.
It is decided that a letter shall be written to Mr Tan Kah Kee informing
him that his behaviour in this connection has been brought to the notice of
the Governor in Council, and that he should be warned that any repetition
of such conduct may have serious consequences for him.62
This was unprecedented, as never in the history of the Straits

Settlements had such an eminent Chinese community leader been so
‘warned’ by the Executive Council concerning his ‘behaviour’. It was a
severe reprimand handed down in Clemeti’s usual way as from a head-
master to his student, a reprimand that would not have been at all easy to
take. But take it Tan Kah-kee did under such circumstances. Clementi’s
compromise may well be interpreted as a sign of weakness. On the other
hand, it could well have been seen as a magnificent gesture of benevo-
lence and prudence as well as a piece of statesmanship on Clementi’s part.
It was often this practice of ‘pragmatism’ which made British rule in
Malaya so much more stable, efficient, durable and successful. Had Tan
Kah-kee been deported, it is not inconceivable that the British might have
had serious economic and political disruption on their hands, such as, for
example, an anti-British boycott. Tan Kah-kee had his own subtle way of
lodging a protest against Clementi’s rigid political control and economic
inflexibility during the Great Depression — by resigning from the Chinese
Advisory Board in 1933. Although the resignation was prompted by
Clementi’s ‘discriminatory’ economic policy against the Chinese entering
the rice cultivation industry, in an attempt to solve the unemployment
problem then prevalent among the Chinese, it was done in the context of
worsening relationships between the two men during 1931 and 1932.
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When writing his autobiography in 1943, Tan Kah-kee refused to mention

a single word about his conflict with Clementi. This may be construed as
evidence that the 1932 letter of ‘warning’ was so ‘humiliating’ and ‘unpal-
atable’ that Tan Kah-kee deliberately chose to forget it altogether.
While the litigation over the Shantung Relief Fund dragged on, Tan
Kah-kee was not idle. In fact, he was intimately involved in various cru-
cial battles on different fronts, both public and private. On the economic
front his firm was reorganized into a private liability company in August
1931. He was fighting for economic survival. His leadership clashes with
Aw Boon-haw in 1931 erupted into a serious inter-pang affair, the
Hokkien pang versus the Hakka pang. The leadership clashes on this
occasion focused on the so-called ‘P’an Yiu-chung Affair’.63 P’an was a
sub-editor of the Sin Chew Jit Poh, founded by Aw Boon-haw in 1929. In
1931, the paper celebrated its second anniversary by publishing a book
called The Second Annual of the Sin Chew Jit Poh. In it, there was one
article by P’an on the military and political affairs of Fukien. Unfortunately
for P’an, he made very ‘unfavourable’ comments on education, party
affairs and the women’s movement in Fukien, which angered some
Hokkien school teachers, the Nanyang Siang Pau, and the Hokkien Huay
Kuan. The affair dragged on for three months until August 1931 when the
dispute was settled through mediation. It was not surprising that the terms
of ‘settlement’ favoured the Hokkien pang because of immense pang pres-
sure being put on Aw Boon-haw. The settlement clauses included the
removal of P’an Yiu-chung from the staff of Sin Chew Jit Poh, and caused
apologies to appear in the Sin Chew Jit Poh for one month and in other
Chinese newspapers for two weeks.64
On 18 September 1931, the ‘Mukden Incident’ which signalled the
final Japanese drive to overrun Manchuria began. Tan Kah-kee, then
already a recognized spokesman in the Chinese community for China
politics, responded by convening a public rally in Singapore in protest
against Japanese ambitions in Manchuria.65 The protest meeting resulted
in cables being sent to both the League of Nations in Geneva and President
of the United States, urging them to maintain world peace and justice.66
However, Tan Kah-kee himself reserved his most severe protest by ‘liais-
ing’ with other Chinese in carrying out the economic boycott of Japanese
goods.67 In order to boost Chinese political morale in Singapore and
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198 TAN KAH-KEE
Malaya, Tan Kah-kee took the trouble to publish a long article in the
Nanyang Siang Pau of 4 January 1932 commenting on the Japanese mili-
tary operations in Manchuria. While predicting Japan’s ultimate failure,
like Germany during the First World War, Tan Kah-kee wittily concluded
that ‘he who calls the tune must pay the piper’,68 meaning that the Japanese
had to pay for what they had done in China.
On 28 January 1932, the Japanese opened a second front in Shanghai
to divert international attention from Manchuria as China’s national
crisis deepened. Although the Japanese met with gallant resistance by
the Nineteenth Route Army and the Fifth Army, they eventually crushed
the Chinese defence after about one month’s fighting. Largely through
international mediation, a truce was finally arranged in early May 1932
to allow the Japanese to withdraw from the occupied territories of
Shanghai. This so-called ‘January 28 Incident’ precipitated another
widespread community outcry in Singapore and Malaya. In response to
this incident, many Chinese spontaneously raised funds and had them
sent direct to the Chinese government for the relief of war victims.69
It has remained a puzzle why Tan Kah-kee did not exert his leadership
to manage a fund-raising campaign on this occasion. Instead, the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, then under considerable
Kuomintang influence, managed to organize a seventy-five member
Shanghai Relief Fund Committee for fund-raising purposes. It is impor-
tant to note that the Chamber’s action had the blessing of the Secretary
for Chinese Affairs.70 The Chamber concluded its campaign operation
within eight months and raised a sum of C$420,000 for Shanghai
relief.71 Although Tan Kah-kee was not so active, the Ee Ho Hean Club
was prompt in registering its protest against the Japanese attack on
Shanghai by collecting a sum of C$65,000 from its members by
5 February 1932,72 three days before the Chamber had the Shanghai
Relief Fund set up. Tan Kah-kee must have been in a financial plight,
for he could only manage to donate C$4,000 towards the club’s total
fund-raising effort,73 being easily outshone by some of his fellow mem-
bers. Even so, this was to be his last major involvement in China politics
for the next twenty-one months.
Tan Kah-kee’s low political profile between May 1932 and November
1933 was undoubtedly due to Clementi’s letter of warning to him,
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containing the vague but nonetheless threatening message from the

Executive Council mentioned earlier. Clementi’s letter put a damper on
his political activity and had the enormous effect of cutting Tan Kah-kee’s
political figure down to size. It was this spectre of ‘deportation’ which
prompted Tan Kah-kee to steer clear of Clementi and China politics. For
the rest of Clementi’s administration, Tan Kah-kee only once indulged in
China politics in a more vocal manner. This was his convening of an emer-
gency meeting of office-bearers of the Hokkien Huay Kuan in November
1933 to discuss the issue concerning the independence of Fukien. For in
that month a rebel government was established in the province to oppose
Chiang Kai-shek’s regime at Nanking. It was headed by General Ts’ai
T’ing-kai, then commander of the Nineteenth Route Army which had
resisted the Japanese attacks on Shanghai a year earlier. The meeting
called by Tan Kah-kee was attended by only eleven members. As there
was an insufficient quorum for the proceedings of the meeting, it degener-
ated into a discussion session. At this meeting, Tan Kah-kee expressed the
sentiment that the rebel government should be opposed on the grounds
that the Japanese threat had increased in North China and that national
unity was called for at a time of looming international crisis.74 On the
proposal of Lee Chin-tian, the Fukien independence movement was con-
demned. In addition, it was decided telegrams should be sent to the lead-
ers of the rebel government urging them to refrain from any rash action
against the Nanking government. Further, it was agreed that Hokkien
associations in Malaya be informed and urged to oppose the rebel govern-
ment and its independence aspirations.75 The matter of the Fukien inde-
pendence issue was finally settled as the rebel government was crushed by
Chiang Kai-shek in 1934. Tan Kah-kee’s opposition to the rebel govern-
ment in Fukien shows that he was a staunch supporter of the Nanking
government and Chiang Kai-shek.
The departure of Clementi in 1934 coincided with China’s deepening
national and international crisis which saw Tan Kah-kee’s return to the cen-
tre stage of China politics with a flourish. His return to China politics was
largely facilitated by the attitude of the new governor, Sir Shenton Thomas,
and the latter’s comparative tolerance towards Chinese nationalism. For
Shenton Thomas, the main threat to British rule in Malaya was communism
which aimed at the overthrow of colonialism, the establishment of a socialist
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200 TAN KAH-KEE
Malayan state and the mobilization of the masses for class warfare. Thus, his
main concern in the 1930s was to stamp out the spread of communism and
to weed out communist elements who capitalized on the rising tide of
Chinese nationalism. It is arguable that the advent of Shenton Thomas in
1934 represented a shift in colonial policy towards China politics.
Tan Kah-kee started his leadership surge in June 1936 on the occasion
of a regional rebellion launched by provincial leaders of the Kwangtung
and Kwangsi governments against Chiang Kai-shek. So concerned was he
about the consequences of this rebellion that he called a public rally at the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce to discuss it. At the meeting,
chaired by him, a resolution was carried to condemn the rebellion and to
support the central government in Nanking.76 After the meeting, he sent
telegrams to rebel leaders in both Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces
indicating that ‘foreign invasions come closer daily, there should abso-
lutely be no civil war’.77 This rebellion of the south-west governments
against Chiang Kai-shek’s central control collapsed within four months
due to mass defection on the part of the armies of the Kwangtung prov-
ince. With Kwangtung province falling to Chiang Kai-shek, the Kwangsi
rebels were forced to negotiate a peaceful settlement under which they
were allowed to retain some provincial political and military power.78
In July 1936 Tan Kah-kee followed up his disapproval of the rebel gov-
ernments of Kwangtung and Kwangsi against Chiang Kai-shek with his
leadership in the Malayan Singapore Committee for Premier Chiang’s
Birthday Aeroplane Fund. The movement to present aeroplanes to Chiang
Kai-shek as his 50th birthday present had originated in Nanking but
spread overseas with the Chinese Ambassador for Britain urging the
Chinese in Singapore and Malaya to raise C$100,000 for an aeroplane for
Chiang’s birthday. The Chinese in Kuala Lumpur were the first to respond
positively by launching a fund-raising campaign for it and were followed
by the Chinese in other Malay States. In Singapore, the Chinese Consul-
General consulted Tan Kah-kee on the matter but was advised that British
approval must be sought before any fund-raising campaign could be car-
ried out.79 Although Tan Kah-kee was doubtful about the British approval
as aeroplanes were military items, he privately sought advice and help
from Sng Choon-yee,80 then already the ‘right-hand man’ to A. B. Jordan.
It was much to his surprise that Sng Choon-yee brought him the good
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news that the British authorities would pose no obstacle to the Chinese
attempt to raise funds for purchasing aeroplanes for celebrating Chiang
Kai-shek’s birthday. In his autobiography, Tan Kah-kee admitted that he
was elated with the changed British policy in favour of China.81
On 29 July 1936, a public meeting was convened by the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce to discuss the fund-raising in Singapore.
In addition, Tan Kah-kee’s resolution to empower the committee to liaise
with the Chinese in Malaya for a concerted effort at fund-raising was also
accepted.82 This resolution was to result in the convening of a pan-Malayan
Chinese delegates’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on 13 and 14 September for
the founding of the Malayan Chinese Fund for the Purchase of Aeroplanes
for Chiang Kai-shek’s Birthday, a body representing the Chinese from
British Malaya. Tan Kah-kee was elected chairman of the standing com-
mittee of the Malayan Chinese Fund with fifteen other members from vari-
ous parts of British Malaya. The office of this standing committee was
located at the Ee Ho Hean Club in Singapore. Among other resolutions
passed at this historic meeting in Kuala Lumpur were that the fund be
wound up on 15 October 1936 and that the Malayan Chinese wished their
money to be spent on British aeroplanes.83 By the end of October it was
reported that C$1.3 million had been collected from British Malaya84 and
remitted to Nanking. These subscriptions were sufficient to purchase in
March 1937 thirteen fighter aircraft named Malaya No. 1 to No. 13.85
Although the Malayan Chinese campaign for funds was a short, sharp
affair, it had the effect of making the Chinese communities in these two
territories more politicized and China-oriented. It further prepared the
Chinese mentally and psychologically for more serious national and inter-
national crises to come.
For Tan Kah-kee, his leadership in the purchase of thirteen aeroplanes
represented a considerable political breakthrough on his part as a British
subject and a Chinese nationalist. He became once again more confident
in promoting China politics and more preoccupied with China’s survival
at a time of wai-huan (external threats). His concern for the survival of
Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership soon erupted into a passion and an obses-
sion. As a politically active and thinking person, Tan Kah-kee was deter-
mined to live up to the paragon of one prime minister of the Sung dynasty,
Fan Chung-yen (989–1052) whom he greatly admired — ‘worry before
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202 TAN KAH-KEE
the world does, be happy after the world is’. His practice of Fan Chung-
yen’s dictum was illustrated in his reactions to the kidnapping of Chiang
Kai-shek on 12 December 1936 by Chang Hsüeh-liang, the commander of
the North-west Bandit-Suppression Forces then stationed in Sian. This has
since been known as the ‘Sian Incident’ which stunned the world gener-
ally and the Chinese in China and South-East Asia in particular. The cause
of the Sian Incident was Chang Hsüeh-liang’s disapproval of Chiang Kai-
shek’s now bankrupt policy of forcing national unity before resisting the
Japanese aggression. Chang, having failed to persuade Chiang Kai-shek
to stop fighting a civil war against the communists, staged a coup to force
Chiang to alter his established policy of internal pacification before exter-
nal resistance.
For two long weeks in December 1936, it seemed China was living in
gloom with every politically-minded Chinese apprehensive about Chiang’s
safety. In Singapore, news of Chiang being kidnapped was splashed
across the front pages of local Chinese newspapers and was avidly read
by thousands of Chinese with trepidation and disbelief. A worried and
tormented Tan Kah-kee suffered from poor appetite, insomnia, restless-
ness and mental exhaustion because of it. He lived by the phone at the
Ee Ho Hean Club, ringing the Nanyang Siang Pau office once every two
to three hours in the morning to find out for himself what had happened
to Chiang Kai-shek. Occasionally, he would hang on the telephone to
listen to a translation of the news there from teleprinting machines. He
would say, ‘I am waiting, I am not sleeping yet’. During those two
weeks, many ordinary Chinese came to the Ee Ho Hean Club premises to
wait for news on the fate of Chiang Kai-shek. Some were in tears, listen-
ing to what Tan Kah-kee had to say to them. On one solemn occasion Tan
Kah-kee told some of the visitors that Chiang Kai-shek was the only
saviour China ever had and that he could do absolutely nothing ‘if
Heaven would like to destroy my hope’.86 This was one of the few occa-
sions in Tan Kah-kee’s life when he became emotional and unashamedly
shed tears for the life of Chiang Kai-shek. When news of Chiang’s safety
reached Singapore, Hau Say-huan, Lau Boh-tan and Ng Aik-huan organ-
ized a surprise celebration to share their happiness with Tan Kah-kee by
landing a lorry load of crackers and having them firing off at the doorstep
of the Ee Ho Hean Club.87
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As usual, Tan Kah-kee was positive in his response to such a crisis.

On 17 December, he called an emergency meeting of the Ee Ho Hean
Club to discuss the Sian Incident. As was expected the meeting decided
to take the issue to the Chinese community by appealing to Chinese
organizations to co-sponsor a public rally at the premises of the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce on 23 December, two days
before the release of Chiang Kai-shek. The meeting at the Chamber was
attended by delegates representing 103 Chinese organizations, ranging
from schools, clan associations and guilds to territorial, cultural and
professional bodies. The meeting was again chaired by Tan Kah-kee
who made an emotional speech ridiculing Chang Hsüeh-liang’s policy
of accommodating the communists and uniting with the Soviet
Union against the Japanese aggression.88 More specifically, Tan Kah-
kee attacked the idea of placating the communists and thought it a
‘laughing stock’. His belief then was that all Chinese communists were
in fact ‘local bandits’ and being so they could not be tolerated.89 The
meeting ended with the passing of seven resolutions including among
others, (a) to support the Nanking government, (b) to urge Chang
Hsüeh-liang to repent and release Chiang Kai-shek, (c) to set up a
Singapore Chinese Committee for the Salvation of China and Rescue of
General Chiang consisting of twenty-two members with Tan Kah-kee as
chairman.90 The main tasks of the committee were to pressure Chang
Hsüeh-liang to release Chiang Kai-shek, to lobby via cables among
Chinese politicians in various provinces for unity behind the Nanking
government and to publicize its cause in the Chinese newspapers in both
Singapore and Malaya. Not being in a position to know the full story, it
was easy for Tan Kah-kee and many Chinese overseas to condemn
Chang Hsüeh-liang and the communists out of hand. For little did they
know that it was Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai who interceded in
favour of releasing Chiang Kai-shek for the sake of promoting a broad
united front policy among the Chinese to fight against the Japanese.
The aftermath of the Sian Incident reaffirmed Tan Kah-kee’s firm sup-
port for Chiang Kai-shek at that time. In one of his rare interviews, granted
to a reporter from the Nanyang Siang Pau in April 1937, he dismissed the
talk of a united front between the communists and nationalists in China.
In his view, if the communist troops were willing to be ‘unconditionally’
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204 TAN KAH-KEE
reorganized under the command of the Nanking government, then the

Nanking authorities should accept them as such.91 In other words, Tan
Kah-kee was echoing the official line of the Nanking government that the
communist troops in Yenan should be incorporated into those under
Chiang Kai-shek’s control to fight against a common enemy. Underlining
his staunch support for the Nanking government was his conviction that
Chiang Kai-shek was the only strong leader capable of uniting the Chinese
to resist the Japanese. This conviction remained unshaken until 1940 when
he was on a comfort mission to China to reassess the political situation for
himself.
Geographically, Sian was as far from the Marco Polo Bridge, outside
Peking, as London was from Berlin. Historically, however, the fatal Sian
Incident of December 1936 and the infamous Marco Polo Bridge Incident
of July 1937 were a mere eight months apart, after which much of China’s
political map was redrawn and much of the political fortunes of Mao Tse-
tung and Chiang Kai-shek determined. Outside China, the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident which signalled the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War
and the commencement of the Second World War in Asia was first to
engulf the Chinese population in South-East Asia and then the whole of
South-East Asia for the next eight years. For many Overseas Chinese and
Tan Kah-kee, the gigantic trauma arising from the Marco Polo Bridge
Incident was not completely healed until the communist takeover of China
in 1949.
On Wednesday 7 July 1937, Tan Kah-kee spent the night at the home
of his fifth son Tan Kok-kheng, at Balmoral Crescent, off Bukit Timah
Road, unaware that the Sino-Japanese War had broken out. On Thursday
morning, 8 July, he had arranged with his son to be driven by their
chauffeur to visit their Tekong Brickworks on Tekong Island, then man-
aged by Tan Kok-kheng. At 7.00 a.m. they were driven along Clemenceau
Avenue. When the car reached Orchard Road, Tan Kok-kheng could
hardly believe his eyes when he spotted some big posters in English by
the roadside which read ‘Japan attacks Marco Polo Bridge’. He told his
father what the posters said and enquired whether there was going to be
a war between China and Japan after all. His father gave a prophetic
answer, saying ‘it is localised at the moment. However, if Japan attacks
Shanghai, there will be an all-out war. Then we will see what we can
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do.’92 So calm, firm and assuring was the way his father said it that Tan
Kok-kheng could not find any trace of consternation or innate emotion
evoked in his father by the news. However, the news did somewhat spoil
his father’s enthusiasm for the inspection tour of the Tekong Brickworks.
Little did they know then that the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was to
engulf the shores of South-East Asia and involve them all in a life-and-
death struggle of their own lifetimes.
With the outbreak of the war, the scene was set for the rise of the great-
est mass movement for China’s war effort the Chinese in South-East Asia
ever participated in and witnessed. The movement was protracted and
sustained, culminating in the Japanese occupation of South-East Asia in
1942. The volume of the response from the hua-ch’iao largely depended
on the goodwill of the colonial governments and the financial resources,
leadership and organizational skills of each hua-ch’iao community in the
region. The war brought the Chinese nationalism of the twentieth century
to a crescendo and thoroughly politicized the generation of hua-ch’iao
Chinese at war.
As far as positive responses were concerned, the Malayan Chinese
from Muar, Johore Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang and Alor Star
were among the first to organize relief funds of a localized nature.93 The
Chinese in Singapore responded slowly, tentatively and sporadically. The
response gathered momentum only after the Japanese had attacked
Shanghai on 13 August. Nevertheless, in the wake of the Double-seventh
Incident, the president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce,
Tan Chin-hian, did respond by calling an urgent committee meeting of the
Chamber on 15 July which passed two major resolutions concerning
the war. One resolution was to cable General Chiang Kai-shek expressing
the indignation of the Overseas Chinese at the Japanese invasion of North
China and urging him to resist it, the other to invite various community
organizations to participate in a mass meeting to be called by the Chamber
in due course to discuss China relief.94 Within a week some 118 Chinese
organizations representing a cross-section of the Chinese community
replied in support of the Chamber’s call for a rally, then scheduled to be
held on 24 July.
However, the Chamber made a hurried statement on the morning of
24 July calling off the scheduled public rally on the grounds that an
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206 TAN KAH-KEE
agreement for the cessation of hostilities between China and Japan had
been reached.95 It was clear that the sudden cancellation of the proposed
rally was due to the opposition of the British authorities. In a communique
issued by the colonial government on the same day, the British expressed
the view that any Chinese action which ‘may lead to a breach of the peace
in the Colony’ would be prevented.96 More importantly, the communique
stressed that ‘the organized collection of funds for remittance to China or
Japan for military purposes will not be tolerated’.97
Tan Kah-kee’s attitude towards the Chamber’s attempt at calling the
‘abortive’ rally was interesting. Although he did not oppose it on principle,
he did argue against it on the grounds of timing. In his own assessment,
the war situation in North China during July was not sufficiently clear to
warrant a massive fund-raising campaign. In any case, if there was to be
a war between China and Japan, it was going to be so protracted that any
delay in the organization of a fund-raising committee would matter little.
Further, he advised that any large-scale fund-raising operation would need
time for careful planning and for securing government approval.98 The
hurried cancellation of the Chamber’s proposed rally proved his cautious
but calculated attitude to be correct.
Initially, the British authorities were able to call the tune by putting the
lid on the bursting community sympathy for China, They monitored the
Sino-Japanese War conditions and the local Chinese response very closely
and acted accordingly to changing circumstances. In the event that the lid
could not be kept on Chinese nationalism any longer, British ‘pragmatism’
in the way of getting round the problem again prevailed. The Japanese
attack on Shanghai on 13 August afforded such an occasion for the opera-
tion of this ‘pragmatism’ towards defusing a potentially explosive political
situation in Singapore.
Since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July, tensions within the
Chinese community in Singapore rose steadily with various voluntary
relief fund committees being formed by members of Chinese associations,
students and workers.99 In early August Chinese workers and students
were reported to be very active in their fund-raising campaigns without
sanctions being imposed by the British authorities. Chinese pineapple cut-
ters, building workers, quarry workers, goldsmiths, mechanics, tailors,
printers, druggists, shoemakers and operatives in oil refineries, biscuit
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factories, on tin dredges and in the Singapore Traction Company were

reported to have begun their own individual campaigns for funds for China
relief.100 These groundswell effects of the war on the Chinese community
were confirmed by a witness who reported that there existed considerable
emotional tensions among the Chinese masses who organized their own
‘mosquito’ committees for localized fund-raising. Moreover, they were
prepared to convene mass meetings when opportunities presented them-
selves.101 To the British, this grass-roots response was alarming to say the
least. The spread of fund-raising campaigns by students and workers could
irretrievably breach the peace and stability of Singapore society. The fear
that the communists would capitalize on the rising nationalist feelings
among the Chinese was one possible major consideration which prompted
the British to allow the Chamber to reconvene its public rally on 15 August
for a ‘properly constituted’ fund for China relief.
Being the colonial master, the British had their own rationale as to the
choice of leadership. And they made no bones about who in the Chinese
community should be given permission to lead this relief fund. The
Chamber, being largely controlled by Kuomintang members and sympa-
thizers of Tan Chin-hian, a former Tung Meng Hui member as president
and Lim Keng-lian a Kuomintang leader as vice-president, was unsuited
to lead the relief fund. Moreover, Tan Chin-hian was a Teochew, thus a
leader from a lesser pang. In addition, he had not been active in public
affairs until his election to the Chamber’s presidency in 1937, thus he was
a leader of unknown quality.102
After much deliberation between A. B. Jordan, the Secretary for
Chinese Affairs, and the governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, the British opted
for Tan Kah-kee, a man with whom Jordan and Sng Choon-yee were well
acquainted and the leader of the largest pang. Again, Tan Kah-kee was a
non-partisan leader, who had considerable influence in the Chinese com-
munity as a stabilizing factor, Finally, Tan Kah-kee was a ‘responsible’
leader who was more prepared to be accountable to the British in his drive
for relief funds.
Tan Kah-kee admitted that his leadership of the Singapore China Relief
Fund was sanctioned and legitimized by the British. On the eve of the
mass rally on 15 August, Tan Kah-kee and several committee members of
the Chamber were invited by Jordan for a briefing. It is not clear whether
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208 TAN KAH-KEE
they went as a group or were met separately by Jordan. The following

conversations between Tan Kah-kee and Jordan resulted. Jordan asked Tan
Kah-kee whether he would attend the mass meeting; Tan Kah-kee gave a
positive answer. Jordan asked him whether he would be elected chairman
for the proposed meeting. Tan Kah-kee replied, ‘don’t know’. Jordan cut
short the briefing by saying that ‘the Governor and I have decided that you
should be in charge of the meeting’,103 subject to his accepting five condi-
tions laid down by the government. These included: (a) that funds should
be collected only for relief purposes, (b) that the public should not be
forced to make contributions, (c) that only one body should be appointed
to accept and remit funds, (d) that neither anti-Japanese speeches nor
speeches advocating the boycott of Japanese goods should be made, and
(e) that the meeting should confine itself to the collection of relief funds
only, and that there should be no collection of funds for military
purposes.104
At the public rally held at the Chamber on 15 August, more than 700
representatives from 118 local public bodies attended with Tan Kah-kee
duly elected as chairman. In his opening speech, Tan Kah-kee confirmed
that he had been invited to meet with A. B. Jordan and had been told of
the five conditions imposed by the government, which he himself
accepted. However, he was then not prepared to disclose that he was in
fact the government’s choice.105 Amidst considerable political constraints
the historic rally ended with the formation of the Singapore China Relief
Fund Committee (SCRFC) which consisted of 31 elected members along
pang lines, as shown in Table 6.3.
At the first meeting of the executive members of the fund at the Ee Ho
Hean Club on 17 August, Tan Kah-kee was elected its president, a post he
was to hold for the rest of the pre-war years. With him at the chair, mem-
bers were elected into five specific departments plus a secretariat, listed in
Table 6.4.
Many of the thirty-one executive members of the SCRFC were promi-
nent pang or community leaders who were the cream of the hua-ch’iao
community. As campaigns for funds were organized along pang lines,
many pang leaders not elected executive members of the fund could con-
veniently be co-opted into various pang committees under the fund-
raising department. This then was the organizational structure of the
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TABLE 6.3
Executive Members of the SCRFC
Pang Members
Hokkien (14) Tan Kah-kee (President), Yap Geok-twee, Lee Kong-chian, Chua
Han-leong, Chew Hean-swee, George Lee, Chia Thian-hock, Lim
Keng-lian, Lee Chin-tian, Chia Eng-say, Lim Kim-tian.
Teochew (9) Tan Chin-hian, Lee Wee-nam, Yeo Chan-boon, Tan Hing-kow, Lien
Ying-chow, Ang Kai-pang, Tan Siak-kew, Chua Poh-chuan, Lim
Shu-siam.
Cantonese (4) Lum Mun-tin, Ho See-koon, Ow Bin-tong, Li Leung-kie.
Hakka (2) Yong Yik-lin, Lim Sih-ban.
Hainanese(1) Quek Shin.
Sankiang (1) Yang Sheng-hwa.
Sources: Straits Times, 16.8.1937; NYSP, 16.8.1937.
TABLE 6.4
Posts Held by Members of the SCRFC
President Tan Kah-kee.
Treasury (8) Lee Chin-tian (chairman), Lum Mun-tin (vice-chairman),
Yap Geok-twee, Lim Kim-tian, Tan Chin-hian, Tan
Lark-sye, Chua Poh-chuan, Yong Yik-lin.
General Affairs (2) Li Leung-kie (chairman), one vacancy to be filled.
Auditing Chew Hean-swee (chairman), Lien Ying-chow
Department (2) (vice-chairman).
Public Relations Lim Keng-lian (chairman), one vacancy to be filled.
Department (2)
Fund-raising (nominated by each pang)
Department (8)
Hokkien Hau Say-huan (chairman).
Teochew Lee Wee-nam (chairman), Yeo Chan-boon (vice-chairman).
Cantonese Chin Kee-sun (chairman), Fu Mun-chew (vice-chairman).
Hakka Lim Sih-ban (chairman).
Hainanese Quek Shin (chairman).
Sankiang Yang Sheng-hwa (chairman).
Secretariat No names given yet.
Source: NYSP, 18.8.1937.
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210 TAN KAH-KEE
SCRFC with members holding portfolios serving as a central executive

and co-ordinating body.
For the Chinese in South-East Asia, the era of the Sino-Japanese War
was an era of national salvation which took various forms. There was a
boycott movement against Japanese goods; there were public and political
rallies, cultural variety shows and propaganda in the Press and the schools,
which stirred up national feelings. There were campaigns for the return of
skilled and professional Chinese to serve the Kuomintang government in
Chungking. There was the mobilization of the Chinese for donation of
funds for China relief and for strengthening China’s war footing. It was a
grand era for mass mobilization techniques, experimentation of organiza-
tional skills and implementation of psychological and propaganda war-
fare. It was a dream era for political agitators and fund-raising organizers
as the hua-ch’iao community under emotional duress was more receptive
to their appeals for funds. It was also in this politicized era that contending
élites such as SCRFC, under Tan Kah-kee and the communist forces and
their front organizations, were perfecting their organizational techniques
and skills for charitable or political purposes. Through competition for
funds or for political influence, these contending élites soon turned the
Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya into a massive political
movement, unprecedented in scale and depth in the history of the Chinese
in this region.
Tan Kah-kee was at the centre of this great mass movement, being in
command of the legitimized and ‘properly constituted’ relief fund organi-
zation, with numerous pang and community resources at its disposal —
financial support, manpower backing, institutional networks, organizational
talents and competent propagandists. As a non-partisan leader and patri-
arch, it was easier for him and his relief fund to foster closer links with
various socio-political élites within the Chinese community, namely, the
Straits-born and English-educated, the Malayan Communist Party’s front
organizations, the Kuomintang, and various pang and community associa-
tions, for a common goal — China relief.
As compared to the Shantung Relief Fund nine years before, the
SCRFC was more thorough in its mobilization of institutional organiza-
tions through pang effort. For example, the Teochew pang’s highest
organization, the Teochew (Poit Ip) Huay Kuan, ‘co-opted all Teochew
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district hui-kuan, clan associations and businesses into the Teochew relief
machinery’.106 Rallying behind the Hoi Thin Club, the Cantonese were
just as versatile and creative in their efforts at fund-raising. They evolved
the device of ‘relief boxes’ as a means of collection from the takings of
Cantonese hawkers and businesses. They set up stores to sell commodities
at various strategic points in the city with proceeds being directly chan-
nelled into the Hoi Thin Club for China relief. Moreover, Cantonese oper-
atic performances and stage shows were also initiated to boost their
fund-raising endeavours. More significantly, the Cantonese began to col-
lect a fixed percentage of the earnings of Cantonese individuals for China
relief.107 The Cantonese methods of and strategy for fund-raising were
generally adopted by other pang leaders and organizations. It must be
pointed out that these methods and techniques had been experimented
with considerable success during the campaigns of the Shantung Relief
Fund.
The SCRFC was to blossom forth into a massive movement for fund-
raising as time went on. By early 1939 its fund-raising efforts consisted of
the following:
(a) monthly donations — Tan Kah-kee himself donated $2,000 (Chinese

currency) per month until the war ended.
(b) special donations.
(c) contributions deducted by employers from employees’ payrolls by
mutual agreement.
(d) donations through ‘relief boxes’.
(e) levy on rubber export and export of other tropical produce — this was
similar to the rubber surtax during the Shantung Relief Fund.
(f) remembrance days donations — on such occasions as the Chinese
New Year, the anniversary of the birth of Dr Sun Yat-sen, the anniver-
sary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Day of War of Resistance on
13 August, China’s national day, Double-tenth, Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek’s birthday on 30 October, etc.
(g) Selling flags, flowers and souvenirs and staging fun fairs, charity
matches (soccer, basketball and badminton matches were frequently
organized for China relief purposes), variety shows and operatic
performances.108
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212 TAN KAH-KEE
What was ‘revolutionary’ during the era of Chinese national salvation

in Singapore was the SCRFC’s effective use of well-tried organizational
and mobilizational principles and techniques for fund-raising and for
enforcing a boycott movement on Japanese goods. Among these tech-
niques were (a) the setting up of an ‘illegal’ front organization with the
blessing of Tan Kah-kee to tighten up the Japanese boycott; (b) the birth
of the Straits Chinese China Relief Fund Committee of Singapore to
enlist financial and moral support for China relief; and (c) the institution
of many sub-committees of the fund along the lines of geographical loca-
tion in Singapore to comb the length and breadth of the island for dona-
tions. As each of these was directly or indirectly associated with Tan
Kah-kee as chairman of the SCRFC, it is fitting to throw more light on
each of them.
It should be pointed out from the outset that Tan Kah-kee was not per-
sonally responsible for the founding, in September 1937, of the Chinese
National Emancipation Vanguard Corps (CNEVC), soon to become the
SCRFC’s front organization. When informed of the founding of this
‘underground’ body by Ng Aik-huan, Tan Kah-kee warned him to take
extra care but gave him his personal blessings. According to Tan Yeok-
seong, the SCRFC financed this organization at the rate of $8,000 per
month with tacit approval from Tan Kah-kee.109 The CNEVC was founded
by Si Hong-peng, Chang Ch’u-k’un and three of Tan Kah-kee’s most
trusted and seasoned organizational wizards, Hau Say-huan, Lau Boh-tan
and Ng Aik-huan, with Lau Boh-tan’s brother, Lau Aik-kee, playing a
forceful leadership role after its foundation. Most of these persons
belonged to the Hokkien fund-raising department of the SCRFC, thus
their close association with the fund itself.
The organization of the CNEVC was partly to counter the initiative
and influence of the Malayan Communist Party which had established
its own front organization in August 1937 in the Overseas Chinese
Anti-Enemy Backing-Up Society (AEBUS). Apart from competing
with the communists for popular support, the CNEVC also aimed at
a broad united front movement to resist the Japanese and ‘extermi-
nate’ traitors. Besides this, it advocated a boycott of Japanese goods
and looked for an improvement in Anglo-Chinese friendship and co-
operation.110 By February 1938 the objectives of the CNEVC were
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extended to include other spheres of activity, such as the establish-

ment of various forms of national salvation organizations, extension
of national salvation propaganda, removal of clan antagonism, and
solicitation of subscriptions to national salvation funds, for example,
relief funds and liberty bonds, etc.111
It is worth noting here that both the AEBUS and the CNEVC had at
least one common objective — enforcing the boycott of Japanese goods.
This common ground did enable both to cooperate in boycotting both
German and Italian goods in December 1938 in Singapore.112 By then the
second united front between the KMT and the CCP in China was well
under way. This united front strategy in China had the effect of bringing
the two bodies in Singapore closer together through the establishment in
1939 of a common committee, known as the United Action Committee.113
The British became so alarmed at the consequences of their combined
forces and actions that they took stern measures in December 1939 to
deport Hau Say-huan and other ringleaders.114 With the departure of Hau
Say-huan and the CNEVC weakened, there ended a year of clandestine
co-operation between the CNEVC and AEBUS.
While the British tended to be more tolerant towards the CNEVC, they
took more ‘repressive’ measures against the AEBUS and the MCP. In
1937, for example, twenty of the Malayan Communist Party’s senior com-
mand were deported under the Banishment Ordinance.115 In 1938, at least
eleven China-born leaders of the AEBUS were arrested for taking part in
‘subversive’ activities and were later deported.116 These included Wong
Yen-chee, Lain Wen-hua, Koo Chung-eng and Soo Tong-ing, four of the
AEBUS top leaders in Singapore. Despite harsh measures meted out by
the British against the AEBUS, the British, in 1938, had to admit that the
AEBUS ‘had attained to considerable power throughout Malaya generally
and particularly in Singapore’ and that this society ‘was comparatively
well organized and numerically strong’.117 It was also reported by the
British that ‘its members are given a badge, for which they pay 50 cents,
the badge worn pinned inside the trouser pocket. The badges are serially
numbered, and in Johore a number higher than 3,000 has been seen,’118 In
December 1939, the British authorities confirmed that the AEBUS was
still ‘the most powerful and active’ organization in the Malayan Chinese
community, with a membership of some 30,000.119
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214 TAN KAH-KEE
Prior to the co-operation between the CNEVC and the AEBUS in

December 1938, the challenge from the AEBUS to the leadership of Tan
Kah-kee and the SCRFC was nonetheless real. Between March and May
1938, the SCRFC repeatedly refused to yield to pressure from the AEBUS
and other left-wing organizations in Singapore to sponsor amateur dra-
matic performances in aid of the relief fund.120 The SCRFC’s refusal to
co-operate was based on two considerations, the first being the overt dis-
approval of such activities by the Chinese Secretariat and the second the
fear of the SCRFC being used by the AEBUS for dissemination of the
latter’s political propaganda.121 Predictably, a series of protests was lodged
from these left-wing pressure groups to no avail. A second more serious
confrontation between the AEBUS and the SCRFC took place in July and
August 1938 concerning the issue of commemoration of the first anniver-
sary of August 13 Incident, a date which marked the outbreak of Sino-
Japanese conflict in Shanghai. The AEBUS and its affiliates exerted
considerable pressure on the SCRFC to organize a commemoration ser-
vice but Tan Kah-kee roundly denounced these demands, commenting
that ‘bad characters were trying to create trouble on August 13 and were
threatening people into suspending business on that day’.122 Upon the
failure of the SCRFC to organize a commemoration service, the AEBUS
went ahead to hold a public rally on its own on that day with over 400
people attending.123 Their success on this occasion was ephemeral, for
eleven of their ringleaders were soon rounded up by the British authorities
for deportation. The above incidents highlighted the tensions that existed
between the AEBUS and Tan Kah-kee and revealed Tan Kah-kee’s con-
scious efforts to dissociate himself overtly from the MCP-led organiza-
tions during 1938. With both the CNEVC and AEBUS imposing and
policing the boycott movement against Japanese goods, Japanese trade
and commerce in Singapore suffered from devastating losses.
Unlike the Shantung Relief Fund, the SCRFC did mobilize the Straits-
born and English-educated Chinese community for fund-raising efforts
towards China relief. The Straits-born Chinese support for the Singapore
China Relief Fund had its origins in a conversation between Tan Kah-kee
and his fifth son Tan Kok-kheng at the Ee Ho Hean Club in 1938. Tan
Kok-kheng visited his father at the Ee Ho Hean Club often and was
impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication with which the China-born
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community went about its fund-raising campaigns. He asked his father

for advice regarding his own assistance and contribution. It suddenly
dawned on Tan Kah-kee that his son could help organize the Straits-born
Chinese for fund-raising purposes. Urged by his father, Tan Kok-kheng
first sounded out the idea with Dr Lim Boon-keng and Mrs Lee Choon-
guan as regards the organization of a relief fund committee to be affili-
ated with the SCRFC. Both Dr Lim and Mrs Lee were so enthusiastic that
the Straits Chinese China Relief Fund Committee of Singapore was soon
formed with Dr Lim Boon-keng as chairman, Mrs Lee Choon-guan as
vice-chairperson, Tan Kok-kheng as secretary and Tan Chin-tuan as treas-
urer, followed by Tay Lian-teck, Dr Loh Poon-lip, Dr Oh Thiam-hock,
Yap Pheng-geck, Lim Chong-pang, Jee Ah-chian, Soh Ghee-soon and
T. W. Ong as committee members.124 The activities of this committee
ranged from selling flags, flowers and souvenirs to holding fun fairs and
staging variety shows and magic shows by local and foreign artists.
Among all these activities came the big show in town, the famous
Peranakan amateur dramatic society known as the Oleh Oleh Party.
Members of the Oleh Oleh Party ‘gave remarkable performance bimonthly,
each time with a three-day running at the Happy World Amusement
Park’s stadium which had a seating capacity of three thousand people.
Their shows were very well patronized, and almost every performance
was fully packed. Their audience were all Babas and Nonyas who practi-
cally became addicted to their shows. These shows were a real hit, and
they brought in good money to the relief fund committee. The shows
were a Malay-dialogue drama which was a sort of modernized Bangsawan.
Interspersed between the shows, there were kronckongs beautifully sung
by the Party’s female impersonator Ong Guan-bock and a few others.
There were also comic acts by their clowns which made the audience
laugh to their hearts’ content.’125 For the first time, the Straits-born
Chinese had shown their concern and affection for China. According to
Tan Kok-kheng, it was a ‘radical’ change.126 The solidarity between the
China-born and the Straits-born communities in Singapore between 1938
and 1941 for China relief was one of the major achievements of the
Singapore China Relief Fund.
By far the most impressive display of power and prestige of the SCRFC
was the thorough mobilization of the Chinese in Singapore for
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216 TAN KAH-KEE
fund-raising purposes. This was done through the setting up of numerous

sub-committees and branches of the relief fund outside the city centre of
Singapore as from October 1938. Hau Say-huan and other activists within
the SCRFC were again instrumental in establishing over twenty sub-
committees with more than 200 branches throughout the island by January
1939.127 Among those sub-committees accountable to the SCRFC were:
Thomson Road, Tiong Bahru, Pasir Panjang-Alexandra Road, Pulau Ubin,
Geylang, Changi, Bukit Timah, Katong, Pasir Panjang, Seletar, Tanjong
Rhu, Blakang Mati, Telok Mata Ikan and Chua Chu Kang.128 By the time
Hau Say-huan left for China in December 1939, over thirty such sub-
committees of the SCRFC had been formed with locally elected officials
being in charge of fund-raising and other related activities. The spread of
these sub-committees and branches helped comb the island for funds
toward China relief. Moreover, it deepened the grass-roots influence of
the Singapore China Relief Fund, making it look more and more like a
political party machinery. By June 1939, the Chinese Secretariat in
Singapore became more alarmed when the SCRFC began to set up such
sub-committees along trade and industry lines, as is evidenced by the fol-
lowing descriptions, provided by the Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs,
a monthly bulletin compiled by the Chinese Secretariat in Singapore:
Its influence in the Chinese labour sphere in Malaya is to be seen in the

formation of Relief Fund Sub-Committees for particular trades and indus-
tries, e.g., in Singapore rickshaw pullers, seamen, domestic servants in
European households, builders, coffee shops, barbers, shoemakers all have
separate sub-committees of the Singapore China Relief Fund Committee,
and in the increasing use which is being made of these sub-committees or
of members of the Relief Fund Organisation in conciliation and arbitration
of persons (usually employees) in a single industry or trade for the pur-
pose of arranging for the collection of Relief subscriptions from fellow-
workers in the same industry or trade has undoubtedly encouraged the spirit
of solidarity among labourers and the formation of Trade Unions.129
The success of the SCRFC and various other relief funds in Malaya can
be seen from statistics. Between August 1937 and December 1938,
Singapore Chinese donated to the Executive Yüan of the Kuomintang
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
government a sum of $3.2 million, the total for the whole of Malaya being
$10.5 million.130 Between July 1937 and November 1940 the Chinese
community in Malaya remitted an estimated sum of $146 million (Chinese
currency) towards China relief.131 By February 1942, the Chinese in
South-East Asia were believed to have contributed a total of $400 million
(Chinese currency) towards relieving war victims in China.132 Tan Kah-
kee himself estimated that during the 1937–42 period the Chinese in
South-East Asia remitted a staggering sum of over $5,530 million
(Chinese currency) to China for all purposes.133
Although Tan Kah-kee was in command of the SCRFC, he was hopeful
that there would be a larger fund-raising body to incorporate the whole of
Malaya for China relief. Thus, on 24 August 1937, Tan Kah-kee published
a circular letter in the Nanyang Siang Pau addressed to leading Chinese in
various Malay States proposing the formation of a pan-Malayan organiza-
tion to direct the fund-raising campaigns and to absorb all contributions.
Despite the fact that his proposal was received with mixed feelings, it
resulted in the convening of a conference in Kuala Lumpur on 10 October
1937 with over 100 representatives from twelve Malay States relief fund
committees to discuss ways and means of co-ordinating fund-raising
efforts.
At the Kuala Lumpur meeting chaired by Tan Kah-kee, his proposal to
set up a pan-Malayan body for fund-raising was not unanimously accepted.
However, a compromise solution was reached with the establishment of a
co-ordination office to be located in Singapore to co-ordinate fund-raising
matters with various state organizations and with the Kuomintang govern-
ment in China. Tan Kah-kee was elected its convener and co-ordinator for
the whole Malayan region.134
No doubt the Kuala Lumpur convention represented a disappointment
to his design and ambition as the leader of the pan-Malayan relief fund
organization. His good fortune a year later in becoming the leader of a
pan-South-East Asian fund-raising coordinating body, however, fully
compensated for his thwarted dream as the leader of the Malayan Chinese.
The idea for the formation of a Southseas China Relief Fund Union
(SCRFU) began with Lee Cheng-chuan, chairman of the Philippine China
Relief Fund Committee, who was the first to propose to Tan Kah-kee in
December 1937 that he formed and headed such a body. Tan Kah-kee
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
218 TAN KAH-KEE
declined on the grounds that the responsibility was too heavy for him to
shoulder.135 In May 1938, after Amoy had fallen into the hands of the
Japanese, Lee Cheng-chuan again revived the idea. On this occasion he
suggested that a meeting aimed at forming a South-East Asian fund-raising
body could be held either in Hong Kong or Singapore. Coincidental as it
may have looked, the chairman of Batavia China Relief Fund Committee,
Tjhung Sie-gan, also wrote to Tan Kah-kee on the same subject, suggesting
that such a meeting could be held in Singapore. Tan Kah-kee replied to
both agreeing that a meeting should be called to discuss fund-raising mat-
ters only and that this proposed meeting should be held elsewhere as politi-
cal conditions in Malaya were unconducive.136 Tjhung took the matter up
with H. H. Kung, president of the Executive Yüan, asking him for help.
H. H. Kung, in turn, sent a telegram to Tan Kah-kee on 30 July 1938, mak-
ing three enquiries. These included (a) whether there was a need to form a
South-East Asian body to co-ordinate all fund-raising matters; (b) the pos-
sibility of Singapore hosting a meeting on this subject; and (c) the ways
and means of making this organization an effective one if it was set up.
After having received both verbal and written approval from the Chinese
Secretariat that the meeting could go ahead in Singapore, Tan Kah-kee lost
no time in cabling back to H. H. Kung, saying that there was no problem
for the first two questions. As regards the third issue, Tan Kah-kee urged
the Kuomintang government to take the initiative to persuade leading
Chinese in South-East Asia to attend the meeting.137 As a result of Tan
Kah-kee’s advice, H. H. Kung directed the Chinese Consul-General for
Singapore, Kao Ling-pai, and other Chinese consuls in the region, to help
invite Chinese community leaders from South-East Asia to attend this
grand meeting scheduled to be held on 10 October 1938 in Singapore.
Thus it is fair that the Chinese government and officials should receive
considerable credit for organizing the first pan-South-East Asian Chinese
convention in the history of South-East Asia.138
The opening day of this memorable convention on 10 October coin-
cided with China’s national day. The venue was the auditorium of the
Singapore Chinese High School at Bukit Timah Road, Singapore, where
over 180 delegates139 from Malaya, Dutch Indies, Thailand, the Philippines,
Hong Kong, Borneo, Sarawak, Burma and Vietnam met for seven days to
discuss matters concerning China relief. Within the school compound,
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the road leading to the auditorium was flooded with flowers and Chinese
national flags as well as numerous slogans. At the school’s clock tower,
a man-sized photograph of Chiang Kai-shek in full military parapherna-
lia was prominently displayed. Outside the auditorium, a two-line cou-
plet composed and written in bold Chinese calligraphy by Pan Kuo-chu,
helped to stir the national spirit of delegates. This couplet was to make
him famous as a calligrapher and poet. Literally, the right line read ‘Five
thousand years of nation state is adamant not to allow Chinese souls dip-
ping in blood’, while the left harmonized with ‘Eight million members
of overseas Chinese are hell bent to prop up a white sun shining across
the sky’.140 Other slogans on display outside the auditorium included
‘Unity’, ‘National salvation’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Resist the enemy’, ‘Sacrifice’,
and ‘Revenge humiliations’.
Inside the auditorium there were more slogans on the walls, such as
‘Support the top leader, unity is strength’; ‘With money donate money,
with manpower donate manpower, war of resistance must be won and
national construction be completed’; ‘Final victory depends on hard work,
wholehearted co-operation. The will of all could build the Great Wall of
China’; and ‘National interests before family’s, public interests before
individual’s. The rise and fall of a nation rests on the shoulders of each
individual’. At the back of the chairman’s rostrum, a photograph of Sun
Yat-sen was prominently hung. On both sides of the photograph there was
a couplet derived from Sun Yat-sen’s will which read ‘Revolution has not
yet been completed, all comrades must still work hard’.141
At 9.30 a.m. on 10 October 1938, Tan Kah-kee and participants wit-
nessed the ceremony of the hoisting of the national flag, followed by the
playing of martial music by the Yang Cheng School brass band. This brass
band and scores of students from both the Chinese High School and the
Nanyang Girls’ High School led all the delegates into the auditorium for
the day’s proceedings. The brass band was to remain in attendance
throughout the convention week, providing musical entertainment at the
daily opening and closing of the convention, and also at intervals during
which drinks and snacks were served by voluntary helpers. Sound movies
of the inauguration ceremony were taken by professionals. Scores of
reporters from the international Press were there to record this important
event and flash the news of the meeting to the world.142
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220 TAN KAH-KEE
At 10.00 a.m. the inaugural proceedings of the day began with the elec-
tion of Tan Kah-kee as provisional chairman. Tan Kah-kee made an inau-
gural speech emphasizing the importance of the Overseas Chinese raising
funds for relief and for China’s war effort. He stressed the need to organ-
ize a central body to co-ordinate and promote fund-raising campaigns in
South-East Asia for China’s final victory. The Chinese Consul-General,
Kao Ling-pai, also spoke on the need for the Chinese delegates to sink
differences of party, clan and sect, in order to achieve national salvation.143
Following Kao’s speech, the proceedings ended for the opening day with
delegates gathering informally around the auditorium to get to know one
another. This was the beginning of a seven-day session which lasted until
the closing ceremony on 16 October.
During this week-long convention, many speeches were made and
resolutions passed. Among the latter were resolutions to set up a central co-
ordinating body to be named the Southseas China Relief Fund Union
(SCRFU) with twenty-one elected office-bearers (see Table 6.5); to increase
fund-raising efforts; to promote the sale of national bonds and the remittances
to families in China; to campaign for the purchase of national goods and to
donate medical supplies for war refugees; to encourage Overseas Chinese to
serve in China and to launch propaganda campaigns for China relief.144
The power structure of the SCRFU shows that the Hokkiens dominated
the organization with fourteen representatives, and among these Hokkiens
most were supporters of Tan Kah-kee. Singapore had a lion’s share of
power and influence with nine office-bearers in an organization of twenty-
one members. Tan Kah-kee emerged as the leader of the South-East Asian
hua-ch’iao Chinese, if not of all Chinese.
As chairman of the SCRFU, hence the spokesman for the eight million
Overseas Chinese in South-East Asia, Tan Kah-kee provided strong lead-
ership to them and rendered valuable service to a China facing external
threats, distruction and colonization.
In response to numerous and constant requests for funds from Kuomintang
high officials including Chiang Kai-shek himself,145 the SCRFU worked
hard towards fund-raising. In October 1938, it was recorded that there were
sixty-eight relief funds for the whole of South-East Asia,146 by April 1939
there were over eighty such organizations in the region affiliated to the
SCRFU.147 In 1940 this figure was increased to over 200 for the whole
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region.148 Each affiliated body performed the various tasks expected of it

independently. These included fund-raising and the annual collection of
winter clothing, blankets, medical supplies and cars and trucks to be sent to
China as part of the Overseas Chinese contributions to China’s war effort
and China relief.149 In 1939 the SCRFU was responsible for recruiting some
3,200 Chinese drivers and mechanics from Singapore (706), Malaya (over
1,000), Burma and Indochina, to help solve China’s transport problems dur-
ing wartime.150 The SCRFU paid their wages at the rate of $30 (Chinese
currency) per month while the Kuomintang government was responsible
for their food, clothing and medical care.151 Many of these volunteers ended
up driving trucks on Burma Road and transporting essential materials to
Chungking. They worked and lived under appalling conditions with insuf-
ficient warm clothing, shelter and medical supplies, which became a sore
point between Tan Kah-kee and the Kuomintang government in the imme-
diate post-war years.
In 1939 the Chungking government requested the SCRFU to donate
large quantities of medical supplies including quinine and medical band-
ages. While bandages were duly supplied through Hong Kong, fifty mil-
lion pills of quinine were purchased in Java via various Javanese Chinese
charitable and relief fund organizations at a cost of over 300,000 guil-
ders.152 The SCRFU went further by establishing a plant in Singapore to
manufacture various kinds of medicine for the Kuomintang government.
However, the outbreak of the war in Europe put a stop to the export of
medical products from Singapore, thus frustrating the SCRFU’s attempts
at helping China’s war effort.
By far the greatest contribution made by the SCRFU was in the areas
of voluntary donations, bond subscription, and, indirectly, remittances to
families in China (C$5,000 million)153 between 1938 and 1941. These
huge inflows of hard cash had the effect of preventing the Chinese govern-
ment from becoming financially insolvent.
As chairman of the SCRFU, Tan Kah-kee could hardly avoid playing a
political and diplomatic role when opportunities arose. The most promi-
nent political role played by him in 1938 and 1939 took the form of his
relentless and vitriolic attacks on Wang Ching-wei and Wang’s attempts at
peace negotiations with Japan. Wang’s peace talks came at a time when
Japan had captured Hankow, a central Chinese city, and Canton, the capital
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222 TAN KAH-KEE
TABLE 6.5
Officials of the Southseas China Relief Fund Union (SCRFU), 1938
Chairman Tan Kah-kee Hokkien Singapore

Vice-chairmen Lee Cheng-chuan Hokkien Manila
Tjhung Sie-gan Hokkien Batavia
Treasurer Lum Mun-tin Cantonese Singapore
Auditor Chin Kee-sun Cantonese Singapore
Standing Tan Chin-hian Teochew Singapore
Committee Lee Kong-chian Hokkien Singapore
Members Lee Chin-tian Hokkien Singapore
Tan Ean-khiam Hokkien Singapore
Hau Say-huan Hokkien Singapore
Chew Hean-swee Hokkien Singapore
Ho Pao-jin Hokkien Malacca
Lau Geok-swee Hokkien Penang
Leong Sin-nam Hakka Ipoh (Perak)
Ng Tiong-kiat Hokkien Kuala Lumpur (Selangor)
Lee Hau-shik Cantonese Kuala Lumpur (Selangor)
Ch’an Chim-mui Cantonese Kuala Lumpur (Selangor)
Wong Yik-tong Cantonese Seremban (Negri Sembilan)
Tan Teow-kee Hokkien Vietnam
Ong Chuan-seng Hokkien Philippine Islands
Tan Sam-toh Hokkien Philippine Islands
Source: MRCA, No. 98, October 1938, p. 13.
of Kwangtung province in October 1938. On hearing through Reuters that

Wang Ching-wei talked of peace negotiations with Japan, Tan Kah-kee
sent a cable to Wang on 22 October 1938 with the intention of verifying
the truthfulness of the news. On 23 October Wang replied, justifying his
action on the grounds that ‘if peace conditions do not ruin the survival and
independence of China, why refuse peace talks’.154 Having confirmed that
Wang Ching-wei was for peace in the midst of Japanese invasion of
China, Tan Kah-kee sent two cables to him in quick succession, arguing
that any compromise with Japan at this stage would amount to suicide.
Tan slammed Wang for weakening Chinese will to resist aggression to the
end. It was in the telegram dated 26 October that Tan Kah-kee likened him
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to Ch’in K’uai (1090–1155), a crafty Sung prime minister who betrayed

the Sung dynasty by becoming the most vilified appeaser in Chinese his-
tory.155 On 17 November 1938 Tan Kah-kee made history by sending a
cable motion to the People’s Political Council in Chungking then in ses-
sion, proposing that any civil servants who talked about peace before the
withdrawal of enemies from China be treated as traitors.156 This cable
motion was heatedly debated and accepted by the council, presided over
by none other than Wang Ching-wei himself. Following this act, Tan Kah-
kee sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek on 31 December 1938, urging
Chiang to detain and punish Wang Ching-wei as a traitor to China.157 On
4 January 1939 Chiang Kai-shek replied suggesting that the Central gov-
ernment had already taken action against Wang Ching-wei.158 Obviously,
Tan Kah-kee was less than happy with the vague answer, for he again
revived the issue on 13 April 1939 by sending a long telegram to the
Chinese government, People’s Political Council and the Kuomintang
Party machinery urging that Wang Ching-wei be brought to trial for trea-
son.159 Chiang Kai-shek was again imprecise in his reply, saying that the
Central government would punish Chinese traitors severely.160 As for
Wang Ching-wei, he had flown out of Chungking on 18 December 1938
to Hanoi, on his way to Japan. And in Nanking, Wang established a ‘pup-
pet’ Kuomintang government on 30 March 1940 under the control of the
Japanese which he headed until his death in 1944. Tan Kah-kee scored
well politically in his clashes with Wang Ching-wei. He was the first
nominated Chinese member of the People’s Political Council from over-
seas to submit a ‘cable motion’ which was so pungent, so calculated and
so effective in its attempt to silence peace talks with Japan on the one hand
and on the other to humiliate potential ‘traitors’ within the Chinese gov-
ernment. Moreover, he was the first person in the history of modern China
to expose Wang Ching-wei as China’s modern Ch’in K’uai.
As chairman of the SCRFU, Tan Kah-kee’s diplomatic role was to
maintain amicable Anglo-Chinese relationships at all levels. On one occa-
sion in 1939, some young Chinese in Singapore reacted angrily to harsh
British treatment of their anti-Japanese compatriots who lived in the
British concession in Tientsin, China. The origin of this crisis was that the
British authorities in Tientsin had been forced to hand over some of these
anti-Japanese activists to the Japanese for trial and punishment. Tan Kah-kee
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224 TAN KAH-KEE
called a public meeting at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce

to help ease local tensions. At the meeting, Tan Kah-kee argued that
Britain was a friendly nation which had been generous to China in giving
a loan of five million pounds sterling to her since the beginning of the war.
Moreover, Britain allowed military and non-military materials to be
imported into China through Hong Kong and Rangoon, a fact proving her
to be friendly to China at war. Tactfully, Tan Kah-kee proposed that cables
be sent to Winston Churchill and Lloyd George urging them to help solve
the Tientsin crisis.161 Tan Kah-kee’s persuasive speech and action soon
defused a potentially explosive anti-British outburst in Singapore.
Another diplomatic move by Tan Kah-kee took place soon after Britain
had declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. On this occasion,
Tan Kah-kee led the SCRFU to pledge loyalty to Britain in her war
against Germany. In addition, the SCRFU sent circulars to all its affiliated
fund-raising organizations in all British colonies and protectorates, advis-
ing them to support the British war efforts.162 Tan Kah-kee personally
donated $500 towards the Malaya Patriotic Fund for strengthening
Britain’s financial resources.163 Members of the SCRFU also supported
the Poppy Day Fund in Singapore in November 1939 by making a com-
bined donation of $600 for the relief of British war victims.164 All in all,
these gestures were aimed at improving Anglo-Chinese relations at all
levels in Singapore.
Despite these timely and conscious efforts at cultivating better Anglo-
Chinese relationships, there existed considerable tension between the
British authorities and the SCRFU during 1939 arising from British
attempts at political control over the latter.
Tensions and anxieties were created when the Chinese Secretariat in
Singapore first brought up the issue of the government’s intention to regis-
ter all fund-raising committees in Singapore and Malaya in November
1938 under the Societies Ordinance and Enactments.165 Seven strict rules
were designed by the Chinese Secretariat and were to be incorporated in
the constitution of each fund-raising committee on registration. These
included (a) force or intimidation should not be used to solicit funds; (b) no
cess or levy on goods imported, or exported, or bought or sold was allowed
as a means for fund-raising; (c) the society should not organize any collec-
tions in public roads or places unless authorized in writing by an assistant
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registrar of societies; (d) no door to door appeal was allowed; (e) no door
to door sale of tickets for any performance was allowed; (f) the society
should not establish any organization whose object was to determine the
origin or place of manufacture of any article or produce or merchandise;
and (g) the accounts of the society should be audited by a person or persons
who should be approved by the Colonial Secretary.166 Although these rules
were aimed at removing abuses in the collection of relief funds while ‘giv-
ing full scope to the Committees to receive voluntary subscriptions and
collections’, they quickly became contentious issues between the British
authorities and the various China relief funds. While Tan Kah-kee was
generally unhappy with the rules and registration he was prepared to go
ahead with the registration of the SCRFC and SCRFU in spite of the protest
of some China relief fund committees in Malaya.167 The registration issue
dragged on among the various China relief fund committees in Singapore
and Malaya culminating in a joint meeting of representatives from various
fund-raising bodies in Malaya which was held at the Chinese Assembly
Hall, Kuala Lumpur, on 4 June 1939 and aimed at settling the issue. At this
meeting, Tan Kah-kee was persuaded to go along with the decision to form
a small committee of seven with a view to obtaining permission for the
continuance of the relief fund committees without registration. Headed by
Tan Kah-kee, this committee consisted of H. S. Lee (Selangor), Dato Wong
Yik-tong (Negri Sembilan), Leong Sin-nam (Perak), Teo Kai-chuan
(Johore), Ho Pao-jin (Malacca) and Ong Keng-seng (Penang). The com-
mittee met with the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, A. B. Jordan, on 20 June
in Singapore but failed to convince him that registration was unneces-
sary.168 On 3 August 1939, a petition was sent by Tan Kah-kee on behalf of
all the relief fund committees in Singapore and Malaya to the governor,
pleading that relief fund societies be exempted from registration.169 The
issue was closed when the governor rejected the petition, thus making way
for the relief fund committees throughout Malaya to apply for registration
under the Societies Ordinance and Enactments.170
However, the issue which most severely jolted amicable relationships
between Tan Kah-kee and the British authorities in Singapore was the
deportation of Hau Say-huan on 31 December 1939. Tan Kah-kee rated
Hau Say-huan highly as a speaker, a selfless organizer, trouble-shooter and
fund-raiser as well as a man of social conscience few could match.171 The
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226 TAN KAH-KEE
major reason for the deportation of Hau Say-huan was that Hau was instru-
mental in the formation of a ‘United Action Committee’ which was to
liaise between the Anti-Enemy Backing-up Society (AEBUS), a front
organization of the Malayan Communist Party, and the Chinese National
Emancipation Vanguard Corps (CNEVC) which was controlled by the
Singapore China Relief Fund.172 The British authorities estimated that the
combined membership in Malaya of the AEBUS and CNEVC was between
30,000 and 35,000 persons.173 The final rationale for the British taking such
drastic action against Hau Say-huan was given by Governor Shenton
Thomas:
This dangerous combination of political and semi-political organisations in

Malaya, which is ostensibly anti-Japanese in aim, is all the more formida-
ble in that it may well become an anti-Japanese cum anti-British movement.
That it is ready to become violently anti-British is shown by the enclosures
to this despatch which are only some of the revolutionary documents issued
by the Communist Party since the outbreak of the war. There is direct evi-
dence that Hau Say Hoan [Huan] has been financing organisation No:2 [the
CNEVC] to the extent of $350 a month and organisation No:1 [the AEBUS]
to the extent of $100 a month. I showed in my confidential despatch, dated
the 5th of October, 1938, how this latter organisation, inter alia occupies
itself in violence and in the fermenting of strikes.174
Naturally, Tan Kah-kee protested against the deportation of Hau Say-

huan. He was annoyed that Hau was given only three days’ notice for his
expulsion, commencing on 28 December when the expulsion order was
announced by the government. In a statement he made to the Press on 29
December, Tan Kah-kee distanced himself by saying that the SCRFC was
not aware of the government allegations against Hau. He pleaded with the
government to allow Hau more time to wind up his personal businesses
before leaving Singapore. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee declared that Hau had
at no time shown himself to the SCRFC to be concerned with the activities
of an ‘undesirable’ nature.175 In his autobiography, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu,
Tan Kah-kee denied that Hau had ever been involved in organizations
which carried out anti-Japanese boycott.176 In a statement issued to the
editor of the Straits Times, Hau denied that he was ever involved in
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anti-British activities. Part of this statement showed his sentiment towards

the British authorities in Singapore and Malaya:
It is most natural for me to be loyal and thankful to the country in which I

have successfully built up a business career and brought up a prosperous
family of considerable size. Therefore in these 38 years of sojourn here,
I have in words as well as in deeds proven beyond a shadow of doubt my
loyalty to the government whose protection I have enjoyed.
In all my actions and public statements, I have repeatedly advocated that out
of sheer gratitude for what Great Britain has done for China, it is the bounden
duty of every Chinese to go to his fullest extent in supporting the cause of
Great Britain; firmly in my belief that in so doing we shall be automatically
serving the interest of China as well, in view of their identity of interests.177
Tan Kah-kee had his own explanations for the expulsion of Hau Say-
huan. In his Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, he stated that it was the work of those
opposed to him within the Chinese community of Singapore. They could
not dislodge him as chairman of the SCRFC and the SCRFU so chose to get
rid of his right-hand man, Hau Say-huan.178 The opposition did not like Hau
Say-huan’s affiliation with the CNEVC and its boycott of Japanese goods,
and accused Hau of being influenced by the communists.179 According to
Tan Kah-kee, the opposition offered a bribe of $100,000 to a retiring high-
ranking British official within the government to prompt him into taking
such an action against Hau.180 Unfortunately, Tan Kah-kee did not reveal the
identities of his opposition and the high-ranking official. However, his son,
Tan Kok-kheng, indicated that it was some Kuomintang members in
Singapore and Malaya who were ‘actively behind the scene instigating the
authorities to banish him [Hau Say-huan]’.181
The final exit of Hau Say-huan was fraught with drama. He was sup-
posed to leave by air from Singapore to Rangoon on 30 December but
cancelled the flight because of ‘visa’ difficulties.182 At the Kallang airport
over 2,000 Chinese men and women gathered to see him off, unaware that
Hau had cancelled his scheduled flight.183 There was tension between the
crowd and the airport security officers although no clashes resulted.
Having no wish to see clashes between Hau Say-huan’s sympathizers and
the police, Tan Kah-kee persuaded Hau to catch an evening train on
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228 TAN KAH-KEE
31 December to Penang for a connecting flight to Rangoon, to avoid pos-

sible scenes.184 Even so, a few hundred Chinese including members of the
SCRFC came to bid farewell to him.185 Silently and solemnly, Tan Kah-
kee stood by Hau’s side on the platform at Tanjong Pagar station for their
last few minutes of togetherness. When the train was leaving the station,
Tan Kah-kee called out to him loudly with the following message in
Hokkien, ‘Say-huan brother, see you in Nanking’.186 Neither of them had
any inkling that they were to meet in Chungking and Yenan in China in
1940, some four months after Hau had left Singapore.
During Hau’s sojourn in China, he was given a post as a liaison officer
by the Chinese government to conduct affairs between the Chinese author-
ities in Chungking and the Overseas Chinese truck drivers and mechanics
serving on the Burma Road. He frequently shuttled to and fro between
Kunming and Chungking. It was on one of these missions that he died in
an airplane crash at the Kunming airport in 1944,187 when Tan Kah-kee
was dodging a different kind of peril, the Japanese pursuit in Java.
1. Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, Foochow,

Fukien jen-min ch’u-pan-she, 1981, p. 20.
2. Ibid.; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, reprint, Singapore, Tan Kah-
kee, 1946, p. 26.
3. Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, op, cit., p. 20.
5. Ibid.
6. Lau Tzu-cheng, Wong Nai Siong and New Foochow, Singapore, South
Seas Society, 1979, p. 247. (Text in Chinese); Chung-hua-min-kuo k’ai-kuo
wu-shih-nien wen-hsien, Vol. 1, Ko-min yuan-liu yü ko-min yün-tung, No. 11,
Taipei, Chung-yang tang-shih-hui, 1963, p. 551.
7. Ibid.
8. Nam Kew Poo, 17 November 1911.
9. Lat Pau, 16 August 1912.
10. Lat Pau, 27 November 1911.
11. Tan Keng-hean’s Correspondence; Tan Keng-hean to Tan Kah-kee, dated
9 March 1924, p. 3.
12. NYSP, 13 April 1925.
14. Ibid.
15. NYSP, 9 May 1928.
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16. Ibid.
17. CO 273/542/52010, R. Ingham’s Report on Kuo Min Tang and other
Societies in Mataya (Continued) July–September 1928, 23 October 1928, pp. 3–4.
18. FO 371/13925/778, A. M. Goodman, The Kuomintang in Malaya
(Continued), 28 December 1928, p. 22.
19. Ibid., p. 25.
20. NYSP, 11 May 1928.
21. Ibid., 15 May 1928.
22. Ibid., 18 May 1928.
23. Ibid.
24. FO 371/13925/778, op. cit., p. 23.
25. Ibid.
26. CO 273/542/52010, op. cit., p. 7.
27. FO 371/13962/199, Malayan Command Intelligence Notes, No. 60,
6 December 1928, p, 3.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p. 4.
30. MRCA, No. 21, May 1932, p. 23.
31. NYSP, 23 May 1928.
32. Ibid., 11 June 1928, 16 June 1928, 18–21 June 1928.
33. Ibid., 8 June 1928.
34. Ibid., 30 August 1928.
35. Ibid., 24 June 1929.
36. FO 371/13925/778, op. cit., p. 23.
37. Ibid., p, 27.
38. NYSP, 3 December 1928.
40. Consult Chapter 5 on Tan Kah-kee’s power base.
42. Ibid., 10 May 1929.
43. Ibid., 17 June 1929.
45. Ibid.; NYSP, 29 July 1931; MRCA, No. 21, May 1932, p. 24.
46. NYSP, 29 July 1931.
48. Ibid., p. 23; NYSP, 13 March 1932.
49. NYSP, 22 April 1932.
50. MRCA, No. 37, September 1933, p. 34.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., p. 15.
53. Ibid., p. 36; MRCA, No. 45, May 1934, p. 33.
54. Ibid., No. 37, September 1933, p. 36.
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230 TAN KAH-KEE
55. Oral evidence provided by Sng Choon-yee in 1976.

56. CO 273/576/82184, Sir Cecil Clementi, SS, lo CO, 10 December 1931, p. 1.
57. Ibid., p. 2.
58. Ibid.
59. MRCA, No. 21, May 1932, p. 25.
60. Ibid., pp. 25–6.
61. Ibid., p. 25.
62. CO 275/132, Minutes of the Executive Council, SS, 11 May 1932, p. 85.
63. MRCA, No. 10, June 1931, pp. 70–1; ibid., No. 11, July 1931, p. 58;
Ibid., No. 12, August 1931, pp. 52–4.
64. Ibid., No. 12, August 1931, p. 53.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. MRCA, No. 17, January 1932, p. 56.
69. MKJP, 8 February 1932; MRCA, No. 18, February 1932, pp. 5–7.
70. MRCA, No. 18, February 1932, pp. 6–7.
71. MKJP, 7 February 1933.
72. Ibid., 3 February 1932, 5 February 1932.
74. NYSP, 18 November 1933.
75. Ibid.; MRCA, No, 39, November 1933, p. 6.
77. Ibid.
78. Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution, China Under Nationalist.
Rule, 1927–1937, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1975,
pp. 251–62.
80. Ibid.; NYSP, 5 September 1936.
82. Ibid.; NYSP, 30 June 1936.
83. MRCA, No. 73, September 1936, pp. 38–9.
84. NYSP, 31 October 1936; MRCA, No. 84, October 1936, p. 49.
85. NYSP, 24 March 1937.
86. Tan Yeok-seong, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng lun’, International Times, June–July
1969, p. 14. (Text in Chinese.)
87. An interview with Ng Aik-huan on 28 February 1984 at the Asia
Insurance Co. Ltd., in Singapore.
88. NYSP, 24 December 1936; SCJP, 24 December 1936.
89. SCJP, 24 December 1936.
90. Ibid.
91. NYSP, 9 April 1937.
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92. An interview with Tan Kok-kheng at Hotel Savoy, Singapore on

10 December 1982.
93. MRCA, No. 83, July 1937, pp. 15–18.
94. NYSP, 16 July 1937.
95. Ibid., 24 July 1937.
96. MRCA, No. 83, July 1937, p. 18; Pang Wing Seng, ‘The “Double-
Seventh” Incident, 1937: Singapore Chinese Response to the Outbreak of the
Sino-japanese War’, JSEAS, Vol. 4, No. 2, September 1973, p. 276.
97. MRCA, No. 83, p. 18.
98. NYSP, 16 August 1937; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 42.
99. MRCA, No. 83, July 1937, pp. 16–17.
100. Ibid., No. 84, August 1937, p. 17.
102. On Tan Chin-hian, consult P’an Hsing-nung, ed., The Teo-chews in
Malaya, Singapore, Nan-tao ch’u-pan-she, 1950, pp. 134–5.
104. Ibid.; MRCA, No. 84, August 1937, p. 18.
105. NYSP, 16 August 1937; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 43.
106. Pang Wing Seng, op. cit., pp. 278–9.
107. Ibid., p. 279.
108. Tan Kok-kheng, ‘Recollections of Tan Kah-kee, My Father’, Singapore,
1982, pp. 48–52 (mimeo.); Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 62–6.
109. An interview with Tan Yeok-seong on 5 February 1976 in Singapore.
110. MRCA, No. 87, November 1937, p. 16.
111. Ibid., No. 90, February 1938, pp. 19–20.
112. Ibid., No. 100, December 1938, p. 14.
113. CO 273/662/50036, Governor, SS, to Malcolm MacDonald, CO, 29
December 1939.
114. Ibid.
115. V. Thompson and R. Adloff, The Left Wing in Southeast Asia, New York,
William Sloane Associates, 1950, p. 128, cited by G. Z. Hanrahan, The
Communist Struggle in Malaya, reprint, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya
Press, 1971, p. 58.
116. MRCA, No. 96, August 1938, pp. 14–20; CO 273/646/50500, Governor,
SS, to Malcolm MacDonald, CO, 5 October 1938.
117. MRCA, No. 96, August 1938, p. 14.
118. Ibid.
119. CO 273/662/50336, op. cit.
120. MRCA, No. 93, May 1938, pp. 19–20.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid.; No. 96, August 1938, p. 24.
123. Ibid.
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232 TAN KAH-KEE
124. Tan Kok-kheng, op. cit., p. 53.

125. Ibid., p. 54.
126. Ibid., p. 55.
127. MRCA, No. 100, December 1938, p. 24.
128. Ibid., pp. 23–4; ibid., No. 101, January 1939, p. 30.
129. Ibid., No. 106, June 1939, p. 34.
130. Ibid., No, 103, March 1939, p. 22.
131. Nanyang Year Book, 1951, Singapore, Nanyang Siang Pau Press, 1951, p. 39.
132. Ta-chan yü nan-ch’iao, Singapore, Southseas China Relief Fund Union,
1947, p. 47; Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, Singapore, 1949, p.
123.
133. Ta-chan yü nan-chiao, p. 47; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 344–5.
135. Ibid., p. 47.
136. NYSP, 30 March 1941.
137. Ibid., 11 October 1938.
138. Ibid.
139. The figure for the attendance of this week-long convention varies
between about 200 (ST ), over 180 (Tan Kah-kee’s estimate), 165 (Stephen
Leong’s), 164 (official SCRFU’s) and 160 (Y. Akashi’s).
141. Ibid.
144. MRCA, No. 98, October 1938, pp. 13–16.
145. Tan Kah-kee, Nan ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 78–9.
146. Ibid., pp. 58–61.
147. Ibid., p. 78.
148. Shcn Chung-jen, ed., Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chiu-kuo yen-lun-
chi, Shanghai, Hua-mei t’u-shu kung-ssu, 1941, p. 2.
149. Ibid.
150. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 85–6; Stephen Leong, ‘The
Malayan Overseas Chinese and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1941’, JSEAS,
Vol. 10, No. 2, September 1979, p. 301.
152. Ibid., p. 87.
153. Stephen Leong, op. cit., p. 312.
158. Ibid.
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159. Ibid., p. 73.

160. Ibid.
161. Ibid., p. 84.
162. Ibid., p. 88; ST, 16 September 1939.
163. ST, 16 September 1939.
164. ST, 10 November 1939.
165. MRCA, No. 103, March 1939, p. 15.
166. Ibid., pp. 15–16.
167. Ibid., No. 104, April 1939, p. 9,
168. Ibid,, No. 106, June 1939, pp. 11–12.
169. ST, 4 August 1939.
170. MRCA, No. 108, August 1939, p, 12.
172. CO 273/662/50336, Governor, SS, to Malcolm MacDonald, CO,
29 December 1939, pp, 6–7.
173. Ibid., p. 6.
174. Ibid., p. 7.
175. ST, 29 December 1939.
177. ST, 2 January 1940.
179. Ibid., pp. 91–2, 94.
180. Ibid., p. 94.
182. ST, 2 January 1940.
183. Ibid.
185. ST, 2 January 1940.
187. Ibid.
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7
Northern Star and Southern Kamikaze:
Tan Kah-kee Transformed
In my lifetime, I most admire the saying of the American motor car king,
‘a righteous failure is not a shame, the fear of it is’.
Tan Kah-kee on struggle, 1933 and 1940.
THE deportation of Hau Say-huan and further British tightening of politi-

cal control had the effect of forcing the various relief fund committees
throughout Malaya to take stock. Many were forced to review and abolish
their collections and propaganda methods to which the government had
taken exception, including the use of tar by some of their members against
shops suspected of selling Japanese goods. There was a purge of another
kind. As was to be expected, ‘Committee members known to be connected
with the Anti-Enemy Backing-up Society (AEBUS) were removed from
office and most of the Committees have shown themselves anxious to end
their relations with it’.1 There was also the reorganization of the various
fund-raising committees. One of the victims of this restructuring was the
propaganda department which was abolished because it was regarded by
the British authorities as ‘the root of the most of its evil’.2 In Singapore, it
was reported that some of the sub-branches of the fund which had been
opened by Hau Say-huan or were discovered to be dominated by the
AEBUS were closed down.3 In addition, the government enforced its ban
on propaganda shows, dramatic performances and singing parties and
restricted the committee’s flag days to three a year as a fund-raising
device.4 In short, the government succeeded in limiting and hampering the
fund-raising efforts of the various committees in Malaya, thus ushering an
era of steady decline in fund-raising activities among the relief fund
committees.
234
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
NORTHERN STAR AND SOUTHERN KAMIKAZE 235
Map 2 Tan Kah-kee’s 1940 Comfort Mission to China.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
236 TAN KAH-KEE
After the initial ‘prevarication and bluster’,5 Tan Kah-kee was prepared
to divert the attention of the public to other activities. One of these was his
preoccupation with the founding of a ‘comfort mission’ to China between
December 1939 and March 1940. Tan Kah-kee neither wished nor allowed
the deportation issue to damage the Overseas Chinese fund-raising effort
or to cloud his own cordial relationships with the British authorities. The
fact that Tan Kah-kee paid a special tribute to the Government of the
Straits Settlements for its sympathy towards the relief fund in a broadcast
speech delivered through the International Broadcasting Station in
Chungking on 26 April 1940, proved his tactfulness, humility and genuine
appreciation of the British authorities in Malaya in allowing relief funds
to flow into the coffers of the Chungking government.6
What prompted Tan Kah-kee to formulate the idea of sending a comfort
mission to China under the auspices of the SCRFU in December 1939 was
the need to assess the situation in and conditions of China’s war of resist-
ance against Japan which had been going on since July 1937. The
objectives of the mission were clearly spelled out at the outset and included
(a) to comfort the combat troops at the frontlines so as to sustain their
morale, (b) to console the wounded soldiers and civilian war victims, and
(c) to scrutinize wartime conditions and report them back to the Chinese
overseas so as to improve their donations for China relief.7 Thus, it is rea-
sonable to say that this comfort mission was also a fact-finding mission.
While newspaper publicity was extensively used for the founding of the
proposed mission, the various affiliated fund-raising bodies of the SCRFU
were authorized to select suitable candidates for the mission. Those
selected had to conform to the six rules laid down by the SCRFU, among
the most important being the ability to speak and write Mandarin, freedom
from such vices as opium-smoking, and ability to pay $1,200 (Singapore
currency) towards the costs of the trip to China.8 By the end of February
1940, some fifty members from various parts of South-East Asia were
chosen for the mission. Arrangements were made for some fifteen mem-
bers from the Philippines, Hong Kong and French Indochina to proceed to
Kunming, Yunnan province, by way of Saigon and Hanoi while two other
members from Burma were to proceed from Rangoon direct to Kunming.
The rest of these fifty members were to gather in Singapore and sail by the
steamer Hong Keng to Rangoon on 6 March 1940. From Rangoon, this
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contingent would then travel via Burma Road to Kunming where the three
parties were later to meet before proceeding to Chungking together.
Predictably the main bulk of the fifty members came from the teaching
profession of the Chinese community, although there was a sprinkling of
businessmen among them.9
Initially, this mission did not include Tan Kah-kee who had no intention
of visiting China himself because he could not speak Mandarin. Moreover,
he did not enjoy cold weather and was severely handicapped by arthritis.10
However, two incidents which took place after the formation of the mission
helped to change his mind. The first was that Tan Kah-kee believed that his
opposition in Singapore, some Kuomintang members, had cabled the
Chungking government, accusing some of the mission members of being
communists.11 More alarmingly, the Chinese Consul-General, Kao Ling-
pai, came to see him suggesting that he himself should represent Tan Kah-
kee on the mission. Tan Kah-kee declined his offer, saying that there was the
mission head who could do that job. Kao then revealed that he had wanted
to return to Chungking himself in any case. Tan Kah-kee smelt a rat and was
concerned that something unpleasant might happen to some members of the
comfort mission if he stayed back.12 As soon as he had made the decision to
go to China, Tan Kah-kee invited Tjhung Sie-gan and Lee Tiat-ming to
accompany him. Tjhung was one of the two vice-chairmen of the SCRFU
and a prominent relief fund leader from Java, while Lee, a prominent
scholar and writer in his own right, served as SCRFU’s secretary and Tan
Kah-kee’s private secretary. Apart from being Tan’s secretary on this trip,
Lee was to serve as Tan’s translator from the Hokkien dialect to Mandarin.
Before Tan Kah-kee’s departure for China, he received reliable infor-
mation that one of his opponents, a Chinese business rival in the brick
manufacturing industry, had lobbied with the government via an English
brick manufacturer, labelling him as a communist.13 An infuriated Tan
Kah-kee went to see A. B. Jordan, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs,
declaring that he had once been a Tung Meng Hui member in 1910 and
had since never joined any political parties in the Chinese community. Tan
Kah-kee regarded it as a smearing tactic employed by his business rivals
to discredit him. Jordan listened to him and burst out into laughter. As the
Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Jordan was careful not to comment on what
he thought of Tan Kah-kee.14
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238 TAN KAH-KEE
Soon after his encounter with Jordan, Tan Kah-kee and Lee Tiat-ming
left Singapore on 15 March by sea and arrived at Rangoon on 19 March,
to be united with Tjhung Sie-gan on 26 March. The three of them flew
from Rangoon together and landed at Chungking at 4.00 p.m. the same
day, some eighteen days before the arrival of the main contingent of the
mission. This 1940 trip to China was Tan Kah-kee’s sixth; his fifth had
been undertaken some twenty-one years earlier in 1919.
At the Chungking airport, a reception was arranged for the visitors. At
the reception, Tan Kah-kee informed reporters of the objectives of the
comfort mission and revealed his intention to visit the headquarters of the
Eighth Route Army in Yenan to ‘catch a glimpse of the true picture’15 if it
was at all possible. Curiosity could well have been a major reason for him
to visit Yenan as he had read in 1938 a book called Hsi-hsing-man-chi, a
translated version of Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China. The book was
passed on to him by Chang Ch’u-k’un,16 then a young radical journalist
and head of the propaganda department of the Chinese National
Emancipation Vanguard Corps (CNEVC). The saga of the Long March
(1934–5) may well have made considerable impact on him. Little did he
know then that his mission to Yenan was to transform his political loyalty
so decisively and that this, in turn, would have serious ramifications in the
Chinese communities in South-East Asia. At the reception at Chungking
airport Tan Kah-kee pleaded with the people and government of
Chungking to cut out unnecessary banquets for the comfort mission as the
mission did not come to China for sightseeing and socializing. On hearing
that the Chungking government had allocated a sum of $80,000 (Chinese
currency) for entertaining and accommodating the comfort mission, Tan
Kah-kee lost no time in issuing a press statement the next day stressing
the importance of practising the virtue of frugality in accordance with the
ideals of the New Life movement, founded and promoted by Chiang Kai-
shek himself in 1934. In the press release, Tan Kah-kee reiterated the need
to eliminate ‘unnecessary socializing’ in a difficult era of war of resist-
ance.17 In fact, upon Tan Kah-kee’s insistence, the mission paid for the
accommodation of its members at the Chialing Guest House, arranged the
employment of a cook and budgeted a sum of C$140 per day for food for
all of its members. Thus between 14 April 1940 when the main mission
contingent arrived at Chungking and 1 May when it departed, the cost of
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food and lodgings for the mission was a mere C$6,100. By being frugal,
the mission helped save a sum of C$80,000 for the Chungking govern-
ment. While it is fair to suggest that Tan Kah-kee was concerned with
conservation of financial resources for the government, his press state-
ment unmistakably reflected his own austere lifestyle — an intense phobia
against socializing and lavish entertainment.
Despite Tan Kah-kee’s abhorrence of ‘unnecessary socializing’, he soon
found it quite impossible to avoid it all. In fact, Tan Kah-kee had a hectic
time in Chungking, meeting people and paying courtesy calls on many gov-
ernment ministers, party leaders and military officers. These calls allowed
him to familiarize himself with wartime conditions in China generally and
the state of the war of resistance in particular. Moreover, they allowed him
to better assess the qualities of the Kuomintang regime in Chungking and
their determination to unite the people of China at a time of national crisis.
He attended luncheons, banquets and parties when he could not refuse to do
so and at these functions, he was unafraid of asking his hosts pointed and
pressing questions. He made speeches informing his hosts and people in
Chungking about the conditions under which relief funds were being set up
and run in South-East Asia and assuring them that the hua-ch’iao communi-
ties overseas were solidly behind China’s war effort.
Public functions aside, Tan Kah-kee was also keen to get himself
acquainted with wartime conditions in China through non-official sources.
One of these came from Chang Ch’u-k’un, then serving as Nanyang Siang
Pau’s special war correspondent in Chungking. Chang had just returned
from the battlefront in North China in time to visit Tan Kah-kee at the
Chialing Guest House. Tan asked Chang bluntly about conditions both on
the battlefront and in Chungking and was told in a memorable phrase,
‘ch’ien-fang ch’ih-chin, hou-fang chin-ch’ih’, meaning, the frontline was
tense in battle, the backline was tense in pleasure-seeking. In Chang’s
view, Chinese soldiers at the frontline were waging a bitter and bloody
war while the Kuomintang officials in Chungking were lavishly indulgent.
In order to convince Tan Kah-kee, Chang pointed out that the two man-
sions being built at the riverside below the Chialing Guest House belonged
to government officials Wu T’ieh-ch’eng and Chu Chia-hua,18 thus giving
Tan Kah-kee the first evidence of what might be regarded as graft and
corruption in high places.
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240 TAN KAH-KEE
During his Chungking sojourn between March and May, Tan Kah-kee
met Chiang Kai-shek twice. Both men met for the first time when Tan paid
Chiang a courtesy call on 28 March, two days after his arrival at
Chungking. On the second occasion, Chiang Kai-shek invited both him
and the comfort mission for a European-style banquet at the Chialing
Mansion in mid-April. The Chialing Mansion was a magnificent reception
venue, owned by H. H. Kung and run as a business concern. At this ban-
quet, Chiang Kai-shek officially welcomed the mission. In response to
Chiang Kai-shek’s welcoming speech, Tan Kah-kee spoke of the loss to
China of many Chinese offspring who had completely lost touch with
their fatherland. Tan also stressed the need for the Chinese government to
do something to win back their loyalty after the war was over.19 At the end
of this banquet, Chiang Kai-shek asked Tan Kah-kee for his impression of
Chungking. A tactful Tan Kah-kee avoided the issue of politics, saying
that he was a political men-wai-han. However, he told Chiang that he was
impressed with numerous reconstruction projects in Chungking but was
irked by the filthy conditions in motor cars and trishaws he saw.20 He did
not feel sufficiently compelled then to mention what he considered to be
the eye-sores of Chungking: the Manchu clothing worn by men, and the
tight-fitting dresses, high-heeled shoes and painted finger-nails and lips
of the women. Tan Kah-kee was particularly dismayed and outraged that
these things could happen in Chungking where people were supposed to
practise the expounded virtues of the New Life movement.21
In between courtesy calls, meetings and banquets Tan Kah-kee took a
keen interest in the state of industry in Chungking. He took time to inspect
a chemical plant, a paper mill, a steel mill, a munitions plant and various
industrial co-operative factories which manufactured blankets for troops.22
Tan Kah-kee was disturbed to find that the government allowed civil serv-
ants to own and run private enterprises,23 the ownership of the Chialing
Mansion by H. H. Kung being a case in point.
During his Chungking sojourn, one major issue which had Tan Kah-kee
worried was the rift between the nationalists and the communists within
China which would set back China’s effort at securing a final victory
against Japan. The grim facts of this problem were passed on to him by
General Pai Ch’ung-hsi, then Deputy Chief-of-Staff of the Kuomintang
military hierarchy, during a private luncheon. On hearing this first-hand
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report from General Pai a saddened Tan Kah-kee told his host that ‘should
there be a rift between the two parties which results in a civil war in China,
it would be tantamount to suicide’.24
Soon after General Pai’s luncheon, Yeh Chien-ying, Lin Tsu-han and
Tung Pi-wu, three senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party and
fellow members of the People’s Political Council, came to visit Tan Kah-
kee. They brought him three goat-skin winter coats, a speciality from
Shensi province, and stayed for a couple of hours discussing the rift
between the nationalists and the communists. Yeh approved of General
Pai’s attempt to mediate between the two parties and confirmed that a
complete unity was essential to resist external threats. Tan Kah-kee
expressed the view that the Overseas Chinese hoped the two parties in
China would work together to bring about a final victory and advised the
communists to compromise and to place national interests above the
party.25 At the end of this meeting, Tan Kah-kee accepted an invitation
from Yeh Chien-ying to a tea party to be hosted by the communists. It
should be noted that the Chinese Communist Party had gathered consider-
able information on Tan Kah-kee as the leader of the SCRFU. Both Chou
En-lai and Yeh Chien-ying had been briefed in 1939 in Chungking by
Chang Ch’u-k’un, the special war correspondent for Nanyang Siang Pau.
Chang informed both Chou and Yeh that Tan Kah-kee was a staunch sup-
porter of Chiang Kai-shek. However, Chou expressed his confidence that
Tan Kah-kee would change his mind about supporting the Kuomintang
regime should he have a chance to see the situation in China for himself.26
As an important and influential hua-ch’iao leader, it was no doubt impor-
tant for the CCP to win him over.
A few days later, Yeh Chien-ying, Lin Tsu-han and Teng Ying-ch’ao,
wife of Chou En-lai, came to fetch Tan Kah-kee for the tea party at the
head office of the Chinese Communist Party at Tseng-chia-yen in
Chungking. This tea party was attended by over 100 people, including
General Yeh T’ing (1897–1946) of the New Fourth Army, and Ch’in
Pang-hsien, alias Po Ku (1907–46), the Communist Party Secretary
between 1932 and 1935, a long marcher and then the propaganda director
in the Eighth Route Army’s liaison mission in Chungking. In reply to Lin
Tsu-han’s welcoming remarks, Tan Kah-kee made one of his best speeches
in Chungking, explaining the formation of the Southseas China Relief
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242 TAN KAH-KEE
Fund, providing figures for the Overseas Chinese contributions toward

China’s war effort and pleading with the two major parties in China to
unite against a common enemy — Japan. For the first time, Tan Kah-kee
tackled the issue of political ideology — Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s
Principles and communism, a theme he elaborated comprehensively:
Over 100 years ago, France was the first to promote a republican polity by
abolishing monarchy and adopting an elected head of the nation. She set an
example for other countries to follow. After the 1911 revolution in China,
Sun Yat-sen reformed China’s polity and promoted the Three People’s
Principles. If the present government in China can carry them out to their
full potential, China may yet set an example to others. V. I. Lenin’s 1917
October Revolution in Russia promoted a communist polity which is effec-
tively in operation. It too can become a shining example for many coun-
tries. As regards the Three People’s Principles and Communism, both have
different features, However, both aim at the destruction of monarchical
dictatorship, capitalist monopoly and exploitation of man by man. Moreover,
both ideologies carry out people’s freedom and equality as their aims.27
In summary, Tan Kah-kee presented a Western proverb to his hosts: ‘Be

an example to others and not a follower of others’ example.’28
Tan Kah-kee’s speech went down well with his hosts and he was
encouraged by Yeh Chien-ying to say likewise to his Kuomintang coun-
terpart. After the reception, Tan Kah-kee intimated with Yeh his intention
to visit Yenan and asked him how he could reach there. Yeh replied that it
was no problem and advised him to get in touch with the headquarters of
the Eighteenth Group Army at Ch’i-hsien-chuan Street in Sian where
transportation to Yenan could be arranged. According to Yeh, the journey
from Sian to Yenan by car would take about three days. A few days later,
Tan Kah-kee received an invitation from Chairman Mao Tse-tung himself,
welcoming his visit.
One other major engagement during his Chungking sojourn was his
attendance at the People’s Political Council meeting commencing 1 April
1940. Two days before the convention, Tan Kah-kee was invited to attend
a reception for members of the Council and to speak on the state of the
Overseas Chinese in South-East Asia. Tan Kah-kee gave a comprehensive
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report on the Overseas Chinese population, their economic position and

business enterprises, their education and educational development and the
treatment meted out by various Western colonial powers. Tan Kah-kee
took the opportunity to thank fellow Councillors for supporting his ‘cable
motion’ in 1938 against the peace movement of Wang Ching-wei.29
After the arrival of the main contingent of the comfort mission at
Chungking on 16 April, Tan Kah-kee and the contingent attended five
major banquets and receptions. Three of these were given by such high-
ranking government officials as H. H. Kung, chairman of the Executive
Yüan, Chiang Kai-shek, and Lin Sen, president of the Chinese Republic
and an elder statesman of the Kuomintang government, while the other
two each had several hosts drawn from various government bodies, the
armed forces and citizens of Chungking.
On 1 May 1940, some forty-five members of the comfort mission30 were
divided into three separate groups, each of which was to take a different
route to tour various provinces of China and carry out their twin tasks — to
comfort the wounded soldiers and to find out about wartime conditions in
China. Led by Pan Kuo-chu, the first contingent was to visit Szechuan,
Shensi, Honan, Hupeh and Anhwei, while the second contingent, headed
by Ch’en Chong-khong, was to visit Hunan, Kiangsi, Chekiang, Fukien,
Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The third contingent with its leader Tan Teow-
kee was to tour three provinces of North-west China, Kansu, Tsinghai and
Suiyan. Each contingent was escorted by two government officials. When
all the missions were completed, members of each contingent subse-
quently returned home safely by themselves by August 1940.
It should be pointed out that Tan Kah-kee did not join any of the three
contingents as he intended to embark on a more extensive tour of China,
including Yenan. He made the trip with Lee Tiat-ming and Hau Say-huan,
his former comrade-in-arms in Singapore. Tjhung Sie-gan could not
accompany him as he had to return to Batavia for urgent business matters.
The three of them departed Chungking on 5 May by a Dakota DC-3, then
considered a big, luxury aircraft, for Chengtu, the capital of Szechuan
province. Here they had a brief reunion with two of the three contingents
of the comfort mission which had arrived three days ahead of them.
During Tan Kah-kee’s ten-day visit to Chengtu, he called on the director
of education for Szechuan and enquired about finance, staffing and general
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244 TAN KAH-KEE
educational matters in the province. He also visited the University of

Szechuan and saw many new buildings in the process of being erected. He
took a special trip to Kuan district outside Chengtu to inspect the river
system and was impressed with its potential as a site for water conserva-
tion and for a hydroelectric project. On the lighter side, Tan Kah-kee made
a special trip to the shrines of Chu-ko Liang (181–238) and Liu Pei (d.223)
in the southern suburb of Chengtu. Tan Kah-kee had read Lo Kuan-
chung’s (1330–1400) San-kuo yen-i (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
when young, and had been an admirer of Chu-ko Liang as a brilliant and
loyal strategist and statesman during the era of the Three Kingdoms
(220–265). Liu Pei had succeeded in establishing Shu Han, one of the
three kingdoms, under which Chu-ko Liang served as a mentor. Originally,
both of these shrines had been erected in the T’ang dynasty (618–907) but
were destroyed by fire during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The shrines
which Tan Kah-kee saw were built in 1672 during the reign of K’ang-hsi
of the Ch’ing dynasty (1644–1911). Tan Kah-kee was more impressed
with Liu Pei’s shrine for its spaciousness and sublime atmosphere but
thought Chu-ko Liang’s shrine much run down.31 Tan Kah-kee also toured
the Omei Mountains, famous for their Buddhist temples, and stayed two
nights at the Chingch’en Mountain, for its scenic beauty.
While in Chengtu, Tan Kah-kee was entertained by Chiang Kai-shek
twice, once at an official luncheon and again at a private luncheon. When
Tan Kah-kee was in Chungking, he had been unsuccessful in securing a
private audience with Chiang Kai-shek to discuss such important matters
as the British restriction on relief funds being remitted to China. Now in
Chengtu, Tan Kah-kee lost no time in informing Chiang of the problem.
Chiang promised to instruct China’s ambassador to Britain to take up the
issue with the Foreign Office. After the private luncheon, Chiang Kai-shek
asked Tan Kah-kee about his itinerary in China. Tan Kah-kee answered
that he would go to Lanchow and Sian. Chiang Kai-shek further ques-
tioned his destinations after Lanchow and Sian. Tan Kah-kee knew what
Chiang was up to and so told him that he would like to visit Yenan if
transport was available. Chiang then began to attack the communists for
their lack of national feeling and to condemn them for being insincere,
untrustworthy and treacherous.32 Tan Kah-kee explained that it was his
duty to see things for himself so that he could make a factual report to the
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Overseas Chinese on his return to Singapore. Chiang Kai-shek then toned

down his voice and said that it was fine to visit Yenan, but cautioned him
not to be deceived by the communists.33
Accompanied by Lee Tiat-ming and Hau Say-huan, Tan Kah-kee flew
to Lanchow, capital of Kansu province, where he was welcomed by
Governor and General Chu Shao-liang and some other fellow Hokkiens
working there. Here he also met General Fu Tso-yi, governor of Suiyan
province, who happened to make a stopover in Lanchow on his way to see
Chiang Kai-shek in Chungking. General Fu was later to hand over Peking
to the communists without firing a shot at the final stage of the Chinese
Civil War, and himself defected to them.
Among other activities in Lanchow was Tan Kah-kee’s visit to an
ancient temple which stored the remains of the Mongol conqueror, Genghis
Khan and his consort, contained in two bronze caskets. These two caskets
had been removed from Inner Mongolia by the Chinese authorities for
security reasons.34
After one week’s sojourn at Lanchow, the trio travelled by car to Sining,
capital of Tsinghai province, at the invitation of Governor Ma Pu-fang. On
the way to Sining, they saw much poverty among the Kansu people whose
clothing was ragged beyond recognition. In Sining, Governor Ma and citi-
zens of the capital gave them a joint reception at six o’clock in the morn-
ing. As usual, Tan Kah-kee made a speech on the objectives of the comfort
mission, the campaigns of the Overseas Chinese for relief funds and their
anti-Japanese boycott movement. In the speech, Tan Kah-kee praised the
organizational ability of the governor and the fine spirit and discipline of
the Sining citizens.35 In Sining, Tan Kah-kee was impressed with the mili-
tary contribution of Tsinghai to China’s war effort through training horses
for military use and sending two divisions of cavalry to the front to fight
against the Japanese. He was generally satisfied with the economic condi-
tions of the Sining citizens, but was appalled by the filthy conditions of the
monks in one major Buddhist temple outside Sining.36
Back from Sining to Lanchow, Tan Kah-kee was reunited with the third
comfort mission contingent led by Tan Teow-kee. In honour of Tan Kah-
kee and the contingent, the people of Lanchow gave a reception chaired
by the governor. Tan Kah-kee spoke at length of what he had told the
people of Sining; he also spoke of the customs and traditions of the
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246 TAN KAH-KEE
Overseas Chinese, opium-smoking in South-East Asia and the rich

resources of the South-East Asian region. On 24 May 1940, Tan Kah-kee,
Lee Tiat-ming and Hau Say-huan left for Sian by car.
On their way from Lanchow to Sian, they passed through an ancient
battlefield and reached a historic city, Sienyang, by the afternoon of
25 May. Tan Kah-kee was vastly disappointed to see Sienyang in a
neglected state. They drove on and arrived at Sian during the evening and
stayed at the Sian Guest House, where some of the hostages of the ‘Sian
Incident’ (1936) had been held.
Sian, the capital of Shensi province, was known historically as
Ch’angan. It served China well as the capital of eleven dynasties, com-
mencing with the Chou dynasty (1122–221 BC) and ending in the T’ang
dynasty. It was once the largest city in the world with a population of a
million people, and with an imperial splendour unmatched anywhere in
the world. Today, it has developed into an educational and textile centre
of the north-west with a population of two million people. The Sian of
1940, however, was a city of great tension arising from political rivalry
and intrigues between the Kuomintang and communist forces in Shensi.
Tan Kah-kee and members of the first comfort mission contingent could
hardly miss feeling it.
Pan Kuo-chu and members of his contingent had arrived at Sian four
days before Tan Kah-kee; they came to visit him at the guest house. Pan
complained to Tan that some strange and embarrassing incidents had hap-
pened. First, they were bundled out of the Sian Guest House where they
had originally stayed by local Kuomintang officials because it was feared
they were making contact with the communist officials stationed nearby.
Then, the comfort mission had to cancel a scheduled luncheon engage-
ment with Chu Teh, Commander of the Eighth-Route Army, because the
local Kuomintang officials argued that they had already arranged a lunch-
eon for them on that day. Pan Kuo-chu offered his apologies to Chu Teh
for the cancellation but accepted an alternative invitation for a tea party at
three o’clock that same afternoon instead. Chu Teh informed Pan that
Chou En-lai had arrived from Yenan on his way to Chungking and would
also attend the reception as their host. However, the Kuomintang officials
forestalled their plan by taking them out for a prolonged sightseeing tour
that afternoon, thus rendering them unable to keep their appointment with
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Chu Teh and Chou En-lai. Worse still, members of the comfort mission
had no freedom of movement as wherever they went they were escorted
by Kuomintang officials.37 On his way out of Sian towards Sienyang, with
the sight of the snow-capped Ch’in ranges in the twilight, a saddened but
inspired Pan Kuo-chu penned a classical Chinese poem recording and
reflecting on some of his unpleasant experiences in Sian:
The roaring Ch’in tigers and swirling Han dragons had disappeared without
traces,
To the beauty of this Imperial State my eyes drink.
The twilight glows dim the Han tombs and palaces,
And blessings to a wartorn country still in control of this Ch’inland.
Suffering are the people from the corrupt and scheming officials;
And squabbles between brothers amidst national crisis.
How devoid are the feelings of the mountain green?
And yet their hair too has turned snowy overnight when touched by the
state of current affairs.38
Tan Kah-kee did not remain silent on the subject of the obstructive
tactics of the local Kuomintang officials. At a dinner jointly hosted by
three of the highest-ranking military and political officials of Shensi prov-
ince two days later in honour of members of the comfort mission, Tan
Kah-kee commented on these tactics in a prepared speech. On this occa-
sion, Tan Kah-kee cleverly likened China’s post-war reconstruction to the
process of rubber planting, saying that China must get rid of local bullies,
bad gentry and corrupt officials like planters must destroy poisonous
weeds and destructive termites on the rubber estates.39
As well as attending some official engagements, Tan Kah-kee and mem-
bers of the comfort mission took time out to inspect historical sites, includ-
ing the tombs of King Wen, founder of the Chou dynasty (1122–221 BC),
and Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). They inspected the
mausoleum of Ch’in Shih Huang-ti, the unifier of China in 221 BC and the
graves of two Han generals, Wei Ch’ing and He Ch’i-pin, and that of Yang
Kuei-fei, the favourite consort of Emperor Hsuan-tsung of the T’ang
dynasty.40 In 1974, Chinese peasants digging a well near the site of the Ch’in
Shih Huang-ti mausoleum uncovered by chance the first of an 8,000-strong
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248 TAN KAH-KEE
terracotta army, accompanied by life-sized ceramic horses and chariots.

These entombed warriors were of varying ranks and military formations,
each different and supposedly modelled on actual troops in the emperor’s
living army. This army was created as an imperial bodyguard to serve their
ruler in his afterlife. The entire army was then buried in three specially con-
structed subterranean vaults, east of the vast mausoleum of the Ch’in
emperor, to ensure his immortality. These entombed warriors were consid-
ered to be China’s finest archaeological discovery of the twentieth century.
In Sian, Tan Kah-kee duly visited the Communist Eighteenth Group
Army’s headquarters at Ch’i-hsien-chuan Street to enquire about transport
to Yenan and to apologize on behalf of the comfort mission to both Chu
Teh and Chou En-lai for failing to attend the scheduled tea party. The
officer-in-charge duly conveyed the apologies and promptly arranged two
cars for Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues to depart for Yenan on 30 May.
On the morning of their departure, the governor of Shensi province,
Chiang Ting-wen, sent a junior officer Shou Chia-chun to accompany
them to Yenan in a limousine. The communist officers might have been
embarrassed by this new arrangement but lodged no protest to either Tan
Kah-kee or the provincial Kuomintang government over it.
The journey from Sian to Yenan by car took them a good two days. On
31 May when they arrived at Chung Pu county, Tan Kah-kee had arranged
with the local magistrate to pay homage at the tomb of Huang Ti (Yellow
Emperor), one of the legendary Chinese emperors believed to have lived
between 2698 BC and 2598 BC. This emperor is said to have contributed
greatly to early Chinese civilization. His influence is said to have been felt
in many areas including the correction of the calendar, the practice of
calculating time in cycles of sixty years, the establishment of official
records of historic events, and the invention of bricks. The tomb was made
of earth, it was round in shape and about twenty feet in height. There was
a pavilion in front of the tomb for the use of visitors. Tan Kah-kee and his
colleagues bowed three times before the tomb, burned incense and offered
fresh fruits as part of an ancient Chinese ritual — ancestor worship. As
there were other participants in the ceremony, Tan Kah-kee took the
opportunity to make a short speech, reporting the objectives of his own
mission in China.41 After this, they drove on until they arrived at the out-
skirts of Yenan at 5.30 p.m., in time for a welcoming reception.
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This was the first of three mass receptions to be given by the com-
munists in Yenan, attended by some five thousand people from all walks
of life, including some of the high-ranking communist officials, namely,
Wang Ming, Wu Yu-chang, Kao Tzu-li and Hsiao Chin-kuang. Tan Kah-
kee again repeated the objectives of the comfort mission — to comfort
Chinese troops at the frontlines and to inspect the production and recon-
struction of China behind the lines. Tan Kah-kee went on to comment
on the war of resistance, saying that China must carry on this war, must
unite all factions to persist in the war and must get rid of the defeatist
Wang Ching-wei clique before the final victory could be achieved.42
Hau Say-huan also spoke briefly, supporting Tan Kah-kee’s theme that
‘the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party be united to drive
the Japanese out of China’.43
Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues stayed their first night at the Yenan
Guest House, located in a cave on the southern outskirts of the city. Their
rooms were spartan in taste and rudimentary in furnishings with doors and
windows flimsily protected by paper panes. There was no room service,
and they had to descend a couple of hundred steps from their rooms to
dine at the guest house below. This was their first taste of an austere life-
style in Yenan.
Tan Kah-kee had a hectic time on the second day of his stay in Yenan. He
received a courtesy call from a group of Overseas Chinese living in Yenan.
Afterwards, he and his two colleagues were taken to inspect the Women’s
University of Yenan where they were to meet and talk with Chu Teh. By
noon Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues had left the University to return to the
guest house for lunch. After everyone had got into the car Lee Tiat-ming
accidentally knocked his head against its roof, causing a severe haemor-
rhage. Lee was taken to a hospital for observation and had to be hospitalized
for a week, thus giving Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan more time to get a
better understanding of Yenan communism and the communist leadership.
After lunch, Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan went to inspect downtown
Yenan. They discovered that most of the buildings on the thoroughfares of
the city had been damaged by bombs during the Japanese air raids in
1939. They walked up to a high cliff for a bird’s-eye view of the city and
admired the geographical location of the city, surrounded by mountains on
three sides. Tan Kah-kee had no doubt that with careful town planning,
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250 TAN KAH-KEE
Yenan could develop into a city capable of accommodating half a million

people. On the way back to the guest house from their stroll, they came
across a street with about one hundred retail shops selling daily requisites.
They found from their enquiries that none of the shops belonged to the
government; they were all privately owned with a capital ranging from
$100,000 to $300,000 (Communist currency).44
At 4.00 p.m. Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan were driven to Yang-chia-
ling to meet Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Mao was also a cave-dweller, occu-
pying a room similar in size to those at the guest house. Inside the room
there were a dozen different wooden chairs and an old writing desk. Tan
Kah-kee’s first impression of Mao was that his hair was a little bit long;
Mao explained that he had not had a haircut for two months due to frequent
illness. Mao informed Tan Kah-kee of his working habit — working at
night until early morning and sleeping during the daytime, until the after-
noon. Tan Kah-kee advised him to change his working and sleeping pat-
terns for the sake of his health, but Mao replied that he had been doing it
for a period of ten years and was used to it. After Tan Kah-kee had con-
veyed the messages of the comfort mission, their conversations were inter-
rupted, first by students who came to visit and then by Ch’en Po-ta (b.1904),
a graduate of the Chi Mei School founded by Tan Kah-kee, then a leading
ideologue of the ‘Thought of Mao Tse-tung’. In the evening Chu Teh and
Wang Ming came to join them for dinner. What impressed Tan Kah-kee
most at this stage was that when guests visited Mao, they entered the house
without bowing or saluting the Chairman. It dawned on him that the old
concept and practice of hierarchy had been abolished in a new society
where there was no class distinction and where all comrades were equal.45
After dinner, Mao, Chu and Wang accompanied Tan Kah-kee and Hau
Say-huan to a second welcoming reception, this time hosted by the people
of Yenan. The evening reception was chaired by Wang Ming; both Tan
Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan also spoke. In Tan Kah-kee’s speech, the main
theme was national unity against aggression. In his view, ‘it was not the
time for the Chinese to fight for power or territory. All must work together
for national salvation.’46
On 2 June, the third day of Tan Kah-kee’s stay in Yenan, rumours had
it that the Kuomintang government was despatching its armies to the bor-
ders of Yenan. So concerned was Tan Kah-kee that he asked Chu Teh to
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verify the truthfulness of the rumours. Chu Teh nodded but said that the
troops were led by one of the divisional commanders of General Hu
Tsung-nan and that he would wait until the dust had settled before taking
action. Chu Teh also commented that he had already cabled General Pai
Ch’ung-hsi, hoping that Pai would continue to mediate between the
Kuomintang and the communists.47 Two days later, Chu Teh confirmed
that the Kuomintang troops were to be stationed at the border but would
not invade Yenan.
On his fourth day in Yenan, Tan Kah-kee took the opportunity to
enquire into general educational and economic conditions during his
meetings with some Overseas Chinese undergraduates of the Women’s
University. From these students, Tan Kah-kee learned that they were given
free education by the government plus $1 (Chinese currency) pocket
money per month and two sets of new clothing per year. Apart from
attending classes, these students would do manual labour which included
rearing pigs and working on the new farmland. Proceeds from the sale of
farm products belonged to the university, which in turn would use the
money to improve the quality of food for the students. On Sundays and
public holidays, these students would organize themselves into propa-
ganda units to visit villages to preach the meaning of patriotism and the
importance of cleanliness and neighbourly love to villagers. As a result of
their propaganda, villagers washed themselves and their clothes more
often, whereas before they had only washed themselves three times in
their lives, at birth, marriage and death. When asked about economic con-
ditions among the villagers, these students told him that all newly
reclaimed land belonged to private individuals and that there was no land
or produce tax levied by the government in the first year of farming.
However, the government did impose a produce tax thereafter, when and
if the crop was larger than 400 katties. The tax scale ranged from 1 katty
(one and one-third pounds) to a maximum of 7.5 katties on seasonal pro-
duction. In other words, there was no taxation on crop production below
400 katties.48 This taxation system on farm products was later confirmed
by the head of the Finance Department of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia
Border Region government.49
Day five of Tan Kah-kee’s visit was spent with Chu Teh and newly
graduated cadet-officers from the Yenan Fourth Military Academy. Chu Teh
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252 TAN KAH-KEE
came to have lunch with Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan at the guest house
and told them more about military matters concerning the communists.
Chu Teh revealed that for over eight months the Kuomintang government
had not honoured the agreement signed between the Kuomintang and the
Communist Party following the Sian Incident — to supply Yenan with
eight million bullets and financial funding of $680,000 per month. Chu Teh
challenged Tan Kah-kee to find out the facts from Chiang Kai-shek. After
lunch, Chu Teh accompanied them to inspect the Fourth Military Academy.
Their arrival coincided with a basketball match played among the
cadets. There were no military salutes between Chu Teh and the cadets.
One player bellowed to him, ‘Commander-in-Chief, come and join in’.
Chu Teh took off his coat and played two matches with them. The whole
episode further impressed on Tan Kah-kee that the communists were trying
to establish a society without class and hierarchical distinctions among
common men.
There were some 500 cadets in the Fourth Academy and 100 of them
graduated that day. The head of the academy made a speech during the
graduation ceremony, saying that there should be more military academies
for training cadet officers. After this ceremony Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-
huan were shown around the academy, with its classrooms built inside the
caves. That evening, Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan dined with the cadets
and were provided with a four-course meal, all cold dishes. Tan Kah-kee ate
little, but Hau Say-huan had an excellent appetite. Consequently, Hau Say-
huan contracted diarrhoea and was indisposed for three days. The chief
medical officer who looked after Hau Say-huan was a Christian and a fellow
Hokkien from Lung Yen county. Apparently this officer was the highest paid
person in Yenan, drawing a monthly salary of $32 (Communist currency).50
On 5 June, the sixth day of his Yenan sojourn, Tan Kah-kee received
three important visitors, all high-ranking officials from the Finance,
Public Security and Judicial Departments. From the finance official, Tan
Kah-kee learned that there were no taxes on businesses. He was informed
that some three million mou, or 450,000 acres, of new farmland had been
cultivated since 1938. Apart from production tax, there were no land and
commodity taxes levied by the government. By the Public Security
Commissar, Tan Kah-kee was given communist justification as to why
they had to develop military muscle. The commissar admitted that the
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expansion of military forces in Yenan was partly for self-defence against

potential Kuomintang attacks and partly to carry out the war of resistance
in Japanese-occupied territory. Moreover, the commissar also revealed
that the Communist Party in Yenan had developed an army of 23 divisions
which used weapons captured from enemies as well as those purchased
from the people. According to the commissar, many of the communist
guerrilla units used such primitive weapons as knives, axes, spears and
swords, as well as hand-grenades for combat, raiding and disrupting
enemy communication lines.51 From the Head of the Judicial Department
and some Overseas Chinese students studying in Yenan, Tan Kah-kee was
fed with socio-political information about Yenan society. The students
told him that the security in Yenan was excellent without the unemployed,
idlers, thieves and beggars found in other parts of China. The government
gave jobs or assigned work on newly cutlivated land to the unemployed
and the idlers. When he asked about civil servants, Tan Kah-kee was told
that all district magistrates were elected by the people. Moreover, a public
servant would be sacked if convicted of accepting bribes up to $50.
Capital punishment would be applied if his case involved a sum of $500.
Punishment would be meted out without fear or favour to all criminals. All
public servants worked seven hours per day, plus two hours of studying
party works. Once a week, on Sunday or at night, all public servants had
to attend public lectures, often given by prominent guest speakers. A pub-
lic servant was paid $5 per month, but food, lodging, clothing, medical
care, child endowment and entertainment allowances were provided by
the government for nothing.52
On 6 June, his seventh day in Yenan, Tan Kah-kee was driven to a dis-
trict to inspect an iron foundry and a printing house, both of which were
small in scale. According to Chu Teh, there was no other iron works in
Yenan as it was an agricultural region. Driving through the countryside,
Tan Kah-kee noted that rural folk dressed well. From this trip, Tan Kah-
kee also learned that there were more schools being established for each
district since the communists had arrived, and that the living standards of
the people had improved due to the development of transportation net-
works and price increases for farm products. He was also informed that
the Yenan government had abolished foot-binding among women and
strictly prohibited opium-smoking among the people.53
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254 TAN KAH-KEE
Day eight in Yenan brought good news to Tan Kah-kee that Lee Tiat-
ming had been discharged from hospital and that Hau Say-huan had also
recovered from illness. He therefore decided to leave Yenan on 8 June for
Shansi province. His day started with an argument with some visiting
political and military personnel about Kuomintang–communist conflict.
Tan Kah-kee advised them not to expand their armed forces too rapidly so
as to avoid antagonizing the Chungking government. Again, their justifi-
cations were the same — the need for self-defence and to fight against the
Japanese in Japanese-occupied areas. In the evening, Tan Kah-kee and his
colleagues attended their third mass reception, this time a farewell func-
tion, with more than 1,000 people from a cross-section of the Yenan com-
munity participating. At this farewell reception headed by Mao Tse-tung,
Chu Teh, Wang Ming, Wu Yu-chang and Hsiao Chin-kuang, Tan Kah-kee
made his farewell speech, emphasizing the paramount importance of
national unity as a cornerstone of China’s final victory against Japan.54 In
his Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, he stated bluntly that should national unity break
down, the top leaders of both the Communist and Kuomintang Parties
should bear the full responsibility for it.55
During his Yenan visit, Tan Kah-kee met and talked with Mao Tse-tung
on four occasions, two of which took place at the guest house where Mao
came to dine with him. One of the major topics discussed was inevitably
China’s national unity. Tan Kah-kee forcefully put to Mao that the
Overseas Chinese financial support for China’s war effort would dwindle
should there be a civil war and that Chairman Mao should avoid it at all
costs, leaving the Kuomintang–communist conflict to be resolved after the
war of resistance was over. Mao accepted all Tan’s arguments and urged
Tan to convey his sincere wishes for national unity to Chiang Kai-shek.
Moreover, Mao also pleaded with Tan Kah-kee to report to the Overseas
Chinese what he had seen and heard in Yenan. Tan Kah-kee promised to
do these two things when opportunities arose. In the Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu,
Tan Kah-kee pledged with his own reputation and conscience that he
would report with objectivity the conditions in Yenan and would never
tzu-lu wei-ma (name deer for horses), meaning falsify or fabricate.56
One of Tan Kah-kee’s last impressions of Mao Tse-tung was that Mao
was an approachable, relaxed and modest man who practised pu-ch’ih
hsia-wen (never be ashamed to ask). He gave an instance of how one
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evening Mao located the residence of Shou Chia-chun, the minor

Kuomintang official who had accompanied Tan Kah-kee to Yenan, and
had a long talk with Shou until the early hours of the morning. How mod-
est could Mao get when he saw fit to engage in a lengthy discussion with
a lowly official from the opposite camp?
To be sure, Tan Kah-kee did not see enough of the dynamics of Yenan
communism in operation; the mass line politics of involving the peasantry
in the border areas in political participation; the working of the United
Front policies by carrying out the so-called ‘Three-thirds system’ of
allowing non-Party members participation in government and councils of
the base areas; and the various campaigns for economic self-reliance.
However, what Tan Kah-kee had seen and experienced during those cru-
cial nine days in Yenan was sufficient to help him formulate his ‘informed’
opinion of the communist leadership and its endeavours in an era of war
of resistance. It enabled him to compare the virtues of the two contending
regimes, the Kuomintang and the communist. Also, it dispelled for him
some of the myths and assertions then in circulation against the commu-
nist socio-political system in China.
His comparisons of Chungking and Yenan were stark but honest.
Chungking was a corrupt and corrupted city with men wearing Manchu
clothing, women with painted finger nails, high-heeled shoes and lipstick.
People patronized bars and restaurants to full capacity, and competed with
one another in entertainment. Despite a scarcity of petrol, which had to be
flown in from India over the Himalayas at extremely high cost, the streets
of Chungking were jammed with privately-owned limousines. Street
lamps remained switched on during daytime, wasting valuable energy.
Most vehicles on the roads were filthy beyond words. Strict press censor-
ship in Chungking left the city’s newspapers with scarcely anything to
publish. As a result, each paper only churned out a small sheet each day.
Worse still, there were far too many government departments and institu-
tions which were over-staffed in any case. Government officials openly
participated in private enterprises while the Control Yüan did nothing to
check all the abuses. Tan Kah-kee wondered where the people of
Chungking got the money from for their lavish living.57 By contrast,
Yenan was a frugal, austere, puritanical and hard-working city. Private
land-ownership and private enterprises existed; stories about ‘sexual
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256 TAN KAH-KEE
promiscuity’ and ‘skinning the capitalists’ were totally untrue.58 There

were no signs of abject poverty or social dislocation among the people.
The Yenan leadership, he found, was hard-working, frugal, honest, sim-
ple-living, loyal, brave, disciplined and public-minded. It also had the
interests of the people and the country at heart. It had carried out demo-
cratic process in politics in villages under the communist control. It
worked and co-operated with the people in fighting against their common
enemy, Japan.59 What Tan Kah-kee saw in Yenan delighted him to no end
as he believed that he had found a new earth and a new heaven.60 He saw
in Mao Tse-tung a public-minded and loyal patriot, while in Chiang Kai-
shek he saw a cunning and crafty dictator.61 Whereas before his visit to
Yenan in 1940, he had often been worried that China had not produced a
leader capable of national reconstruction, now after Yenan it suddenly
dawned on him that this leader was the so-called shu-jan wo-min (infa-
mous) communist leader, Mao Tse-tung.62 After Yenan, Tan Kah-kee came
to the conclusion that Chiang Kai-shek’s government would collapse and
that Mao Tse-tung would win.63 Four years earlier in 1936, Edgar Snow
had found the Yenan communists austere and patriotic and the nationalists
corrupt and unreliable; he went on to predict the Red Star over China. On
8 June 1940 on the way out of Yenan, Tan Kah-kee found similar qualities
in Yenan communists and predicted that Mao would be China’s saviour.
Having bidden farewell to Yenan, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues
began their eastbound journey, through numerous precipitous hills and
mountains and across the Yellow River, before arriving at Khek-nan-p’o,
Shansi province, on 9 June. Here at Khek-nan-p’o, they met General Yen
Hsi-shan (1883–1949), once the ‘model governor’ of Shansi province dur-
ing the era of warlordism (1916–27), now the Chief Commander of the
First War Zone, entrusted with the task of resisting the Japanese in North
China. General Yen was on good terms with the communists under the
strained United Front policies then in operation. Tan Kah-kee was most
impressed with General Yen’s good health and spirit but was even more
impressed with Yen’s blunt criticism of the Kuomintang regime. Tan Kah-
kee tested him out by asking several pointed questions concerning the
seriousness of and possible solutions to the Kuomintang–communist con-
flict. General Yen answered that the basic solution to the problem lay in
the Kuomintang regime’s own internal political reform without which
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opposition from many quarters would continue to exist. Tan Kah-kee

thought his words were as good as gold.64 After having consulted General
Yen and attended a welcoming reception, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues
left on 12 June for Chungking via Sian, Shensi province, and Loyang,
Honan province, the land of his own ancestors.
On the evening of 14 June, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues arrived
back at Sian and stayed at the same Sian Guest House. No sooner had they
arrived, than Chiang Ting-wen and Ch’en Li-fu, then Minister for
Education, both came to visit him. According to Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Li-fu
made a special trip from Chungking to Sian to propagate to him the sins
and crimes of the communists. They did not ask him what he saw in
Yenan, but instead began by condemning the communists for half an hour,
making their visit a farce.65
Next morning, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues visited Li Shan, then a
scenic tourist spot famous for its palaces and hot spring. They stayed there
overnight and took some photographs at the Hua Ch’ing palace and at the
site where Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped during the Sian Incident of 12
December 1936. At midnight on 16 June Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues
left Sian by train for Loyang, another ancient Chinese capital. They arrived
at Loyang on 19 June and were welcomed by General Wei Li-huang, one
of Chiang Kai-shek’s most able generals, then the Commander of the
Second War Zone and entrusted with the task of defending Central China
against the Japanese. Tan Kah-kee admired many of General Wei’s per-
sonal qualities and attributes: his good looks, cheerfulness, sincerity, mod-
esty, generosity, bravery and good health. They got along well. Tan
Kah-kee was delighted to hear that Wei’s troops and those of the commu-
nists were not hostile to each other as both were fighting a common
enemy. What pleased Tan Kah-kee equally much was that Wei had lived in
Fukien for many years and had travelled extensively in that province.
Moreover, Wei had great respect for Tan Kah-kee’s educational endeav-
ours in Fukien. General Wei gave him a reception and exchanged views
with him on national affairs on several occasions. Tan Kah-kee often
praised General Wei for his military success in checking the Japanese
advance into Central China at Chung T’iao Shan, Shansi province.66
In Loyang, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues visited several historical
sites. They inspected the Kuan Ti Temple and tomb. Kuan Yü (d.219) was a
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258 TAN KAH-KEE
legendary warrior in the Romance of Three Kingdoms who served Liu Pei’s
imperial government well. After his death, Kuan Yü was eventually canon-
ized as China’s god of war by Chinese emperors in succeeding dynasties.
Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues also toured the Lungmen Caves (Dragon
Gate Caves) outside Loyang and saw numerous headless Buddha statues,
presumably destroyed by vandals or looted by profiteers as antiques.
On 21 June, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues left Loyang by truck for a
southbound trip to Lao Ho K’ou, Hupeh province, to meet General Li
Tsung-jen, once the Kwangsi warlord, now serving as Commanding
Officer of the Fifth War Zone from 1937 to 1943. On the way south, Tan
Kah-kee came across Honan peasants working on their farms before dawn
and praised their industry.
At noon on 23 June, their truck arrived at Nan Yang, an old city with
narrow streets, and on the outskirts of the city they were given a welcome
reception at Wo Lung Kang (Dragon Den Hill) by local officials. They
were kindly shown around the temples and a house with a plaque bearing
the name San K’u T’ang (Three Visits Hall). This San K’u T’ang was the
residence of Chu-ko Liang of Romance of Three Kingdoms fame. It is said
that he was visited here by Liu Pei three times before deciding to serve
Liu as counsellor. Tan Kah-kee took some photographs at Wo Lung Kang
for posterity. Here Tan was spiritually united once again with a man he
considered to be one of the greatest political and military geniuses in the
history of China and one whose tomb in Chengtu he had visited in early
May. From this historical township they drove on and arrived at Lao Ho
K’ou by sunset.
On 24 June General Li Tsung-jen, who had just returned from the battle
front, came to pay them a courtesy call and invited them for a welcoming
reception that evening. The reception was attended by a few thousand
people and was chaired by General Li. As usual Tan Kah-kee reported to
them the objectives of the comfort mission and Overseas Chinese fund-
raising campaigns for China relief.
On 25 June, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues paid a special visit to
General Li at his residence and they enquired about the state of the war of
resistance. As a shrewd and competent commander, General Li was quick
to point out that a weak China had been doing well during the past three
years to resist Japan, as compared to a strong nation like France which had
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been completely overrun by Germany within a few months. When asked

about the Kuomintang–communist dispute, General Li could not conceal
his personal feelings against the communists, condemning them as having
no sense of nationalism, loyalty and integrity.67 At first, Tan Kah-kee lis-
tened quietly but was obviously provoked when General Li carried on by
saying that what had been said of the communists might not have been
pleasing to his guests’ ears. Tan Kah-kee made a tactful reply under the
circumstances, saying that he was an outsider and had never joined any
political party. In his view, it was the hope of the Overseas Chinese that
all political parties in China should unite before external pressure lest
China meet the fate of national obliteration.68
With the assistance of General Li, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues flew
to Chengtu via Nan Cheng, Shensi province, by a military aircraft on 25
June. After an overnight stay at Nan Cheng, the same aircraft fiew them
the next morning to Chengtu where they were rejoined by the first comfort
mission contingent which had just completed its own itinerary in China.
In Chengtu, Tan Kah-kee briefed members of the comfort mission
about his own plan — to stay a month at the Omei Mountains to elude the
hot and humid Chengtu weather, after which he would continue his trip to
South-west and South China. Twelve members of the mission opted to
join him for the trip to the Omei Mountains, together with Hau Say-huan
and Lee Tiat-ming. For the journey up the Golden Summit, some 10,000
feet above sea level, they were carried in sedan chairs for an average of
four hours per day. On a three-day trip up the Golden Summit, they
inspected numerous Buddhist and Taoist temples. Although Tan Kah-kee
was greatly inspired by the breathtaking panoramic view of the valleys
below and the snow-capped mountains further afield, he could not stand
the cold weather and excruciating smell from a pit for human excrement
at the summit. However, his four-day sojourn at the Golden Summit was
memorable in that he gave a first-hand report to his fellow members of his
impression of Yenan. Tan Kah-kee told them that he was extremely wor-
ried about China’s future before his Yenan journey, thinking that China’s
saviour had not yet been born or was still at school. However, after his
Yenan visit, he had become far less pessimistic, because he had found the
Chinese saviour who was already in his forties and had done a great many
things. And this person was none other than Mao Tse-tung.69
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260 TAN KAH-KEE
With members of the first comfort mission contingent staying on at the

Omei Mountains, Tan Kah-kee, Lee Tiat-ming and Han Say-huan
descended and spent a couple of days recuperating in the foothills at
Chiating. On 17 July Tan Kah-kee and his two colleagues left Chiating by
flying boat for Chungking where they stayed overnight at the Sin Tu Hotel.
On 18 July, they moved over to the Chialing Mansion, largely for reasons
of safety as this magnificent hotel had a well-constructed air-raid shelter.
Here in wartime Chungking, Tan Kah-kee was soon back in the lime-
light in his own right. In response to the British government’s decision to
close down the Burma Road for a period of three months, presumably
under Japanese pressure, Tan Kah-kee made a radio broadcast to the
Chinese in South-East Asia. He advised them to stay calm and explained
that this seemingly unwelcome and unfriendly decision on the part of the
British was done under ‘excusable’ circumstances. Moreover, Tan Kah-
kee emphasized the importance of maintaining amicable Anglo-Chinese
relationships at all costs by instancing the fact that China’s war of resist-
ance was largely dependent on British goodwill for the importation of
munitions and the inflow of foreign remittances into China.70
On 21 July Tan Kah-kee and Chou En-lai met for the first time at the
Chialing Mansion. The main topic of their discussion was Kuomintang–
communist tension. Chou En-lai told Tan Kah-kee that negotiations
between the two parties had been going on and off and that chances of a
settlement were getting closer. Chou told Tan that he himself would be
flying to Yenan soon to consult with Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh over the
negotiated terms for easing tensions and potential conflict. On 24 July Yeh
Chien-ying paid Tan Kah-kee a visit and informed him that Chou En-lai
had flown to Yenan that morning. On 25 July Yeh came to Chialing
Mansion again to give him a copy of a document relating to the negotiated
settlement between the two parties. Unfortunately, the contents of this
document were not included in Tan Kah-kee’s Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu.
Besides all these activities, Tan Kah-kee also granted a press interview
to a Russian journalist the subject of which was his impression of his
recent trip to North-west China. Following this was a public lecture
engagement on 24 July under the auspices of the Chinese Foreign
Relations Association. The topic, his ‘Impressions of the North-west’, was
ironically chosen by the association.
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Tan Kah-kee spoke in Hokkien to a packed hall, including both Chinese

and foreign newspaper reporters. He told them what he had seen, heard
and experienced during his nine-day visit to Yenan, killing all the hostile
rumours and assertions that the Yenan regime was abolishing private own-
ership of property, encouraging sexual promiscuity and wife-sharing, and
creating poverty and human misery. In his view, the Yenan regime prac-
tised the Three Principles of the People and not communism, as claimed.71
Moreover, Tan Kah-kee vouched that both Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh had
fully supported Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of resisting the Japanese to the
end. Finally, he appealed to everybody, except the Wang Ching-wei
clique, to unite, not only for the immediate safety of the country but also
for the eventual survival of the Chinese race.72 Extracts of his speech
appeared in five of Chungking’s eleven newspapers the next day but the
communist paper in Chungking, the New China Daily, published his full
speech on 26 July, breaking the tight censorship over news on Yenan. To
rub the Yenan salt on the Kuomintang wound, Tan Kah-kee gave a two-
hour interview to a reporter from the New China Daily on 28 July, repeat-
ing what he had already said in his speech but commenting further on the
Yenan spirit which impressed him. The Yenan spirit, according to Tan
Kah-kee, was hard work, unity and egalitarianism, with no hierarchical
distinction among people. Again, in this interview, Tan Kah-kee repeated
what he had said during the farewell reception in Yenan that should civil
war break out, leaders of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party must
bear full responsibility.73 The contents of this interview were published in
the New China Daily on 29 July, having the effect of pouring fuel on the
fire in Chungking’s sultry summer.
Reactions to Tan Kah-kee’s speech from the Kuomintang quarters in
Chungking came thick and fast. Their dissatisfaction was conveyed to
Hau Say-huan who in turn relayed them to Tan Kah-kee. Their com-
plaints were confined to two major areas: (a) how could Tan Kah-kee
know so much about Yenan and in so much detail after such a short stay,
and (b) as an Overseas Chinese leader, Tan Kah-kee had committed the
sin of spreading the flames of communism.74 Unafraid, unrepentant and
unmoved, Tan Kah-kee urged Hau to convey his replies to his Kuomintang
critics on matters related to the issue. First, Tan Kah-kee clarified that the
topic for his speech had not been chosen by him but by the association.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
262 TAN KAH-KEE
Once the topic had been chosen, it was against his will to tell lies.
Second, if what he had said about the Yenan regime could be regarded as
good politics, then it was up to the Kuomintang to reform itself and to
bring about a good government. In his view, should the Kuomintang gov-
ernment compete against the communists in the areas of government and
politics, then China’s war of resistance would be won and her national
reconstruction assured. Third, he reminded Hau Say-huan that he had
never praised the communists when in Yenan but had merely advised
them to unite with the Kuomintang for the sake of resisting the Japanese.
Finally, Tan Kah-kee informed Hau that he would speak on the same
subject again anywhere if invited and would never ‘name a deer for a
horse’ (lie).75 Hau Say-huan duly reported back what Tan Kah-kee had
rationalized but the Kuomintang quarters in Chungking remained unpla-
cated. It is fair to say that Tan Kah-kee’s speech of 24 July on his
‘Impression of the Northwest’ sowed the seeds of a widening rift between
him and the Kuomintang forces inside and outside China, which remained
unhealed for the rest of his life.
Chiang Kai-shek must have heard of his speech or read it in the New
China Daily, for their first meeting on 28 July after Tan Kah-kee’s return
to Chungking was stormy and dramatic to say the least. On this occasion,
Chiang Kai-shek wanted to see Tan Kah-kee on his own, with Ong Chuan-
seng, a fellow SCRFU executive member, a Hokkien and a Kuomintang
member from the Philippines, chosen by Chiang as interpreter. Chiang
asked Tan about his Shansi trip and what General Yen Hsi-shan had said.
Tan first told Chiang about drought conditions in Shansi province and then
the timely arrival of good soaking rains saving the people of three North-
west provinces from starvation. Chiang Kai-shek persisted with the same
question, by asking what else General Yen had said. Tan Kah-kee therefore
had no choice but to tell Chiang about Yen’s panacea to the Kuomintang–
communist conflict — that the Kuomintang should reform itself. Upon
hearing this, Chiang Kai-shek completely lost his temper and became
engaged in a tirade against the communists for their lack of national inter-
est and sincerity and their wishful thinking that the war of resistance
should fail. Chiang’s face went from red to blue, and his raised voice
trembled. He uttered angrily that ‘to win the war of resistance, the com-
munists must be eliminated first. If the communists are not eliminated,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
then the war of resistance cannot be won. Experiences in foreign countries

have proved that to win an external war, all internal opposition must be
liquidated in advance.’76 Seeing that Chiang was in a rage, an embarrassed
Tan Kah-kee made his reply curt, pointing out that the Overseas Chinese
merely hoped for a united China against Japan and that all domestic issues
could be sorted out after the war was won. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee com-
mented that the communists were in any case militarily weak with no
arsenals, hence their inability to pose any serious threat to the Kuomintang.
On hearing this last bit, Chiang suddenly turned his rage into a smile and
a change of subject took place. Chiang advised Tan to write to him should
he find any problems during his impending visit to China’s South-west.
With this, Tan bade him farewell. This stormy audience in Chungking
further implanted in his mind that Chiang was a staunch anti-communist
bigot and a dictator, unsuited for shouldering the responsibility of recon-
structing a post-war China.
Whether it was a case of apologizing to Tan Kah-kee or a case of appre-
ciating what Tan had done for China is a moot point. Whatever the reason,
Chiang despatched the Minister for Party Organization, Chu Chia-hua, on
the next morning, 29 July, to fetch Tan for lunch in Chiang’s country
house at Huang Shan, about twenty li (about seven miles) away from
Chungking, At this luncheon nine other guests were present besides
Chiang Kai-shek, Madam Chiang and Tan Kah-kee; these included
General Ho Ying-ch’in, the Minister for War, General Pai Ch’ung-hsi, the
army’s Chief of Staff, General Wei Li-huang, Commander of the Second
War Zone in Honan, Chu Chia-hua, Chang Chih-chung, Chief of the
Political Bureau, Ch’en Pu-lei, Secretary to Chiang Kai-shek, Wu T’ieh-
ch’eng, Chief of Overseas Commission, with whom Tan Kah-kee was
soon to cross swords, Ong Chuan-seng and Hau Say-huan. Soon after the
lunch the first air-raid sirens sounded as guests adjourned to the lounge.
Consistent with his previous behaviour, Chiang asked Tan Kah-kee the
same question three times — what was his impression of the Kuomintang
in China. When Chiang put the question the first time, Tan Kah-kee
excused himself by saying that he was a political men-wai-han. When
asked a second time, a while later, Tan Kah-kee apologized but refused to
be drawn into it. Finally, when the same question was put to him a third
time, as Liu Pei had earlier paid Chu-ko Liang a third visit during the era
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
264 TAN KAH-KEE
of the Three Kingdoms, Tan Kah-kee was compelled to respond to the

question. This last meeting between the two men was a contest of wits and
nerves at its best. In this contest, a persistent Chiang Kai-shek succeeded
in getting some feedback from Tan Kah-kee but did not get what he had
really wanted to know. However, a softened Tan Kah-kee appreciated his
host’s showing of immense modesty by meeting Chiang’s question half
way. While refraining from criticizing the Chungking regime in the pres-
ence of other guests, Tan Kah-kee revealed that some Kuomintang leaders
in Singapore had been social and political culprits. Tan Kah-kee instanced
a case of a Kuomintang leader running one of the three largest dancing
halls in Singapore, which was morally harmful to the young and politi-
cally damaging to the good name of the country. Tan Kah-kee gave
another instance of a prominent Kuomintang leader who happened to be
a president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, taking
bribes from a Japanese merchant to help dispose of a consignment of
some 10,000 piculs of coffee beans from Cuba, This was done during the
height of the anti-Japanese boycott, a few months after the outbreak of the
Sino-Japanese War in 1937. However, due largely to Hau Say-huan’s
repeated protests against the Chamber being involved in certifying the
origins of the merchandise the attempts of the president of the Chamber
were foiled.77
Soon after Tan Kah-kee’s revelation of the sins of some Kuomintang
members in Singapore, a second air-raid siren sounded. All of them hur-
riedly descended a few hundred steps from the lounge and took to the
air-raid shelter, where they remained for an hour. When the ‘All Clear’
signal sounded, they walked up the steps toward the lounge. When Chiang
Kai-shek noticed that Tan Kah-kee had some difficulty in climbing with-
out his walking stick, he walked over smartly and handed him his own.
Tan Kah-kee refused to accept it, but to no avail. He saw Chiang Kai-shek
and Madam Chiang, on this rare occasion, holding hands while ascending
together. A much touched Tan Kah-kee saw kindness in Chiang Kai-shek
for the first time. In his own lifetime, Tan Kah-kee was never able to forget
this moving incident which showed Chiang Kai-shek’s genuine personal
affection for him.78
A few days before his departure for Kunming, Yunnan province, on 30
July, Tan Kah-kee issued a press statement to the effect that the comfort
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
mission to China had ended and that he was to begin his own private tour
of the South-western provinces and that he would be accompanied by Lee
Tiat-ming and Hau Say-huan. On the morning of his departure Chu Chia-
hua came to say farewell to them at the Chungking airport. Chu told Tan
that Chiang Kai-shek had decided to despatch Ong Chuan-seng to accom-
pany them on the tour and that Ong would join them within a few days.
Tan Kah-kee knew what was in Chiang Kai-shek’s mind — to keep an eye
on him, for fear that he would criticize the Kuomintang regime and glorify
the Yenan achievements.
Upon his arrival at Kunming, Tan Kah-kee wrote a confidential letter to
Chiang Kai-shek not so much as a protest but as a word of advice. In this
long letter, Tan Kah-kee told Chiang that he could understand why Ong
Chuan-seng was to be sent to join his tour of the South-west — for fear of
him speaking on the good government in Yenan. Tan informed Chiang that
what he had spoken was what he had seen and heard; he had no intention
of glorifying Yenan’s achievements. Should Chiang insist on liquidating
the Chinese Communist Party, which would result in a Chinese civil war,
the Overseas Chinese would not be sympathetic. Moreover, the Overseas
Chinese patriotism for China would be hampered and the inflow of remit-
tances to China vastly reduced. Up to this point, Tan Kah-kee offered his
advice by using a latter-day form of a united front tactic used during the
era of the Three Kingdoms. He instanced Liu Pei uniting his forces with
his rival, Sun Ch’üan (d. 252) of the Wu Kingdom, to resist their common
and powerful enemy, Ts’ao Ts’ao (d. 220) of the Wei Kingdom in North
China. In other words, Chiang should unite with the Communists (Sun
Ch’üan) to resist the Japanese (Ts’ao Ts’ao). The problems of the
Communists could be solved after China’s victory against Japan had even-
tuated. In order to reassure Chiang that he was not pro-Yenan, Tan Kah-
kee informed Chiang that he had never communicated with the Yenan
Communists before his comfort mission to China and had never donated
a single cent to them. Finally, in this letter, Tan Kah-kee apologized for
not answering the question about his impressions of the Kuomintang in
China put to him three times at the Huang Shan luncheon. He had not
answered because there were other guests present at that time. In this let-
ter Tan Kah-kee was able to bring to Chiang’s attention three matters
which needed prompt rectification, namely, the poor management of the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
266 TAN KAH-KEE
Southwest Transportation Bureau which was vital to the transportation of

military materials from Burma to China, the contravening of foreign
exchange regulations by senior officials in Chungking, and the wide-
spread corruption of the Sian administration which he regarded a national
scandal. Tan Kah-kee’s letter was forwarded to Chiang Kai-shek at the
Huang Shan address and must have been received and heeded, for Ong
Chuan-seng never arrived at Kunming to accompany Tan Kah-kee on his
tour of China’s South-western provinces.79
With Kunming as their headquarters, Tan Kah-kee, Lee Tiat-ming and
Hau Say-huan visited various towns and cities, including Ch’u Hsiung,
Hsia Kuan and Tali, mainly to assess the working conditions of Chinese
drivers and transport personnel on the Burma Road who transported vital
war material into China. They inspected a new salt pan at Hsia Kuan, and
a quarry at Tali, apart from recording the working conditions of truck driv-
ers, some of whom had volunteered to work on the Burma Road from
South-East Asia. They found that truck stations were primitive and that
many truck drivers did not have accommodation at all.80
As usual, Tan Kah-kee was in great demand for talks, banquets and
interviews during his fifteen-day sojourn in Yunnan. On 12 August Tan
Kah-kee gave a press interview to reporters. In order not to offend the
Kuomintang quarters in China, Tan Kah-kee kindly refused to answer
questions relating to his impression of the Kuomintang. However, he did
openly give his views on the Kuomintang–communist conflict and his
impression of Yenan. He repeatedly aired his impressions of the Yenan
regime for two reasons — he had personally promised Mao Tse-tung that
he would report what he had seen in Yenan and it was the principles of
honesty and loyalty, two main virtues of Chinese civilization, that he and
all Chinese treasured. Thus, Tan Kah-kee had to tell the reporters that the
Yenan regime had carried out the Three Principles of the People.81 By so
doing, Tan Kah-kee further antagonized the Kuomintang regime, which
was forming the opinion that he was sympathetic to the communists and
communism.
From Kunming, Tan Kah-kee and his two colleagues left for Kweiyang,
capital of Kweichow province, on 13 August, and gradually made their
way to their destination, Fukien. True to the Chinese saying, Kweiyang
was a place where ‘it is never dry for three days, there is no flat land
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
within three li’. However, in this wet and hilly city, they found a congenial
companion in Dr Robert Lim K’o-seng, the eldest son of Dr Lim Boon-
keng, then in charge of the China Red Cross Society in Kweiyang. Dr Lim
had had an illustrious career. A graduate from a medical school in
England, he had lectured in medicine in London and Peking for many
years. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, he volunteered to
serve China in training medical staff for the war zones, including nurses
and doctors. Apart from teaching, Dr Lim also ran a hospital and manu-
factured various kinds of medicine for the needs of wartime China. Tan
Kah-kee admired Dr Lim for his courage and self-sacrifice in serving
China in her hour of needs.82 As a sign of respect, Tan Kah-kee, after
returning to Singapore, remitted a sum of $210,000 (Chinese currency) to
Dr Lim on behalf of the SCRFU, to help finance his medical enterprises
in Kweiyang.83
On 17 August, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues left Kweiyang for
Kweilin, capital of Kwangsi province, via Liuchow where General Chang
Fa-k’uei, the commander of the Fourth War Zone and his chief of staff,
entertained them. From Liuchow, they arrived at Kweilin station amidst a
big crowd of well-wishers, including the governor, Huang Hsu-ch’u, and
Yeh Yüan, formerly the headmaster of the Chi Mei Schools. A local
Kweilin newspaper, Ch’iu Wang Jit Pao, gave their arrival a good write-
up, including a brief sketch of Tan Kah-kee. The article described Tan as
a man of medium height, wearing a Western-styled suit. Although Tan
Kah-kee’s hair was said to have gone grey, he still had sparkling eyes and
was brisk in his walk. According to the article, Tan Kah-kee ‘was only a
67 year old young man’.84 Despite the arduous journey in China, Tan Kah-
kee bore up well.
In Kweilin, Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues had a busy schedule: meet-
ing government officials, making speeches, attending receptions, visiting
the University of Kwangsi and the Chung Sun Primary School and touring
some of Kweilin’s scenic spots, famous for their caves, craggy hills, beau-
tiful lakes and rivers. Moreover, there was time for Tan Kah-kee to reac-
quaint himself with Yeh Yüan who had done well in Kwangsi province
after his departure from the Chi Mei Schools in 1934. Yeh Yüan served as
the Secretary to the Kwangsi governor for many years and had only
recently been promoted to be head of the Customs Bureau for Kwangsi.
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268 TAN KAH-KEE
However, when they met, Yeh Yüan annoyed Tan Kah-kee by repeatedly
advising him to refrain from criticizing the Kuomintang regime. Besides,
what disappointed him most was Yeh Yüan’s lack of understanding of Tan
Kah-kee’s character, which he himself described as consisting of integrity
and responsibility, outspokenness, lack of fear of threats, with a genuine
love for China and abhorrence of all things evil.85 In other words, had Yeh
Yüan known him better, Yeh would not have been so panic-striken when
Tan Kah-kee criticized the Kuomintang regime.
On 27 August Tan Kah-kee and his colleagues left Kweilin by train for
Changsha, capital of Hunan province, and arrived there on 29 August.
They were welcomed by General Hsüeh Yueh, Commander of the Ninth
War Zone, whom Tan Kah-kee had admired for the defence of Changsha
against the Japanese attacks in 1938. While Tan Kah-kee found it appall-
ing that Changsha had been completely destroyed by the Japanese bomb-
ing, he was happy to see that the economic conditions of the Hunanese in
Changsha had not been adversely affected.
It was in Changsha on 1 September that Tan Kah-kee learned for the
first time that the Kuomintang regime in Chungking had never forgiven
him for his outspoken speech in praise of Yenan. General Hsüeh told Tan
that he had received a telegram from General Ho Ying-ch’in, the Minister
for War, Chungking, condemning communism and hinting that Tan Kah-
kee was surrounded by communists and had become a communist sympa-
thizer.86 Caught in the complex ideological and political conflicts between
the Kuomintang and the communists in China, Tan Kah-kee was yet to
fully realize that the Kuomintang regime regarded him as a formidable
enemy to be watched, controlled or discredited. He came close to being
regarded as persona non-grata.
From Changsha, Tan Kah-kee and colleagues headed southwards by
train and arrived at Shao Kuan, a border town in Kwangtung province, on
2 September. Here at Shao Kuan, they were greeted by the governor of
Kwangtung province, Li Han-hun, and Commander of the Seventh War
Zone, Yü Han-mou. Both of these men hosted their respective receptions.
Tan Kah-kee could not visit Canton as the city had fallen into the hands
of the Japanese in 1939.
On 6 September Tan Kah-kee’s party proceeded by car to Kanchow,
Kiangsi province, where they were received by Chiang Ching-kuo, the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
eldest son of Chiang Kai-shek, who was the commissioner of the town
administering some ten counties in Kiangsi. Tan Kah-kee found Chiang
Ching-kuo robust, courteous, eloquent, simply dressed and unbureaucratic
in his actions. He was impressed with Chiang junior.
The party left Kanchow by car for T’ai Ho on 8 September. On the trip
north, Tan Kah-kee was accompanied by a graduate of the Chi Mei
schools, Huang Wen-fong, who was the manager of a local canning fac-
tory. Huang told Tan Kah-kee that the governor of Kiangsi province,
Hsiung Shih-hui, had received a telegram from Chungking informing him
that Tan was influenced by the communists and had said far too many kind
words about the Yenan regime.
At T’ai Ho, the seat of the provincial government in wartime Kiangsi,
Tan Kah-kee’s party was courteously received by Hsiung Shih-hui.
However, what provoked Tan Kah-kee into clarifying his own position
vis-à-vis that of the Communist Party was Hsiung’s hostile speech in
which he attacked the communists for devastating Kiangsi province. In
responce to Hsiung’s after-dinner speech, Tan Kah-kee spoke of the objec-
tives of his own mission to China and of the Overseas Chinese hope for a
unified China to resist the Japanese. In addition, Tan Kah-kee explained
that his outspokenness and objectivity in reporting what he had seen and
heard had offended some members of the Kuomintang in Chungking,
hence the telegrams being sent to all the governors of China’s South-
western provinces labelling him as a communist sympathizer to be feared
like a snake or a centipede. Tan Kah-kee told his hosts what he had told
Chiang Kai-shek that he had never communicated with the communists
and had never donated a single cent to them. What he had done in China
was to make sure that both the Kuomintang and the communists could
unite to place their guns outward. Finally, Tan Kah-kee quoted what
General Yen Hsi-shan had said about the Kuomintang and the commu-
nists, ‘If the Kuomintang government was good, the Communist Party
would not pose a problem; if the Kuomintang government was bad, then
even if the Communist Party was non-existent, there would be other
opposition.’87
During Tan Kah-kee’s one-week sojourn at T’ai Ho, he became better
acquainted with Governor Hsiung, who had the welfare of the people at
heart. Tan Kah-kee admired his suave, elegant and scholarly manners,
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270 TAN KAH-KEE
although Hsiung was an out-and-out military man. Tan Kah-kee was also
told that Hsiung was a good governor who had refused to carry out a
directive from the Central government to execute all communist suspects
in Kiangsi without convictions.88
On 14 September, Tan Kah-kee’s party left T’ai Ho for Shang Jao, a
border town between Kiangsi and Chekiang provinces, arriving there on
17 September. On 18 September, Tan Kah-kee paid a courtesy call on
General Ku Chu-t’ung, the Commander of the Third War Zone. As usual,
Tan Kah-kee delivered the messages of the comfort mission and was
invited to a dinner party hosted by Ku.
Five days later, on 21 September, Tan Kah-kee’s party reached Chin
Hua, Chekiang province, a town famous for ham. Here the party met both
General Liu Chien-hsu, Commander of the Tenth Regiment, and Huang
Shao-hsiung, governor of Chekiang province. It was here in Chin Hua that
Tan Kah-kee received a letter from a close friend in Chungking intimating
that the Kuomintang members had been watching his movements since
his departure from Chungking. In addition, they had taken three measures
against him: (a) to request the Minister for War to alert all provincial gov-
ernments in China’s South-western provinces to take note of Tan Kah-
kee’s movements; (b) to instruct Kao Ling-pai, the Chinese Consul-General
in Singapore, to request the British authorities to refuse the re-entry of Tan
Kah-kee from China on the grounds that he had become sympathetic to
communism — Kao Ling-pai had replied assuring them that it could be
done without difficulty; and (c) to despatch an emissary, Wu Ti’eh-ch’eng,
to South-East Asia to start a campaign against Tan Kah-kee, accusing him
of being a communist sympathizer.89 Although Tan Kah-kee was not
unduly worried by the actions taken by the Kuomintang regime, believing
that the British authorities in Singapore had known him as an honourable,
honest and law-abiding citizen for many decades, it was under this cloud
that, on 23 September, he stepped onto his native soil of Fukien after an
absence of eighteen years.
Tan Kah-kee’s return to his native land was both nostalgic and emo-
tional. It was nostalgic because he was able to see with his own eyes this
beautiful land with its magnificent Wu I Mountains, famous for their tea,
and the scenic Min River and its tributaries, its numerous villages, towns
and cities and, moreover, its suffering people. It was emotional because
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the Fukien people welcomed him like a lost son, or an endeared father,
and a saviour. They came to pour out to him their privations and griev-
ances and expected him to do something to relieve their sufferings. So,
added to his original comfort and fact-finding missions, were his attempts
to effect socio-political change the best way he could. Soon Tan Kah-kee
found himself playing a uniquely bold yet delicate role in politics in war-
time Fukien as a fellow Hokkien, an Overseas Chinese leader, a severe
censor, an outspoken critic of corrupt government, and the conscience of
the Fukien people. By so doing, he came into direct conflict with Ch’en
Yi, governor of Fukien and, later, indirect dispute with Chiang Kai-shek,
as both resented his interference in the politics of the region.
In order to obtain tangible factual information on socio-political condi-
tions in Fukien, Tan Kah-kee’s party, now consisting of Lee Tiat-ming, Hau
Say-huan and Chuang Ming-li, who had joined them in Kweiyang,
Kweichow province, immediately embarked on an extensive tour of the
province. Their tour covered some thirty districts and took over fifty days to
complete. They all had a most strenuous and hectic time, meeting officials
as well as ordinary people, attending private dinners and public receptions,
making speeches, touring some scenic spots, listening to the grievances of
the people in each district and agitating for socio-economic reforms.
By the time Tan Kah-kee’s party had reached Ch’uanchou, southern
Fukien, on 17 October, they had collected sufficient data concerning the
causes of the grievances of the Fukien people. Tan Kah-kee broke his
silence by sending a telegram and a lengthy letter to Governor Ch’en Yi on
20 October. The main complaint in his first despatches to the governor
focussed on the issue of the centralized transportation of goods imposed
by the provincial government. This wartime measure had first been
adopted after the Japanese naval embargo of the port of Foochow in mid-
1939. When it began, the Ministry of Reconstruction of Fukien province
was responsible for setting up the operation through the establishment of
a corporation, the Fukien Transport Company, then a joint-stock company
with both government and merchant participation. However, in April 1940,
the provincial government took over the sole right to run the operation,
despite the protests of merchants. This amounted almost to the monopoli-
zation and centralization of the transport system of the province, with the
government setting up regional offices and branches for administering and
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272 TAN KAH-KEE
transporting goods in Fukien. The government’s monopoly of transporta-

tion of goods inevitably created numerous evils which damaged the
Fukien economy and harmed the interests of the Fukien people. For a start,
it was a breeding ground for corruption as officials were involved in the
lucrative enterprise. Again, as it was a governmental monopoly, it cut out
private enterprise in the transportation sector, thus creating hardship for
merchants and barge owners. More than that, as the monopolization began
to bite, more and more carriers and transport workers lost their employ-
ment in the industry. Third, the government strictly prevented people from
transporting their goods from the countryside to the city and those who did
so were regarded as ‘smugglers’ and were thus liable to be arrested and
prosecuted. As the transportation of goods was usually inefficient it,
together with government profiteering, caused prices of all commodities to
soar. The high price of rice in most cities, $2 (Chinese currency) per katty
in Ch’uanchou90 for example, created hardship for the whole community.
As this was the biggest grievance of the people, Tan Kah-kee pleaded with
the governor to put an end to it.91
Tan Kah-kee arrived at Yung Ch’un district from Ch’uanchou via Nan
An, and received more data on misgovernment. So he decided to send a
second despatch to Ch’en Yi, providing further evidence against the wis-
dom of centralization and monopolization of transportation. In this letter,
Tan Kah-kee admitted that there had been rigid control of transportation
during the First and Second World Wars in colonial South-East Asia, but
argued that it was done to prevent essential materials from falling into
enemy hands and not for the purpose of obstructing internal communica-
tions which brought about immense suffering to the people. In any case,
there had been no such transportation control in any other provinces in
wartime China, hence his appeal to Ch’en Yi to remove this control in
Fukien.92 On 27 October, Ch’en Yi sent Tan Kah-kee an ambiguous cable
which made no direct comment on the centralization of transportation
issue but merely challenged him to provide evidence to back up his claim
that officials were involved in corruption. Tan Kah-kee took it as a rejec-
tion of his appeal.93
On 31 October 1940, Tan Kah-kee finally arrived at his birthplace, Chi
Mei, with tears of joy in his eyes. It was sad for him to see that many of
the 2,000 inhabitants of Chi Mei had dispersed because of Japanese air
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raids and naval bombardment from Amoy. He was shocked to find that his
own house had been destroyed by Japanese bombing, and his Chi Mei
School buildings had also suffered severe damage. Tan Kah-kee stayed
overnight at Chi Mei and left for Changchou on 1 November. While still
in the T’ung An district the next day, Tan Kah-kee and Hau Say-huan
climbed a hill overlooking the Chi Mei School campus. Saddened by his
impending departure, Tan Kah-kee murmured to Hau Say-huan, ‘I can see
the Chi Mei Schools today, will it be the last time?’ Hau Say-huan ques-
tioned his pessimism. Tan Kah-kee explained that as he had offended
Ch’en Yi, it would be difficult for him to return. In his view, should Ch’en
Yi be removed, he would continue to attack the misgovernment of the
Kuomintang regime after the war was over, and it would be difficult for
the Kuomintang members to tolerate him.94
On his arrival at Changchou on 2 November, Tan Kah-kee received two
telegrams, one from Chiang Kai-shek and the other from Ch’en Yi. Chiang
agreed to his earlier request to be allowed to return to Kunming to inspect
the Burma Road and to suggest improvements. Ch’en Yi’s cable invited
Tan Kah-kee to visit Yung An, the seat of the provincial government in
wartime Fukien, to talk over the issue with him. The invitation was
accepted. While in Changchou, Tan Kah-kee sent Ch’en Yi a letter and
three other telegrams, bringing to his attention the evils of centralization
of the transportation system which caused soaring prices in rice and fire-
wood, and again demanding the immediate dismantling of the centraliza-
tion of transportation.95
From the city of Changchou, Tan Kah-kee proceeded northward to
Lung Yen on 8 November and to Ch’ang T’ing a day later. It was at
Ch’ang T’ing that he inspected the wartime Amoy University campus,
shifted from the island of Amoy after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese
War. Tan Kah-kee was glad to know that the university had over 600 stu-
dents. It was also at Ch’ang T’ing that Tan Kah-kee met three representa-
tives of Ch’en Yi to discuss the thorny centralization of transportation
issue. One of the three representatives, Hu Shih-yüan, the officer-in-
charge of the whole operation, told Tan Kah-kee that centralization of
transportation was needed in wartime conditions and that it could only be
modified but not abolished. Tan Kah-kee slammed back by tabulating and
elaborating the evils it had created.
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274 TAN KAH-KEE
On 11 November, the day of Tan Kah-kee’s arrival at Yung An, central

Fukien, Ch’en Yi made a speech touching on the issue of centralization of
transportation, saying that the government must centralize its control as a
wartime measure and that this measure could not be easily abandoned. By
then, Tan Kah-kee had come to the conclusion that it was futile to agitate
with Ch’en Yi. On 12 November, Tan Kah-kee attended a public reception
chaired by Ch’en Yi and accepted an invitation to a dinner party hosted by
the governor. On these occasions neither Tan Kah-kee nor Ch’en Yi
wished to raise the contentious issue which had already poisoned their
relationship.
On 13 November, Tan Kah-kee attended a reception hosted by gradu-
ates of both the Chi Mei Schools and the Amoy University. He spoke on
the history of the Amoy University, ending with a story of how the name
of the Amoy University was allowed to be retained through his interven-
tion in Chungking in May 1940. On 14 November, Tan Kah-kee inspected
the new site of the Chi Mei Schools, south of Yung An at Ta T’ien where
the Schools of Agriculture, Marine Biology and Commerce were housed.
He was again glad to see that these three schools had a combined intake
of over four hundred students. The last two nights of his Fukien visit were
spent at Yung An and Ch’ang T’ing respectively, and on 17 November,
Tan Kah-kee, accompanied by Lee Tiat-ming, Hau Say-huan and Chuang
Ming-li, left Fukien for Kiangsi, making their way back to Kunming,
Yunnan province. On the way to Juichin, once the headquarters of the
Communist Party and the capital of the Kiangsi Soviet (1930–4), Tan
Kah-kee was so aggrieved by the misery of the people of Fukien that he
decided to take on Ch’en Yi, the culprit for all the ills of his native prov-
ince. His love for his native land prompted him to assume a political role
by mobilizing the public opinion of the Fukien people everywhere to
effect urgent socio-political change in the province.
Tan Kah-kee’s techniques for mobilization of public opinion were put
to the test at Kanchow, Kiangsi province, where there was a sizeable
Hokkien community. Whereas Tan Kah-kee had been more reluctant to
accept invitations to receptions and parties from local Hokkien organiza-
tions when in Kanchow last, now, ironically, he was calling the tune. He
gave a detailed briefing to his fellow Hokkiens at a gathering convened by
him on the misgovernment of Ch’en Yi and the plight of their fellow
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countrymen and suggested ways and means of rectifying the situation in

Fukien. One of these was to organize themselves to petition to Governor
Ch’en Yi and the Kuomintang government in Chungking for improved
socio-political conditions in Fukien. At this meeting, Tan Kah-kee revealed
for the first time that he would help found a Nanyang Hokkien General
Association to pressurize the central and provincial governments into
eradicating the evils inflicted on the people of Fukien.96 Thus, on his return
trip to Kunming and beyond, Tan Kah-kee did what he could — to agitate
and get the fellow Hokkiens organized as he had done in Kanchow. He
convened meetings at T’ai Ho and Kweilin and urged fellow Hokkien resi-
dents in Kweiyang to organize a Hokkien Huay Kuan to agitate. Besides,
Tan Kah-kee gave press interviews at various stopovers to air and expose
the misgovernment in Fukien. In addition, Tan Kah-kee appealed directly
to Chiang Kai-shek by cables, pleading with him to intervene in what
became known as the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’.
On the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’, Tan Kah-kee despatched four cables to
Chiang Kai-shek. The first was sent from Kanchow, protesting to him the
increases in land tax in Fukien, ranging from 300 percent to 1,800 percent
as from 1 October 1940. He requested Chiang to help reduce the tax bur-
dens of the Fukien peasants.97 Tan Kah-kee sent a second telegram from
T’ai Ho on 20 November informing Chiang of the abuses and evils of the
centralization of transportation in Fukien.98 A third cable was sent from
Kweilin four days later, pleading with Chiang to intervene in the misgov-
ernment of Fukien province.99 A final cable was sent on 3 December from
Kunming, urging him to bring relief to the plight of the Fukien people and
informing Chiang of his impending departure from Yunnan for Burma and
Singapore.100
On 30 November Tan Kah-kee’s party arrived at Kunming, the last leg
of his China journey, to begin the inspection of the Burma Road. For the
inspection, Tan Kah-kee’s party was joined by a civil engineer and two
administrative officers from the South-west Transport Bureau. They moved
off by car from Kunming on 4 December, scanned the road construction,
met transport personnel and talked with truck drivers at several depots.
They found some of the bridges destroyed by Japanese air bombardment,
but the flow of traffic had not been hampered unduly. Tan Kah-kee’s party
noted all the defects and problem areas and sent a brief report to Chiang
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
276 TAN KAH-KEE
Kai-shek on 13 December from Rangoon. In this cable report, Tan urged

Chiang to streamline the transport agencies to achieve better co-ordination.
He also advised that management of the maintenance of trucks should be
improved to achieve maximum efficiency.101 Tan Kah-kee’s report on the
Burma Road, which was eventually made public on 7 July 1941, contained
all the recommendations for efficient operation of the Burma Road.102
While on the inspection tour at Mang Shih on 8 December, Tan Kah-kee
finally received two telegrams from Chiang Kai-shek in reply to his four
telegram despatches. The first telegram from Chiang acknowledged the
receipt of his cable from Kanchow and said that it was following a directive
from the Chungking government that land tax in Fukien had been increased.
He suggested that Tan Kah-kee should keep him informed of things in
Fukien but should refrain from airing his grievances in public. Chiang’s
second telegram merely acknowledged the receipt of his Kunming tele-
gram, with no other comments. Tan Kah-kee was most dismayed over the
contents of Chiang’s replies. He took it that Chiang would not intervene in
the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’. Moreover, Chiang was attempting to silence him as
a critic of the Ch’en Yi regime. Disappointed though Tan Kah-kee undoubt-
edly was, he was determined not to sit idly by to witness the ‘misery and
deaths’ of the Fukien people.103 This ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’ further strained their
friendship as both men had by now lost confidence in each other.
Here at Mang Shih on the Yunnan–Burma border, a saddened and wor-
ried Tan Kah-kee looked southwards and bade farewell to his loyal and
close friend, Hau Say-huan, who had been with him through thick and thin
for the duration of his China journey. Being a deportee from Singapore,
Hau had to return to Kunming; this was the last time they met each other.
On 9 December, Tan Kah-kee’s party, now without Hau Say-huan,
arrived at the last border town on the Chinese side, Wan Ting, and beyond
this lay the land of Burma. They proceeded through Central Burma and
arrived at Rangoon on 15 December. From Rangoon they headed for
Penang by boat and arrived on 20 December. From Penang, Tan Kah-kee
and Lee Tiat-ming visited numerous cities and towns in Malaya before
their final arrival in Singapore on 31 December, ending the most eventful
and strenuous tour of China he had ever undertaken.
By the time Tan Kah-kee arrived at Rangoon, he had become a hard-
ened and committed battler: battling against Ch’en Yi for socio-political
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
justice in his native province, against Chiang Kai-shek for national unity,
and soon to battle against the kamikaze in Singapore for the survival of all
Singaporeans. As a man of 67 years, although blessed with a sound con-
stitution he was plagued by mental agonies over deepening national and
international crisis; Tan Kah-kee’s chances of success were slim indeed.
However, a seasoned campaigner like Tan Kah-kee had to be philosophi-
cal about his success or failure and he often quoted Henry Ford’s dictum,
‘a righteous failure is not a shame, the fear of it is’.104 So, the campaigns
for socio-political justice in Fukien, national unity in China and the sur-
vival of Singapore had to go on.
Needless to say, Tan Kah-kee’s South-East Asian campaigns against
Ch’en Yi began with his speeches in Rangoon on 16 December 1940. He
spoke at length about his comfort mission to China, giving a detailed
account of the Chinese military, economic, social and financial condi-
tions. He boosted the morale of the Chinese in Rangoon by predicting that
China would win the war against Japan. In another speech to the Hokkien
Huay Kuan, Rangoon, Tan Kah-kee gave the Hokkiens their first taste of
the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’. In this speech, Tan Kah-kee listed and elaborated on
four major instances of misgovernment attributable to Ch’en Yi. These
included (a) centralization of transportation; (b) establishment of govern-
ment enterprises to compete with private enterprises; (c) astronomical
rises in land tax, based on evaluation of crop values rather than land val-
ues; and (d) maltreatment of conscripts. This initial list was expanded to
twelve indictments by the time Tan Kah-kee spoke in Singapore a month
later. Among the eight other complaints were (e) miscellaneous levies
collected by district magistrates; (f ) a police state system with complex
spy networks set up by the government all over Fukien; (g) an oppressive
educational policy of closing down all privately financed normal schools
concerned with teachers training since 1936; and (h) corruption in high
places.105 While Tan Kah-kee appealed to his fellow Hokkiens to unite and
agitate for improved socio-political conditions in Fukien, he was careful
to point out that the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’ should not hamper the Hokkiens
from continuing their financial support for China’s war effort.
Tan Kah-kee also spoke to the Chinese in Penang on those issues raised by
him in Rangoon. On 22 December, Tan Kah-kee embarked on a grand tour
of Malaya, primarily to speak on the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’ to fellow Hokkiens and
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278 TAN KAH-KEE
about his comfort mission to China to the general public. He spoke all the
way — in Sungei Patani (Kedah), Kangsar (Perlis), Taiping, Sitiawan, Kuala
Kangsar, Sungei Siput, Ipoh, Kampar, Tanjong Malim (all Perak), Kuala
Lumpur, Klang, Kajang (Selangor), Bentong (Pahang), Seremban (Negri
Sembilan), Malacca, Muar and Batu Pahat (Johore), before his arrival in
Singapore on the eve of the New Year. And, being not over-exhausted by his
whirlwind tour of Malaya, Tan Kah-kee granted a press interview at the Ee
Ho Hean Club to local reporters. He gave them the impression that The
Kuomintang–communist conflicts in China were highly unlikely to flare up
and that the Burma Road management and operations badly needed
improvements.
While still in Penang on 21 December, Tan Kah-kee had his first
confrontation with a formidable opponent in Wu T’ieh-ch’eng, then Minister
for Overseas Commission, specially despatched by Chiang Kai-shek as his
private envoy to South-East Asia to thank the Chinese for their contributions
to China’s war effort. It was a comfort mission in reverse. However, Wu
T’ieh-ch’eng was entrusted with other missions during his tour of South-
East Asia. Among these were his attempts to boost the Kuomintang forces
and influence in South-East Asia, to propagate feeling against communism
and to undermine Tan Kah-kee’s leadership and influence. By so doing, he
widened the rift between Tan Kah-kee and the Kuomintang regime.
Wu T’ieh-ch’eng began his tour of South-East Asia in August 1940,
with his visit to Hong Kong, then the Philippines and Indonesia before
landing in Singapore in early December to begin his extensive tour of
Malaya. Born in 1888 in Chung Shan district, Kwangtung province, the
birthplace of Dr Sun Yat-sen, Wu T’ieh-ch’eng had a brilliant military
career until he became the Mayor of Greater Shanghai in 1932. In 1937,
he was promoted to Governor of Kwangtung province until the fall of
Canton to the Japanese in 1939. As a hospitable governor, Wu T’ieh-
ch’eng had entertained the two British authors, Christopher Isherwood
and W. H. Auden, who had arrived at Canton in the early part of 1938 for
a tour of China. Both had come to China to write a travel book for the
British publishers Faber & Faber and Random House. Wu T’ieh-ch’eng
threw a luncheon for these travellers ‘with a meal of shark’s-fin soup,
lobster, and other tasty specialities . . .’.106 In wartime Chungking, Wu
T’ieh-ch’eng was said to be the ninth richest man in China.107
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Wu T’ieh-ch’eng’s visit to Singapore and Malaya was initially opposed

by the local British authorities. However, the Foreign Office intervened
and overruled their decision on the grounds that ‘Britain should not have
to rebuff the Chinese Government more than is absolutely necessary’
under the delicate political circumstances then existing in the Far East and
that he had been an official who had been friendly to the British in
China.108 Having received official blessings from the Foreign and Colonial
Offices in London, Wu T’ieh-ch’eng was reluctantly but courteously
received by the British authorities in Singapore and Malaya.
The first meeting between Wu T’ieh-ch’eng and Tan Kah-kee took
place in Penang with a lively dialogue on the politics in Fukien province.
Tan Kah-kee told him that his impression of Fukien had been the worst of
all during his recent trip to China which covered some fifteen provinces.
Wu T’ieh-ch’eng asked whether it was beyond the control of the Fukien
government or due to lack of time for reforms. Tan Kah-kee gave him a
long list of abuses suggesting that they could all be eradicated by the
Fukien government, had it wished to do so. Wu picked on the centraliza-
tion of transportation issue by suggesting that the adoption of the policy
was perhaps justifiable for preventing goods from falling into Japanese
hands. Tan Kah-kee conceded the point to Wu but bitterly complained that
the Fukien people were not allowed to carry their own goods from one
village to another because of the government monopoly over transporta-
tion of all goods in Fukien. Wu T’ieh-ch’eng then changed his subject
somewhat by suggesting what Chiang Kai-shek had told him, that any
complaints on regional politics should not be publicly aired. Tan Kah-kee
was quick to counter by saying that if the government had accepted
responsibility for reforms he would not have wasted his time. Finally, Wu
T’ieh-ch’eng commented that the problem of Fukien was a regional one
and any reforms would take time. In his view, the Overseas Chinese had
expected far too much of the Fukien government, hence their disappoint-
ment. Tan Kah-kee retorted that the Overseas Chinese hoped the Fukien
government would appreciate the concern of the Overseas Chinese for
Fukien affairs and embark on a programme for improving socio-political
conditions in their native province.109
This first rather ‘courteous’ confrontation was soon to degenerate into
a sustained, bitter and damaging political and personal slinging match
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280 TAN KAH-KEE
between them, which inevitably brought Tan Kah-kee’s relationship with

the Kuomintang hierarchy in Chungking generally and with Wu T’ieh-
ch’eng in particular to breaking point.
While the continuing tensions between Tan Kah-kee and the Kuomintang
regime should be viewed in the context of their fundamental and seem-
ingly unbridgeable political differences over China’s national and regional
issues (namely, Yenan and Fukien), the cause of the final split was the
Kuomintang regime’s attempts to undermine, challenge and destroy Tan
Kah-kee’s political influence and leadership in South-East Asia. What
made the split inevitable was the Kuomintang regime’s lack of under-
standing of Tan Kah-kee’s integrity and of his role as a non-partisan hua-
ch’iao leader. It was also a reflection of the nature of the Kuomintang
regime in China — its unwillingness and inability to accommodate critics
and opposition within the context of national unity in the war of resistance
against Japan. In other words, the Kuomintang regime in Chungking was
responsible for mishandling Tan Kah-kee as a patriach and patriot in
China and South-East Asian politics. They over-reacted against his even-
handed approach to China’s internal politics, a rational stance taken by a
self-proclaimed non-partisan leader.
With the arrival of Wu T’ieh-ch’eng, there began a hectic Kuomintang
offensive, with Wu rallying the local Kuomintang members, giving them
leadership and moral support. He succeeded in securing party members as
school teachers to broaden Kuomintang influence within the Chinese
schools. Moreover, he planted some of the party intellectuals into the
Kuomintang-controlled newspapers as editors, for example, Chuang Hsin-
tsai with Kwong Wah Yit Poh in Penang, and Chou Han-mei with the Sin
Kuo Min Press in Kuala Lumpur, so as to improve the Kuomintang propa-
ganda capacity.110 Wu T’ieh-ch’eng was even more aggressive in Singapore
with a plan to establish a party organ with a capital of $400,000, half of it
being funded by the Chungking government. Unfortunately for the
Kuomintang in Singapore, the local authorities rejected their proposal to
establish such a paper.111 Capitalizing on the improved Sino-British rela-
tionships in early 1941, Wu T’ieh-ch’eng proposed that the British author-
ities in Singapore give official recognition to local Kuomintang branches
and accept the establishment of the San Min Chu I Youth Corps as a youth
movement. Both proposals were again opposed by the authorities in
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Singapore and Malaya,112 and were finally rejected by the Foreign Office
in September 1941.113
Conflicts between Tan Kah-kee and Wu T’ieh-ch’eng, and later on Kao
Ling-pai, were mounting as Tan Kah-kee carried on with his campaigns
against Ch’en Yi and for national unity between the Kuomintang and the
communists in China. The first salvo was launched by Wu T’ieh-ch’eng
when he instructed his personal adviser, Morris A. Cohen, to lobby with
the Singapore authorities to refuse the Chinese community in Singapore
permission to hold a welcoming reception on 5 January 1941 in honour of
Tan Kah-kee. Morris A. Cohen argued that Tan Kah-kee would use the
occasion to propagate communism, which would be damaging to both the
interest of Britain and China. The request was rejected and the meeting
went on as planned at the Happy World Stadium in the Happy World
Amusement Park at Geylang Road. At this meeting, attended by over
10,000 people, Tan Kah-kee gave a lengthy speech on his impressions of
the fifteen provinces of China he had visited, including a brief account of
his experiences in Yenan.114 His account of the Yenan regime was brief and
restrained; it could hardly be described as communist propaganda.
The second salvo of Wu T’ieh-ch’eng took the form of his writing in
the Chinese newspapers and his press interviews, condemning commu-
nism and Tan Kah-kee (without actually naming him). Such emotive terms
chosen by Wu T’ieh-ch’eng as ‘han-chien’ (traitor) and ‘k’ou-shih hsin-
fei’ (hypocrite) were most unfortunate to say the least. Kao Ling-pai fol-
lowed up with the same smearing tactic when he spoke on 29 March 1941
at the first annual general meeting of the SCRFU held at the Great World
Amusement Park at Kim Seng Road. On this occasion, Kao slammed
some Overseas Chinese for their insincerity in not supporting Chiang Kai-
shek. Moreover, Kao named, for the first time the non-partisan leaders as
being ‘tao-hsing nieh-shih’ (subversive). He labelled them for committing
such sins as ‘kua-yang-t’ou mai-kou-ju’ (hanging the head of a goat but
selling dog’s meat), meaning fraudulence.115 Tan Kah-kee counterattacked
by accusing Wu T’ieh-ch’eng of being a corrupt official who abandoned
Canton to the Japanese without putting up a fight when he was governor
of Kwangtung. Tan Kah-kee also blamed Wu for causing the political
polarization of the Chinese community in South-East Asia by strengthen-
ing the Kuomintang forces against the non-partisan influences. As regards
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282 TAN KAH-KEE
Kao Ling-pei, Tan Kah-kee called him the running-dog of Wu T’ieh-

ch’eng and accused him of being pro-Wang Ching-wei.116
The final row resulted from the Kuomintang’s attempt at challenging
Tan Kah-kee’s political leadership and influence in South-East Asia. This
was done at two levels. Having learnt that Tan Kah-kee was to convene
two major meetings in Singapore in late March and early April: one for
the first general annual meeting of the SCRFU between 29 and 31 March,
and the other the South-East Asian Hokkien meeting between 1 and 4
April, the local Kuomintang members began to exert pressure on dele-
gates, persuading them either not to attend or to oppose their convening.117
Having failed to prevent the two meetings from being convened, the
Kuomintang government used diplomatic pressure on Sir A. Clark Kerr,
British Ambassador in Chungking, to send a telegram to the Governor of
the Straits Settlements in Singapore with a request to deport five Chinese
from the colony, including Lee Tiat-ming, the Secretary of the SCRFU,
Hu Yu-chih, the chief editor of the Nanyang Siang Pau since the beginning
of 1941 and Chang Ch’u-k’un, another Nanyang Siang Pau employee.
The British Ambassador is said to have despatched the telegram to Sir
Shenton Thomas, asking him to make enquiries about the five persons
named and leaving the final decision to the governor. The governor duly
called for an enquiry on the conduct of these five persons but did not have
sufficient grounds to deport any of them.118 Although the Kuomintang
regime had failed in its diplomatic mission, its action was construed by
Tan Kah-kee as an abuse of power.119
Prior to the convening of the first general annual meeting of the
SCRFU, the Kuomintang forces in Malaya and China lobbied with dele-
gates not to re-elect Tan Kah-kee as its chairman for a second term. Wu
T’ieh-ch’eng was reported to have sent a telegram to Tjhung Sie-gan of
Batavia, vice-chairman of the SCRFU and a Kuomintang member, urging
him not to re-elect Tan Kah-kee as chairman. Wu T’ieh-ch’eng then des-
patched a staunch Kuomintang diehard and executive member of the
SCRFU from the Philippines, Ong Chuan-seng, to lobby with Tjhung who
was on his way to Singapore to take part in the proposed meeting of the
SCRFU. Tjhung was said to have rejected the pressure. When Tjhung
arrived in Singapore for the meeting, Kao Ling-pai and Ong Chuan-seng
again impressed on him that Tan Kah-kee had become a communist
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sympathizer. Tjhung vouched for Tan Kah-kee, commenting that he was a

good man, selfless and just, and that he himself did not care what Tan
Kah-kee’s political leanings were.120 Thus, the final attempts at replacing
Tan Kah-kee as the chairman of the SCRFU again failed miserably. Tan
Kah-kee was moved by the massive support he received from delegates at
the final session of the general annual meeting of the SCRFU on 31
March, for out of 152 delegates attending the last session of the meeting,
151 voted for him as the SCRFU chairman for a second term. Tjhung Sie-
gan was also re-elected as one of the two vice-chairmen, sharing his hon-
our with Yeo Khay-thye of the Philippines. It is significant to note that
Chiang Kai-shek was irate over Tan Kah-kee’s re-election as chairman of
the SCRFU. He seriously considered closing down the organization alto-
gether but was persuaded by Wu T’ieh-ch’eng not to do so,121 presumably
on financial grounds.
With the battle for the leadership of the SCRFU over, Tan Kah-kee
went on to convene the first South-East Asian Hokkien meeting in
Singapore and was unanimously elected chairman of the newly formed
Nanyang Hokkien General Association. During the four-day convention at
the Great World Amusement Park at Kim Seng Road between 1 and 4
April, attended by 318 delegates representing 122 Hokkien organizations
of one kind or another, Tan Kah-kee gave a detailed account of the mis-
deeds of the Fukien government. In the end, Tan Kah-kee was constructive
in urging the Kuomintang regime to send a delegation to Fukien province
to investigate the state of affairs there and to bring immediate relief to the
people. Again he appealed to the Hokkien people overseas to continue
their moral and material support to the Chungking government.122 As was
expected, the Hokkien delegates rallied behind Tan Kah-kee and sup-
ported his sentiment to reform the Fukien government. They passed sev-
eral resolutions concerning socio-political reforms in Fukien province.
These included the cleaning up of corruption amongst officials, the sack-
ing of Ch’en Yi as governor, reformation of the centralized control of
Fukien’s transportation system, immediate abolition of government-
owned enterprises, promotion of education in Fukien, and improvement in
conscription procedures. These resolutions were submitted to the
Chungking government and also to various newspapers and organizations
in China for publicity. The Nanyang Hokkien General Association served
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284 TAN KAH-KEE
as a pressure group and watch-dog for the welfare of the Hokkiens in

China and South-East Asia for the rest of the pre-war year.
The pressure put to bear on the Chungking government by the Nanyang
Hokkien General Association coupled with the fall of Foochow, capital of
Fukien, to the Japanese in June 1941, prompted the despatch of a five-man
commission from Chungking to enquire into the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’. The
commission’s report confirmed the misdeeds of the Ch’en Yi government,
resulting in the removal of Ch’en Yi as governor. His post was eventually
taken over by General Liu Chien-hsu, Commanding Officer of Chekiang
province,123 thus ending the saga of the ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’. Although
demoted, Ch’en Yi was soon appointed Secretary-in-Chief to the Executive
Yüan in Chungking. Commenting on this, Tan Kah-kee sighed ‘our leader
[Chiang Kai-shek] has no sense of right or wrong’.124
During the remainder of the Sino-Japanese War, Ch’en Yi certainly did
not lose the confidence of Chiang Kai-shek. For after the surrender of the
Japanese in August 1945, Ch’en Yi was again appointed by Chiang Kai-
shek as the governor of Taiwan. His rule in Taiwan has been described by
a Chinese historian, Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, thus:
Corrupt and discriminatory, his term of office was marred by numerous

scandals, including lucrative public auctions of confiscated Japanese prop-
erties, and by outrageous discrimination against the Taiwanese, who were
treated as colonial subjects unfit for executive and managerial posts in
either the government or large enterprises. Those Taiwanese who had origi-
nally welcomed the Nationalist take-over quickly lost faith in Ch’en’s
administration which they came to regard as worse than Japanese colonial
rule. Finally, public indignation could not be contained and in late February
of 1947 a violent uprising occurred. Ch’en temporized to gain time while
calling for reinforcements from the mainland, and when they arrived he
carried out a ruthless massacre of the Taiwanese.125
Ch’en Yi was subsequently dismissed as governor by the Kuomintang

regime in Nanking and was eventually executed for ‘conniving and col-
luding with communist agents’.126 The demise of Ch’en Yi not only vindi-
cated Tan Kah-kee’s peaceful campaigns for improving socio-political
conditions in Fukien but also confirmed his shrewd observation that the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
success of China’s post-war reconstruction lay in the weeding out of cor-

rupt officials.127
It is fair to say that Tan Kah-kee’s mission to China during 1940 had
brought to him a new vista, a new vision and a new hope. In Chungking,
he found Chiang Kai-shek a national leader whom he had admired and
supported, was quite incapable of uniting the whole Chinese population in
times of unprecedented national crisis. He had doubts whether Chiang
Kai-shek was capable of holding the whole nation together to embark on
a peaceful reconstruction of China in the post-war years. In Yenan, he
found a new spirit, a new way of life and a dragon king, earthy, honest,
hardworking, patriotic, austere, modest, forward-looking, heroic, optimis-
tic and fresh. Tan Kah-kee could find little fault with the Yenan leadership.
The choice was patently obvious. The Kuomintang attempts to smear him
as a communist sympathizer, to silence him as a constructive critic, and to
replace him as the chairman of the SCRFU only served to expose the
incompetent, undemocratic and highly intolerant nature of the Kuomintang
rule. While there is no doubt that it was the objective conditions in both
Chungking and Yenan which helped to shape the political mentality of Tan
Kah-kee, it should be admitted that it was Tan Kah-kee’s courage of his
own convictions which made him part of history, first as a conscience for
the people in Fukien and soon as a conscience for the hua-ch’iao com-
munity in South-East Asia.
With the two major battles over in Singapore by April 1941, Tan Kah-
kee resumed his role as chairman of the SCRFU to drum up financial and
material support for China. And as a non-partisan leader, he also attempted
to repair local community disunity over issues concerning Yenan and
Fukien. Although the Chinese in South-East Asia continued to donate gen-
erously to China’s coffers, the momentum had been weakened. As chair-
man of the SCRFU and a British subject, Tan Kah-kee was very supportive
of the British war effort on numerous occasions. In August, to mark the
anniversary of the European War, Tan Kah-kee appealed to the Malayan
and Singapore Chinese to donate money in aid of air raid victims in
Britain.128 On 22 August, Tan Kah-kee made further appeals to the Chinese
at a public meeting held at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
to support the Lord Mayor’s Air Raid Distress Relief Fund, arguing that the
British government and people had been sympathetic to China’s own war
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286 TAN KAH-KEE
effort against Japan.129 On 1 September, Tan Kah-kee launched an Aid-to-

Britain campaign in a public rally at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce, to drum up Chinese support for the Lord Mayor’s Air Raid
Distress Relief Fund. He made a fine speech, saying that ‘Malaya is our
second home. It is our bounden duty to assist in the fight against aggres-
sion, for by helping Britain win the war we are making our homes safer.’130
On the second anniversary of the European War on 3 September, Tan Kah-
kee representing the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya, sent three cables to
the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the Lord Mayor of
London. The cable to Winston Churchill expressed confidence in Churchill’s
leadership and endorsed the principles proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter
signed by Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt on 14 August
1941.131 This Atlantic Charter contained the ideals of both the USA and
Britain, including freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship,
freedom from fear, and freedom from want, as well as the need for eco-
nomic development and greater social security. On 5 November, the
Singapore China Relief Fund Committee responded to Governor Shenton
Thomas’s appeal for donations to the Poppy Day Fund by raising a sum of
$1,320 from among its executive members.132 Tan Kah-kee’s leadership
initiatives on these occasions were approved and appreciated by the British
authorities in Singapore. It was in this light that Tan Kah-kee’s assistance
was greatly sought by the British when the Japanese landed in Malaya on
8 December 1941.
Tan Kah-kee had been expecting war between Japan and Britain for a
considerable time during 1941. However, when the war broke out in
Singapore at 4.15 a.m. on 8 December with the first wave of the Japanese
air raids, his initial response was ‘gratification’ that China would not be
fighting alone.133 His ‘gratification’ was perhaps based on the illusion that
Britain would be strong enough to hold Malaya and Singapore against the
Japanese. But then when bad news from the British Malayan compaigns
continued to come, he began to doubt the capacity of the British to defend
the country. He could not sleep a wink on 12 December when Sng Choon-
yee rang and told him that the Japanese had sunk the Prince of Wales and
the Repulse, the nucleus of Britain’s new Far Eastern fleet, off the east
coast of Malaya.134 Things looked grim for the inhabitants of Singapore
and Malaya.
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On 13 December, Lee Choon-seng, a director of the Overseas Chinese

Banking Corporation, called on Tan Kah-kee and advised him to leave
Singapore early. Tan did not heed his advice, replying that it was far too
early to consider evacuating from Singapore. That afternoon news arrived
that Kedah and Kuantan (Pahang) were lost, and two days later Penang
had fallen.
On 17 December, the Inspector-General of Police, A. H. Dickinson,
called on Tan Kah-kee at the Ee Ho Hean Club informing him that the
governor would like to see him. Dickinson accompanied him to the
Government House, where the governor asked Tan Kah-kee to help
mobilize a labour force to dig trenches for use as air-raid shelters and
to advise the people to do likewise for their own protection. Tan Kah-
kee called a meeting of Chinese community leaders on 19 December
to discuss the matters entrusted to him by the governor. Needless to
say, they all supported the schemes and helped to carry them out within
a week.
As the battle front moved nearer to Singapore and air-raids became a
daily fact of life, the governor needed more assistance from the Chinese
community. Thus Shenton Thomas invited some fifty Chinese community
leaders to a meeting with him at Government House on Christmas Day, to
mobilize Chinese resources to help defend Singapore. At this meeting, the
governor confirmed that he had received a message from Chiang Kai-shek
urging the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore to give their full support to the
local government. Moreover, the governor also suggested that a mobiliza-
tion council should be established by the Chinese themselves, to help
defend the island. Tan Kah-kee was reported to have responded favourably
to the governor’s call for support at that meeting, but he certainly did not
accept responsibility for heading the council, as was mistakenly reported in
the Straits Times the following day. When reporting on this first Government
House meeting, Ian Morrison, War Correspondent for the Times in
Australia, was misleading when he reported that ‘some fifty leaders of the
different Chinese communities called on the Governor and told him that
they had agreed to sink their common differences and to give every support
to the local government in the prosecution of the war’.135 The Chinese com-
munity leaders did call on the governor, but it was the governor who had
invited them in the first place.
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288 TAN KAH-KEE
As can be verified from the Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, Tan Kah-kee did not
want the job of chairman of the proposed mobilization council at all. He
was visited by the Inspector-General of Police, A. H. Dickinson and Lien
Ying-chow, then president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce,
and a prominent Kuomintang leader, on the morning of 26 December.
They informed him that the governor wanted him to call a meeting to
organize the proposed Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council to help the
local government with its war effort. Tan Kah-kee declined and rejected
the proposal outright.136 He rejected it on the grounds that he knew nothing
about political and military matters and that the aims of the council were
far too broad and vague. They argued for some three hours to persuade Tan
Kah-kee to lead the council. Lien revealed to Tan Kah-kee at this heated
meeting that Chiang Kai-shek had sent a cable urging the local Chinese to
give their full support to the British. Tan Kah-kee snapped back, saying
that the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce should then be respon-
sible for leading the Chinese community to help the British. Lien then
hinted that the chamber might not be able to unite all factions within the
Chinese community to form such a council, thus Tan Kah-kee’s leadership
was needed. Tan Kah-kee answered that there was no reason why the vari-
ous factions within the Chinese community would not co-operate under
such an extraordinary circumstance. As Tan Kah-kee could not stand any
prolonged agony, he invited Dickinson to his room to tell him privately that
he was in no mood to undertake the task of mobilizing the people because
he had been most depressed by his own heavy financial losses resulting
from the Japanese occupation of Perak, where stocks of rubber worth more
than one million dollars in his rubber factories in Ipoh, Taiping and Kuala
Kangsar had been confiscated by the Japanese. He asked Dickinson to
kindly apologize to the governor for his inability to shoulder the responsi-
bility of mobilizing the Chinese in Singapore for purposes of defence.137
On 27 December, Dickinson sent Sng Choon-yee,138 a good and trusted
friend of Tan Kah-kee, to do the persuading for him. Sng arrived at the Ee
Ho Hean Club and told Tan Kah-kee that the British could not find another
suitable person to undertake the task. He revealed that the governor was
displeased with him for his refusal to assist. The governor complained that
Tan Kah-kee had done so much for China and now shirked his responsibil-
ity to help the local government. Tan Kah-kee then asked for Dickinson,
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who later turned up at the He Ho Hean Club. He asked Dickinson what the
governor wanted him to do, and was given a briefing about what his tasks
might entail. They included (a) to organize volunteers to carry out such
duties as patrolling the streets and maintaining security, watching out for
Japanese paratroopers and cleaning up debris from bomb sites; (b) to form
propaganda units to carry out propaganda works throughout the island;
and (c) to organize a labour force and to provide the government with
labourers when and where required. The government would be responsible
for the payment of wages to the recruited labourers. Tan Kah-kee was
happy to accept the last two tasks and promised to do his best with the
first. Dickinson conveyed the message to the governor, who promptly con-
vened a Government House meeting with Chinese participants from all
factions and parties, together with government officials and newspaper
reporters and correspondents, to be held on 28 December 1941.
This second Government House meeting was attended by over 200
people and was presided over by Sir Shenton Thomas. The main exercise
of the meeting was to appeal to the Chinese to co-operate and assist the
government at this critical time and to name Tan Kah-kee as their leader
to lead the mobilization council to perform those three tasks mentioned by
Dickinson. Tan Kah-kee spoke on the tasks entrusted him by the governor
and gracefully accepted the leadership of the mobilization council, which
was yet to be formed. The governor then thanked Tan Kah-kee for accept-
ing the role of leadership of the Chinese community in its support of the
government and emphatically reminded all the public media to give Tan
Kah-kee the full support he deserved.139 When reporting the Second
Government House meeting to the Colonial Office, the governor was
rather misleading in his writing:
... for the first time in history the Chinese representatives of all parties,
including Strails born, Kuo Min Tang, communists, etc. came to me to say
that the defeat of Japan is now their only interest, and placed themselves
unreservedly at my disposal. This applies at present only to Singapore.
I accepted, and they are organising themselves to undertake (a) supply of
labour, (b) watch and ward, (c) propaganda. They can be of immense value,
and are being given every help. Post war repercussions do not concern us
in this emergency.140
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290 TAN KAH-KEE
Again, it should be pointed out that the Chinese did not come to him, they
were summoned by the governor to help the government. This record
should be put right.
On 30 December 1941, a public rally of the Chinese community at
the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, presided over by Tan
Kah-kee, witnessed the birth of the Singapore Chinese Mobilization
Council. At this meeting, Tan Kah-kee elaborated the three main tasks
to be performed and invited comments and discussion from the floor.
One leader of the Communist Party, Ng Yeh-lu, an ex-detainee for his
involvements in communist activities, argued forcefully that the council
should arm the people to resist the Japanese. His proposal to set up an
arms department within the council was received with enthusiasm by
many young Chinese and left-wing participants at the meeting. Tan
Kah-kee countered his arguments and presented a case against arming
the Chinese. In his view, time was too short for the Chinese to receive
military training, as it would take at least four months to go through a
proper military training course. Secondly, he pointed out that if the
government needed reinforcements, they could get them from England,
America and Australia within a month. However, if individual Chinese
wished to join the guerrilla units, they could register themselves with
the government. Finally, Tan Kah-kee analysed that arming the Chinese
as guerrilla fighters would do them more harm than good as it could
invite Japanese reprisals should Singapore fall to the Japanese.
However, Tan Kah-kee’s pleas failed to impress the supporters of
Ng Yeh-lu on this occasion. As a result, an arms department was subse-
quently established, against the wishes of Tan Kah-kee. It is incorrect
for writers such as C. M. Turnbull141 and Alex Josey142 to assert that Tan
Kah-kee urged the government to arm a Chinese force. At this first
mobilization council meeting at the Chamber, a total of twenty-one
office-bearers were elected, including prominent leaders from the
Kuomintang, communists, the Straits-born, and Tan Kah-kee’s loyal
supporters. Thus it can be said that the council was a united-front
organization with Tan Kah-kee as its chairman.
On 31 December 1941, a second meeting was called by Tan Kah-kee to
allocate positions on the council. It was decided that five departments
would be set up, instead of the original three suggested by Tan Kah-kee.
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TABLE 7.1
Office-bearers of the Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council
Chairman Tan Kah-kee

General Affairs Department Yap Geok-twee (director, a Tan Kah-kee man), Lau
Geok-swee (vice-director, a Tan Kah-kee man).
Labour Service Department Lim Boh-seng (director, a Kuomintang leader), Low
Boh-tan (assistant director, a Tan Kah-kee man).
Protection Department Tay Koh-yat (director, a Kuomintang leader),
Ng Aik-huan (assistant, a Tan Kah-kee man),
Tan Siak-ch’ing (assistant, a communist leader).
Arms Department Lim Kang-sek (director, a communist leader), Ong
Kiat-soo (assistant, a Kuomintang leader).
Propaganda Department Hu Yu-chih (director, a Tan Kah-kee man). T’ang
Po-t’ao (assistant) and Shao Tsung- han (assistant).
Sources: Ta-chan yü nan-ch’iao, Singapore, Southseas China Relief Fund Union, 1947, p. 47;
Chuang Hui-ch’uan, ‘Wo yü Lim Bo-seng’, International Times, No. 96, July 1968, p. 21.
The above table shows the composition of the council leadership

(incomplete).
Tan Kah-kee did well to provide a unifying leadership to the council,
which consisted of competing political forces. Each of the five departments
went about their tasks with dedication. Under the dynamic leadership of Ng
Aik-huan, the protection department organized Chinese shop owners to
engage men to patrol their own street, while the labour service department
supplied an average of about 3,000 labourers a day to work for the govern-
ment on different assignments. Ian Morrison, reporting the civil defence of
Singapore for the Times, had this to say on the mobilization council’s con-
tribution to the British war effort in Singapore:
Early on in the war a Chinese Mobilisation Council was formed under the
chairmanship of Tan Kah-kee. It did excellent work. It did what it could to
help with the labour question. Every morning at seven o’clock, during the
weeks before Singapore fell, Chinese labourers, recruited through the
energy of members of the council, would foregather at certain fixed points
in the city. They woutd then be dispatched in lorries to places where there
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
292 TAN KAH-KEE
was an especial shortage of labour. Perhaps two thousand men were

required for clearing away some bombed buildings, or five hundred were
required for digging trenches in one of the parks, or the air force wanted
some work done on one of its airfields, or the army a lot of supplies that
had to be moved. There was never a sufficient supply of labour available,
and, as time went on, it steadily diminished. But the Chinese Mobilisation
Council made a gallant attempt to cope with the problem.143
Besides Ian Morrison’s account of the Chinese in civil defence of

Singapore, A. H. Dickinson gave testimony to the efforts of the mobiliza-
tion council when writing in 1946:
. . . During the war the Chinese gave loyal and positive support in help and
labour and raised a fighting unit which, had more time been available,
might have been trained to become of value to the General Officer
Commanding.
In civil defence, the Chinese community in Singapore helped gener-
ously and selflessly, and maintained good public discipline.144
Both the views of Morrison and Dickinson on the Chinese assistance in

civil defence were charitably endorsed by the governor of the Straits
Settlements, Sir Shenton Thomas, when he wrote in the early 1950s that
the Chinese mobilization council ‘did much useful work in watch and
ward, and in providing labour’.145
The arms department of the mobilization council was also active in
training a thousand Chinese fighters for the defence of Singapore.
However, these fighting men did not receive arms from the British author-
ities until 1 February, two weeks before the eventual fall of the island.
According to Ian Morrison, the first company of volunteers only moved
up to take their positions in the fighting line some five days before the
Japanese assaulted the island, which was very late in the campaign.146 Tan
Kah-kee was furious about the British distributing weapons to the Chinese
as he could not see any good reason to sacrifice the lives of these innocent
young people. Moreover, in Tan’s view, this would prompt the Japanese
victors into taking more severe reprisals against the whole Chinese popu-
lation.147 Thus, at this late stage. Tan Kah-kee was still adamant that the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
arming of the Chinese volunteers was tantamount to community suicide.

This may partially explain why the Japanese victors were most severe
with the Chinese civilian population of Singapore, 50,000 of whom are
estimated to have lost their lives.
As the Japanese kamikaze was sweeping towards Singapore, Tan Kah-
kee began to doubt whether the British had the will and capacity to hold
the so-called ‘impregnable fortress’. After having noticed signs of
British withdrawal from the island, Tan Kah-kee, accompanied by Yap
Geok-twee, Lau Boh-tan, Ng Aik-huan and Tan Chin-tuan, a municipal
commissioner and a joint managing director of the Overseas Chinese
Banking Corporation, went to see the governor for the last time on 30
January 1942 to enquire into war conditions in Singapore. The governor
gave them the impression that the British could do little to help them
evacuate to safety as their aeroplanes and vessels had been withdrawn to
Sumatra.148 Yap Geok-twee then asked the governor whether the
Chungking government had communicated with him and asked him to
evacuate them. The governor gave a flat answer, ‘no’.149 This meeting
prompted Tan Kah-kee’s supporters to draw up a contingency plan for
evacuation in the event of impending Japanese assault on Singapore.
It was Ng Aik-huan and Lau Boh-tan who quickly arranged the use of
two motor launches, which belonged to their friend Tan Kwee-chian, for
purposes of eventual evacuation. As there was news from Tan Kwee-
chian that the British were to requisition his motor launches, the evacu-
ation plan was immediately swung into action at 2.00 a.m., 3 February
1942, with the two motor launches quietly moving out from the beach at
Beach Road headed for Sumatra. The evacuation was so hurried and
secretive that Tan Kah-kee did not have the time to say good-bye to his
children and relatives.150 Of the two motor launches, the smaller one car-
ried Tan Kah-kee, Lau Geok-swee, Tan Kwee-chian, the owner of the
boat, and Tan Eng-ghee, the eldest son of Tan Lark-sye, while the larger
one was loaded with some of the most wanted men, Ng Aik-huan, Hu
Yu-chih, Lee Tiat-ming, Yu Ta-fu, Chang Ch’u-k’un and many other
anti-Japanese activists and their families. For Tan Kah-kee, the choice of
Sumatra was logical enough as it was closer than China and India to
Singapore geographically. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee intended to move on
from there to either India or Australia as his retreat. He had no intention
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
294 TAN KAH-KEE
of returning to Chungking because the Kuomintang regime would be

unlikely to tolerate him.151 This then was the beginning of Tan Kah-kee’s
life as a refugee, which was to last until the surrender of the Japanese in
August 1945.
One final note on the mobilization council was that the Chungking
government had exerted immense diplomatic pressure on the Foreign
Office, via China’s Ambassador to Britain, Dr V. K. Wellington Khoo, to
remove Tan Kah-kee as its chairman. The political grounds presented by
Dr Khoo were that Tan Kah-kee was ‘apparently a Communist and a
known opponent of the Chungking Government’.152 In response to both
the Foreign Office and Colonial Office queries, the Governor of the Straits
Settlements sent two telegrams back in quick succession. One dated 3
February 1941 read thus:
Person named is not communist and was appointed by the unanimous wish
of representatives of all shades of Chinese opinion in Singapore including
the Kuomintang, the Chinese Consulate-General, George Yeh, representa-
tive of the Chungking Government. He is the only man who can ensure the
co-operation of Chinese cliques. Chungking’s hostility to Tankahkee is due
to the personal animosity of certain Kuomintang politicians notably Wuteh-
cheng [Wu T’ieh-ch’eng]. This was made very evident when the Malayan
Government Mission visited Chungking in November. These politicians
admitted to the Mission that he was not communist. I consider his retention
essential.153
The other telegram to the Colonial Office was sent on 4 February after
the governor had learned that Tan Kah-kee had left the colony. It ran:
‘Person named has left Malaya. In ignorance of this I summoned the
Chinese Mobilisation Council yesterday and told them plainly that unless
they could get labour to work we may be unable to hold Singapore.
Council is being reorganized today and it may be that the departure of
person named will assist in the circumstances.’154 While the Chungking
regime’s reactions against Tan Kah-kee’s leadership in the mobilization
council were a reflection of its own acrimony and bigotry against a man
who was hell bent on upholding the position of his non-partisanship, the
governor’s telegram dated 3 February was a fine testimony to Tan
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Kah-kee’s contributions to the defence of Singapore in the darkest hours

of its history.
Within two weeks of Tan Kah-kee’s departure, Singapore fell to the
Japanese, and with it came the beginning of the history of Syonan. For the
British, it was easily and singularly their most humiliating military defeat
in modern times with 130,000 of their troops taken as prisoners-of-war.
These were made up of some 35,000 Englishmen and Scots, 15,000
Australians, 65,000 Indians and some 15,000 assorted troops, mostly
Malays and some Chinese. For the civilian Chinese population, they suf-
fered greatly from Japanese atrocities and severe reprisals. The history of
the Syonan has yet to be properly documented and assessed. Suffice it to
say here that the fall of Singapore was the most tragic event in its modern
history.
As far as Tan Kah-kee’s own history goes, the Japanese occupation of
South-East Asia was one of survival, retreat and regeneration. As he was
one of the most wanted and hunted Chinese, with a reward of one million
guilders on his head, he experienced considerable trepidation, much anxi-
ety and mental agony as well as tribulation. It seems that Tan Kah-kee did
not suffer much from physical hardship, being generally well looked after
by the Chinese in Sumatra and graduates of his Chi Mei Schools and
Amoy University in Java. He had much time to think, read and write, mak-
ing it one of the most productive periods in his literary and intellectual life.
On the whole, he survived the ordeal well as a refugee, despite his age.
Tan Kah-kee’s history in retreat to Sumatra and Java can be divided into
three phases in terms of location of his sojourn. These are: Sumatra
(February 1942), West Java (March–May 1942) and East Java (May
1942–October 1945). His Sumatran sojourn was the shortest as he was
trying to find a niche in Java where a bigger Chinese population was able
to shelter him. From Singapore, his motor launch landed at Tambilahan on
the South-east coast of Sumatra in the afternoon of 4 February. After a
five-day stay, the party proceeded to Rangat for Palembang. On the way
to Palembang, they visited Teluk Kuantan, Sungei Dareh and Marapi,
some 500 kilometres away from Palembang. While proceeding further
from Marapi, they were informed by some sentries guarding a nearby
airfield that the Japanese had attacked Palembang. This unexpected news
prompted Tan Kah-kee’s party to return to Sungei Dareh where they
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296 TAN KAH-KEE
stayed at a rubber factory owned by the Lee Rubber Co. Ltd., of Singapore.
At Sungei Dareh, Tan Kah-kee and Lau Geok-swee had the good fortune
to learn that there were boats leaving from Padang for Batavia. As Padang
was not far away, they were driven there to find out for themselves about
their trip to Java. Through the influence of a local Chinese kapitan (head-
man), Goh Soon-thong, Tan Kah-kee and Lau Geok-swee were able to
secure two tickets for Java. They boarded a boat loaded with Dutch mili-
tary and administrative personnel bound for Tjilachap on the South-west
coast of Java. They had an unpleasant journey, but arrived at Tjilachap
safely five days later.
Tan Kah-kee’s West Java retreat was also brief. This was because the
Japanese took Batavia on 4 March, and his good friend, Tjhung Sie-gan,
was detained by the Japanese on 10 March. In any case, West Java was too
close to the seat of Japanese power in Batavia for comfort. Before moving
on to East Java on 15 May 1942, Tan Kah-kee took shelter at a rubber
estate at Tjianjur, owned by Tjhung Sie-gan’s friend, Tan Teck-hai, who
was a wealthy community leader in Bogor. Tjhung’s family had moved to
the rubber estate after the fall of Batavia to the Japanese. However, Tan
Kah-kee’s reunion with Tjhung was brief as the Japanese had been look-
ing for him and wanted him for interrogation. On 9 March Tjhung’s
brother came from Batavia to visit him at Tjianjur and presented him with
a letter from the Japanese Kempeitai (Special Branch), requesting him to
meet their commander in Batavia, or else. Tjhung decided to go on 10
March. Before his departure for Batavia, Tan Kah-kee advised Tjhung to
reveal his whereabouts should the Japanese know of their relationship. His
logic was that by so doing Tjhung would be spared from being prose-
cuted.155 Tan Kah-kee had no idea that Tjhung was in fact badly tortured
by the Japanese Kempeitai for refusing to disclose his hiding place in
Java.156 This was Tan Kah-kee’s first lucky escape in West Java. During his
stay at Tjianjur, Tan Kah-kee lived in constant fear and anxiety over the
possibility of implicating Tan Teck-hai and his family.
On 15 May, Tan Kah-kee was overjoyed when two graduates of his Chi
Mei Schools and Amoy University, Quek Eng-lin and Liau Thian-seh,
arrived to escort him to a new retreat at Solo. Both Quek and Liau decided
to travel to Surabaya by train that evening, but it was fortunate for them
that they could not leave at the scheduled time. All tickets had been sold
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and it was just as well as it was that evening that the Japanese undertook
to check the identity of all passengers in all the West Javanese railway
stations. Tan Kah-kee would certainly have been detained by the Japanese
for not possessing proper identification papers.157 Tan Kah-kee and his two
escorts left Tjianjur for Bandung on 16 May and from there they changed
trains for Yogjakarta without a hitch. On 17 May, they were joined by Lau
Geok-swee and travelled to Solo by train. At the Yogjakarta railway sta-
tion, the Japanese soldiers made a random check on passengers. As there
was a huge crowd streaming towards the platform Tan Kah-kee had a third
lucky escape, not being pulled up by the Japanese in the midst of the
confusion.158
At Solo, Tan Kah-kee met two other graduates from his Chi Mei
Schools and Amoy University, Ng Tan-kwee and Tan Beng-tin, who
helped shelter and protect him. They rented a house for a family of eight,
including Tan Kah-kee, Ng Tan-kwee, Lau Geok-swee, Quek Eng-lin and
Quek’s wife, Lim Chwee-gim, and their two children. It was here at Solo
that Tan Kah-kee finally succeeded in obtaining an identity card bearing
the false name of Li Wen-hsüeh.159 Tan Kah-kee was comfortable and
happy enough in Solo but for the enervating heat and his toothaches. A hill
town like Malang in East Java with a temperate climate would suit better.
Moreover, in Malang, where he had originally come from, Ng Tan-kwee
could reopen his furniture factory. On 4 August, Tan Kah-kee, accompa-
nied by Ng Tan-kwee and Lau Geok-swee, left Solo for Malang by train.
For the rest of the Japanese occupation of Java, Tan Kah-kee lived mainly
in Malang and Batu as Li Wen-hsüeh. The Japanese Kempeitai did keep
track of his movements in Java but failed to identify the real Tan Kah-kee.
For fear of being tracked down in Malang, Tan Kah-kee was often shuffled
around between Malang, Lambong and Batu, and from one residence to
another within these towns. On one occasion in October 1942, Tan Kah-
kee noticed Ng Tan-kwee’s acute anxiety over his safety and he gave Ng
his philosophical advice by quoting a Chinese saying: nobody has been
immortal from time immemorial. He indicated to Ng that should he be
arrested by the Japanese, he would sacrifice his life for his country.160 On
another occasion in July 1943 when Tan Kah-kee had happily settled
down with another Chi Mei old boy, Lee Eng-khoon, and his family in a
rented house in Batu, he argued strongly against being shifted again for
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298 TAN KAH-KEE
security reasons. Apart from the obvious reasons that he had been well
looked after by the Lee family and that he was in love with his new resi-
dence on a cool and scenic spot, he attributed his safety or peril to fate. In
other words, if Tan Kah-kee was fated to fall into the hands of the
Japanese, then he had to face up to it. It was no good playing a game of
musical chairs.161
Indeed, the Japanese spared no effort in hunting him down in Malang
and Batu, but without success. One day in 1943, Tan Kah-kee had one of
his rare moments of real anxiety when two Japanese officers dropped by
at his Batu residence for a cup of coffee. They entered the residence and
saw Tan Kah-kee reading a novel, the Romance of Three Kingdoms in his
room. Lee Eng-khoon told the officers that the man reading the book was
his deaf uncle. The Japanese nodded and asked Lee Eng-khoon for a cup
of coffee in the lounge. Lee then asked a young man who had come earlier
to visit Tan Kah-kee to go and fetch some coffee. This young man came
back with two cups of coffee on a tray. His hands were trembling when he
saw the two officers. As a result of trembling hands and spilt coffee, the
Japanese began to suspect the young man and Lee Eng-khoon. However,
a quick witted Lee explained that this young man had been badly bashed
by some Japanese sentries in Batavia some months ago for not bowing to
them, and that was the reason why he was always so frightened whenever
he met Japanese soldiers. The Japanese officers seemed convinced and left
the house without further ado. This was one of several lucky escape sto-
ries, as told by Lee Eng-khoon.162
In March 1943, Tan Kah-kee finally decided to write his own memoirs,
to kill the long and boring days in Malang, and later in Batu. It took him
some thirteen months to finish. When the book was printed in 1946 in
Singapore, it was entitled Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, and has up to this day
remained an honest and bold record of Tan Kah-kee’s pre-war socio-
political career. He also wrote a couple of pamphlets on China’s transpor-
tation problems and on housing and hygiene during his East Java retreat.
Apart from writing his memoirs, Tan Kah-kee proved to be a competent
analyst when assessing the relative power of the Japanese and the Allies.
In his view in 1944, the Japanese had an edge over the Allies on land in
South-East Asia, but the Allies possessed an overwhelming advantage
over the Japanese in the sea and air. Additionally, with the sea and air
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superiority, the Allies could strike at the heartland of the Rising Sun at
will.163 His accurate analysis in his memoirs of the defeat of the Japanese
empire was a true reflection of his analytical mind and organizational
skills, unimpaired during the chaotic and tormenting years of the Japanese
invasion of South-East Asia. His analysis during his Malang sojourn of the
causes of the Chinese Civil War was also remarkably accurate. In his view,
the internal reasons which made the Chinese Civil War inevitable were
Chiang Kai-shek’s political dictatorship and his unwillingness to hand
over democracy to the Chinese people in the post-war era.164
With the Allies’ offensive in the sea and air during 1945 and with the
dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on
9 August, the Japanese Emperor eventually proclaimed the surrender to
the Allies on 15 August. Tan Kah-kee was naturally overjoyed by the good
news. He decided to make his way back to Singapore from Malang on 1
October 1945. Accompanied by Ng Tan-kwee and others, Tan Kah-kee
arrived by car at Surabaya at noon, in time for a reception. From Surabaya,
more graduates from the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University, including
Quek Eng-lin, Tan Sin-pan, Lim Cheong-ping and Ng Kie-chek, joined
him and Ng for the evening train journey to Batavia. On the way to
Batavia, Tan Kah-kee was escorted and protected by a different plain-
clothed Indonesian at each station. These Indonesians revealed to him that
they were ordered by their leader, President Sukarno (1901–70) to ensure
him a safe journey to Batavia.165 After his return to Singapore, a grateful
Tan Kah-kee sent a personal telegram to Sukarno to thank him for promot-
ing Sino-Indonesian relations and to urge him to carry on his good work.166
Tan Kah-kee arrived at Batavia on 2 October and attended a number of
welcoming receptions hosted by various Chinese well-wishers and com-
munity organizations, to mark the end of the war and to celebrate his
safety. While in Batavia, Tan Kah-kee had an emotional and happy reunion
with Tjhung Sie-gan, and stayed with Tjhung as his guest. On 6 October,
Tan Kah-kee boarded a plane at Batavia airport bound for Singapore, thus
ending his three and a half years of refuge in Java. Naturally, he was ever
grateful to the graduates from his Fukien educational institutions who had
saved his life in Java. This is a case of patron–client relationships at work
at its best, with the clients (students) risking their own lives to shelter and
protect their patron and patriarch in the hours of his need.
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300 TAN KAH-KEE
Tan Kah-kee’s 1940 comfort mission to China left behind two major
mental and political imprints on him. It was a political odyssey, with him
entangled in China’s national and regional politics. His being drawn into
China politics sharpened his political perception and inflated his historical
role as a shrewd judge of men and their destinies. It compelled him to play
out his political role as the leader of the Chinese communities in South-East
Asia in the post-war years. Moreover, his 1940 comfort mission turned out
to be his own spiritual odyssey — visiting the length and breadth of China’s
vast landscape and paying tribute and homage to the past and present heroes
of Chinese society and their political achievements. This spiritual odyssey
helped to deepen his admiration and appreciation of China’s unique civiliza-
tion; it strengthened his moral conviction and faith that China’s sovereignty
and national reconstruction were worth fighting for. On the other hand, his
various brushes with death during the era of the Japanese kamikaze did
much to toughen his fortitude and moral fibre for some of the most bitter
and fiery political campaigns to come. Out of the ashes of war, destruction
and nationalism in Asia arose a politically transformed Tan Kah-kee, hard-
ened and toughened and more sure of himself and his own destiny.
1. CO 273/662/50336, Governor’s Deputy, SS, to Malcolm MacDonald,

CO., 30 March 1940, p. 2.
2. Ibid., p. 3.
3. Ibid., p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 3.
5. Ibid., p. 2.
6. ST, 27 April 1940, 7 December 1940.
1946, p, 94.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 95.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., p. 96.
13. Ibid., p. 97.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 99.
16. Chang Ch’u-k’un, ‘Ho Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng hsiang-ch’u ti jih-
tzu-li’, China Reconstructs, Vol. 33, No. 11, November 1984, p. 55.
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18. Chang Ch’u-k’un, op. cit., p. 55.
19. Ibid., p. 118.
20. Ibid., p. 101.
21. Ibid., p. 161.
22. Ibid., pp. 122–3.
23. Ibid., p. 162.
24. Ibid., p. 110.
25. Ibid., p. 113.
26. Information provided by Chang Ch’u-k’un who was interviewed by the
author on 22 October 1984 in Peking.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., pp. 104–7.
30. By 1 May 1940, five members of the comfort mission had pulled out of
the tour because of accidents, illness and business commitments overseas.
32. Ibid., p. 136.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., pp. 140–1.
35. Ibid., pp. 142–3.
36. Ibid., pp. 143–4.
37. Ibid., p. 146.
38. P’an Shou (Pan Kuo-chu), Hai-wai-lu shih, Vol. 2, Singapore, Singapore
Cultural and Academic Association, 1985, p. 3.
40. Ibid., p. 149.
41. Ibid., pp. 150–1.
42. Shen Chung-jen, ed., Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chiu-kuo yen-lun-
chi, Shanghai, Hua-mei t’u-shu kung-ssu, 1941, p. 2.
43. Ibid., p. 3.
45. Ibid., p. 155.
46. Shen Chung-jen, ed., op. cit., p. 4.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid., p. 158.
50. Ibid., p. 161.
51. Ibid., pp. 158–9.
52. Ibid., p. 159.
53. Ibid., p. 160.
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302 TAN KAH-KEE

56. Ibid., p. 160.
57. Ibid., p. 162.
58. NCJP, 17 May 1949.
59. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 3; Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng
yen-lun-chi, Singapore, Southseas China Relief Fund Union, 1949, see preface.
60. Ibid.
61. Tan Kah-kee, Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, Singapore, Southseas
China Relief Fund Union, 1950, see preface.
62. Tan Kah-kee, Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, see preface.
63. Ibid.
65. Ibid., pp. 168–9.
66. Ibid., p. 171.
67. Ibid., p. 174.
68. Ibid.
69. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-ts’e, Peking, All-China Returned
71. Ibid., pp. 186–7.
72. Shen Chung-jen, ed., op. cit., pp. 8–9. Tan Kah-kee’s speech which
appeared in the New China Daily, Chungking, is reproduced in this book.
74. Ibid., p. 187.
75. Ibid., p. 188.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., p. 189.
78. Ibid., p. 190.
79. Ibid., pp. 191–2.
80. Ibid., p. 199.
81. Ibid., p. 203.
82. Ibid., p. 211.
83. Ibid., pp. 211–12.
86. Ibid., p. 219.
87. Ibid., pp, 222–3.
88. Ibid., p. 224.
89. Ibid., p. 230.
92. Ibid., pp. 252–3.
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93. Ibid., p. 254.

94. Ibid., p. 258.
95. Ibid., pp. 260–1; Shen Chung-jen, ed., op. cit., p. 63–6.
97. Ibid., p. 281.
98. Ibid., p. 282.
99. Ibid., p. 284.
100. Ibid., p. 287.
101. Ibid., p. 293.
102. Chen Chia-keng, ‘A “South Seas” Chinese Report on the Burma Road’,
trans. Y. Y. Hsu, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 4, December 1941, pp. 463–8.
103. Tan Kah-kee; Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 290.
104. NYSP, 14 August 1933; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 281, 283,
298, 302.
105. Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 296–8; NYSP, 20 January 1941.
106. Jonathan Fryer, Isherwood, London, New English Library, 1977, p. 179.
107. NYSP, 3 April 1941.
108. CO 273/665/50693, visit of T’ieh-ch’eng, see Secretary of State, CO.,
telegram to the Acting Governor, SS., dated 16 October 1940.
109. NYSP, 26 December 1940.
110. Chuang Hsin-tsai, ‘Wu T’ieh-lou yü kang-chan-chi-chung ti Nanyang’,
International Times, No. 94, May 1968, pp. 11–12.
112. Ibid., pp. 302–3.
113. FO 371/27734/F 9211/7183/10, FO to Singapore on the Kuomintang in
Singapore and Malaya, 22 September 1941.
115. Ibid., 3 April 1941; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 315.
116. NYSP, 3 April 1941, 7 April 1941, 9 April 1941, 3 May 1941; Tan Kah-
kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 308, 315–18, 324.
117. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 306, 308.
118. Ibid., p. 308.
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid., p. 309.
121. Chuang Hui-chuan, ‘Wo yü Lim Boh-seng (seven)’, International Times,
No. 99, November 1968, p. 23.
122. ST, 2 April 1941; NYSP, 2 April 1941.
124. Ibid., p. 329.
125. Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, third edition, New York,
Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 763.
126. Ibid.
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304 TAN KAH-KEE
127. Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, pp. 147, 270; NYSP, 3 May 1941.
128. ST, 18 August 1941.
129. Ibid., 23 August 1941.
134. Ibid.
135. Ian Morrison, Malayan Postscript, Sydney, Angus and Robertson Ltd.,
1943, p. 161.
137. Ibid.
138. In Tan Kah-kee’s Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, the influential man who was sent
to persuade Tan Kah-kee to attend the Second Government House meeting is not
revealed. It was Sng Choon-yee who confirmed to the author the identity of the
person who talked Tan Kah-kee into helping the governor to organize the mobi-
lization council.
140. CO 273/669/50750, Chinese Organisations in Singapore, 1942.
141. C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore 1819–1975, reprint, Kuala
Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 177.
142. Alex Josey, Singapore: Its Past, Present and Future, Singapore, Eastern
Universities Press Sdn. Bhd., 1979, p. 41.
143. Ian Morrison, op. cit., pp. 167–8.
144. B. A. M. 1/25, ‘A. H. Dickinson Letters and Memoranda, 1946’, retained
by the Royal Commonwealth Society Library, 18 Northumberland Avenue,
London.
145. ‘World War 2, Shenton Thomas and Constitution, File 1’. Part of
Shenton Thomas’ papers can be found at the Royal Commonwealth Society
Library, London.
146. Ian Morrison, op. cit., p. 168.
148. Information provided by Ng Aik-huan on 21 December 1982 at his office
at Asia Insurance Building, Singapore.
150. Ibid., p. 348.
151. Ibid.
152. CO 273/669/50750, op. cit., see CO to the Governor, SS., 30 January
1942.
153. Ibid., see Governor, SS, to CO, 3 February 1942.
154. Ibid., see Governor, SS, to CO, 4 February 1942.
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156. Tan Kok-kheng, ‘Recollections of Tan Kan Kee, My Father’, Singapore,

1982, pp. 358–9. (mimeo.).
157. Ng Tan-kwee, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng Ma-lang p’i-nan-chi’, in
Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-ts’e, Peking, All-China Returned Overseas
Chinese Association, 1961, p. 42.
158. Ibid.; Ng Tan-kwee, ‘Chi-feng chih chin-ts’ao’, Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng,
Peking, Wen-shih tzu-liao ch’u-pan-she, 1984, pp. 86–7.
159. Ng Tan-kwee, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng Ma-lang p’i-nan-chi’,
p. 42.
160. Ibid., p. 43; Tan Kah-kee, Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, p. 355.
161. Ibid.
162. This story was personally told by Lee Eng-khoon to Tan Kok-kheng after
the war. Mr Tan was kind enough to inform me of it during my interview with
him in Singapore in February 1984.
164. Ng Tan-kwee, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng Ma-lang p’i-nan-chi’,
p. 44.
166. Ibid., p. 367.
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8
Politics Takes Command:
The Hua-ch’iao Flag Fluttering
Every individual is responsible for the rise and fall of a nation; my own
personal fortunes can be sacrificed but not the principle of the right or
wrong of a matter.
Tan Kah-kee on the persistence of his personal
crusade against the Chiang Kai-shek regime, 1948
ON 6 October 1945, Tan Kah-kee arrived back in Singapore from Batavia

with mixed feelings. Driven from the Kallang Airport to his former
residence, the Ee Ho Hean Club, then still under repair, he was elated to see
many of his old friends who had survived the ordeal of the Japanese
Occupation. However, he was saddened by the news of the death of his
third son, Tan Pok-ai, and his fourth son-in-law, Oon Khye-hong, as well
as other human tragedies arising from the Japanese rule in South-East Asia.
His pre-war pre-eminent socio-political status as chairman of the
Singapore China Relief Fund Committee, Southseas China Relief Fund
Union and the Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council stood him well as
many well-wishers and fellow club members gathered around him, look-
ing up to him for inspiration, guidance and leadership, as a patriarch. To
illustrate the club’s respect for him, the Ee Ho Hean threw a dinner party
the next evening to mark his safe return. Regarded by the British as
‘unprecedented’ in the composition of Chinese guests, the dinner was
attended by representatives from the Chinese community in Singapore,
ranging from members of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
and the banks to the leaders of the communist front organizations and the
Malayan Communist Party itself,1 On this occasion Tan Kah-kee chose to
make a non-political speech, criticizing the low price of rubber (36 cents
306
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POLITICS TAKES COMMAND: THE HUA-CH’IAO FLAG FLUTTERING 307
per pound) and lamenting that ‘ten thousand Tan Kah Kee’s could do
nothing for Malaya with the rubber at this price’.2 Besides this, Tan Kah-
kee also made a plea for the banning of opium-smoking and cabarets in
Singapore.3 Two weeks later on 21 October, the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce hosted one of the largest public receptions for
him, with representatives from some 500 Chinese organizations attending
the grand function — to recognize his contributions to the Chinese in
Singapore and to celebrate his safe return to the island. On this occasion,
Tan Kah-kee seized the opportunity to share his political thoughts with the
participants — these centred on the possibility of a civil war in China. In
his analysis, there were three political and military forces on the post-war
political scene: the nationalists, the communists and the third force, made
up of military leaders such as Yen Hsi-shan, Feng Yü-hsiang, Pai Ch’ung-
hsi, Li Tsung-jen, Fu Tso-yi, Hsüeh Yueh and Chang Fa-k’uei. The third
force would not develop into a power if the nationalists and the commu-
nists could co-operate in promoting Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the
People. However, should the civil war break out between the nationalists
and the communists, then the hua-ch’iao communities must distinguish
who was right and who was wrong, and who was promoting the Three
Principles of the People and who was not.4 His thoughts on the Chinese
Civil War that evening were soon to become the basis of his own crusade
against the Chiang Kai-shek regime when the Chinese Civil War eventu-
ally erupted in June 1946.
In Chungking, many of his friends and admirers from all political parties
and groups also held a public rally in celebration of his safety. This rally
was held on 18 October and attended by over 500 people. The chairman,
Shao Li-tze, a prominent Kuomintang member, heaped high praise on Tan
Kah-kee, saying that Tan’s whole life was devoted to the promotion of
industry, education and China’s national affairs. Those who could not
attend this function sent their congratulatory messages on scrolls, many of
which were hung in the meeting hall. Among the scrolls was one written by
Mao Tse-tung, with a message ‘the Hua-ch’iao flag, the national glory’.5
The rally decided to send him a telegram, partly to congratulate him on his
safety and partly to urge him to return to China to fight for peace.6
In the midst of all these celebrations and congratulations, Tan Kah-kee
re-entered the socio-political arena as a public figure in post-war
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308 TAN KAH-KEE
Singapore. The circumstances had changed considerably since the pre-

war era. The British re-exerted their control over Malaya and Singapore
and gradually confronted their biggest challenges in Malayan history —
the rise of Malayan nationalism and the strengthened Malayan Communist
movement. And in China, despite considerable American peace efforts, a
civil war was looming. It was under these historical conditions that an
assertive Tan Kah-kee lived through what was to be the stormiest period
of his political career in Singapore.
After all the public celebrations had died down, Tan Kah-kee had his
own way of marking the passing of a traumatic era — the Japanese
Occupation. For the first time in his life, he took the initiative to invite a
small group of his close friends and colleagues for a photo-taking session
at the Botanic Garden on a late October afternoon. Those invited were
Chew Hean-swee, Lau Boh-tan, Ng Aik-huan and Pan Kuo-chu. A profes-
sional photographer was hired from the Broadway Studio to take indi-
vidual and group photographs for posterity. Ng Aik-huan has kept a
complete set of photographs taken on this memorable occasion. The pho-
tographer took photographs of Tan Kah-kee in different poses and posi-
tions. From half a dozen photographs of Tan Kah-kee it can be seen that
he had put on some weight and was fuller in the face. At the age of sev-
enty-one, Tan Kah-kee looked mellow and very relaxed, obviously enjoy-
ing his good fortune in being alive and well.
Many Chinese in Singapore were still dazed by the ending of the
Japanese Occupation, and gradually began to pick up the pieces of their
lives. Tan Kah-kee lost little time however in assuming a leadership role
in community affairs and in China politics, as his pre-war power base had
remained largely intact and so had his pre-war pre-eminent social status.
In any case, he was still the chairman of the SCRFC and SCRFU, two
pre-war political and charitable organizations which had not been
dismantled.
Tan Kah-kee was not given much time to rest or recuperate, for within
a week of his arrival he was instrumental in solving the sensitive issue of
the Chinese collaboration with the Japanese. Tan Kah-kee’s supporters
including Lau Boh-tan and Ng Aik-huan consulted him on it and were
advised to adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards those who had been
forced into collaboration. Moreover, Tan Kah-kee argued that should the
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British prosecute any Chinese for collaborating with the Japanese, they
should do their best to defend them as victims of circumstances.7 Some
Chinese in Singapore could well have settled their scores privately with
collaborators but the fact that this potentially burning issue never reared
its ugly head in post-war Singapore was a tribute to the rational approach
of such Chinese leaders as Tan Kah-kee.
As chairman of the SCRFU and SCRFC, Tan Kah-kee was confronted
with a host of issues and problems affecting the Chinese in the post-war
era. Some of these had existed in the pre-war years but had become exac-
erbated during the Japanese Occupation; others were new creations of the
war itself. All these problems needed to be pursued and resolved promptly
and decisively. While the SCRFC was finally wound up in 1946, Tan Kah-
kee was reluctant to dismantle the Southseas China Relief Fund Union for
the time being, at least. Issues and problems which confronted Tan Kah-
kee in the immediate post-war months included, among many others,
unity within the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya; compila-
tion of a historical record concerning losses of Chinese properties, assets
and lives during the Japanese Occupation; continuing promotion of educa-
tion by the Hokkien Huay Kuan for the post-war generation of Chinese
children; and repatriation of some three thousand mechanics from China
to their original homes in South-East Asia.
By the time Tan Kah-kee returned to Singapore, a movement to unite
the Chinese community in both Singapore and Malaya was under way.
This movement was launched by various Chinese community leaders
from both sides of the Johore causeway. Tan Kah-kee was briefed and
consulted on this vital issue, but it was possibly an exaggeration when the
British said that ‘he might conceivably become George Washington of a
Nanyang Chinese independence movement were it possible to isolate the
Overseas Chinese from the surrounding countries.’8 Tan Kah-kee could
well have agreed in principle that there was a need for unity among the
Chinese in British Malaya, but he argued strongly and convincingly that
conditions for unity did not exist among the Chinese. In an article pub-
lished by him in the Chinese newspapers in Singapore towards the end of
December 1945, Tan Kah-kee spelled out the pre-conditions for unity,
including the abolition of all pang schools, centralization of educational
control, elimination of minor Chinese clan and pang organizations and the
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310 TAN KAH-KEE
merging of smaller pang organizations (that is, hui kuans) into a few
larger ones.9
Parallel to the pan-Malayan Chinese unity movement was also a move-
ment to bring about a rapprochement between Tan Kah-kee and Aw Boon-
haw, who returned from Rangoon to Singapore in January 1946. Initiated
by the supporters of Tan Kah-kee (Lau Boh-tan, Ng Aik-huan and Lee
Tiat-ming) and Aw Boon-haw (Aw Long-man, ex-editor of Sin Chew Jit
Poh, and Foo Chew-keat, manager of Sin Chew Jit Poh), the rapproche-
ment was considered a pre-requisite to the movement for unifying all
Chinese cliques in Singapore. Several conferences between the two medi-
ating teams were reported to have taken place and a big dinner was
arranged at the Goh Loo Club on New Year’s Day to which leaders of all
cliques were invited in order to exchange views on the unity of Chinese
people.10 However, as might have been expected, the movement for unity
eventually fizzled out on rather complicated personal and political
grounds. To start with, Tan Kah-kee had remained lukewarm and cynical
about the unity issue. Second, both Tan Kah-kee and Aw Boon-haw had
long-standing and deep-rooted personal quarrels in the pre-war years
which could not be easily forgotten. In March 1946, the British stated that
both Tan Kah-kee and Aw Boon-haw continued ‘their intriguing for the
position of leader of the Overseas Chinese’.11 Third, the Malayan and
China Kuomintang never forgave Tan Kah-kee for his defence of Mao
Tse-tung and the Yenan regime during his 1940 comfort mission to China
and still regarded him as their ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ in January 1946.12
Under these circumstances, all attempts to bring about a Chinese unity in
Malaya and Singapore were largely abortive as long as Tan Kah-kee and
the Malayan Kuomintang remained antagonistic towards each other.
For both the Southseas and Singapore China Relief Funds, the immedi-
ate tasks were to initiate the collection of data concerning the losses of
Chinese property, assets and lives in South-East Asia. This had to be done
in the first place so that relief and compensation could be sought from
the British, Chinese and Japanese governments. Second, the documenta-
tion of Japanese atrocities could be used as evidence against Japanese
war criminals. Finally, all the data collected was to be compiled and
printed into a book to serve as a testimony to Chinese sacrifices during
the Japanese Occupation of South-East Asia. This book, Ta-chan
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yü nan-ch’iao (The Great War and the Chinese in South-East Asia), was
published in 1947 in Singapore by the Southseas China Relief Fund
Union, and has remained a substantial documentary work on the Chinese
in South-East Asia between 1941 and 1945.
There were two other tasks arising from the war which Tan Kah-kee
wanted to tackle but was not able to complete. One was the gathering of
remains of war victims in Singapore from mass graves and beaches, so
that they could be buried in a proper location and the other was the erec-
tion of a war memorial as a testimony to Chinese sacrifices during the war.
On the issue of a Chinese war memorial, Tan Kah-kee corresponded with
Brigadier P. A. B. McKerron, then the Deputy Chief Civil Affairs Officer
of the British Military Administration in 1946, suggesting that the Chinese
in Singapore should be allowed to erect their own Chinese war memo-
rial.13 The reply came that if there was a war memorial it should be one
for the victims of all ethnic groups. While not discarding McKerron’s
concept out of hand, Tan Kah-kee raised two issues for his consideration.
One was that as the civilian war victims were disproportionately Chinese,
the memorial should be for the Chinese, and further, the Chinese customs
and practice of ancestor worship at the memorial might be objectionable
to other ethnic groups.14 As Tan Kah-kee and McKerron could not agree
on the objectives of the memorial, the issue was temporarily dropped.
When Tan Kah-kee departed for China in May 1950, Ng Aik-huan and a
few friends took over these two arduous and ‘unpleasant’ tasks. Persuaded
by Ng Aik-huan and these friends, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce eventually took up the issue. Finally, with the Singapore gov-
ernment’s approval, a cenotaph in memory of the fallen was erected in
1967 on a piece of ground opposite the demolished Raffles Institute. By
personally organizing teams to collect remains of Chinese civilian war
victims and by getting a Chinese war memorial erected in Singapore,
Ng Aik-huan, Tan Kok-kheng and others did a great service to the Chinese
community. By so doing, they admirably fulfilled the wishes of Tan Kah-
kee and the Chinese community in Singapore.
An issue which became a running sore between Tan Kah-kee and the
Kuomintang government in China during 1946 concerned the repatriation
of some 3,000 Chinese mechanics who had volunteered to work on the
Burma Road in 1939. Now that the Sino-Japanese War had ended in
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312 TAN KAH-KEE
China, Tan Kah-kee and many leaders of the Southseas China Relief Fund
were anxious to see the safe return of these mechanics to their original
homes in South-East Asia. Due largely to the application of red tape on
the part of the Kuomintang government, the repatriation of these mechan-
ics was unduly delayed. However, by the end of 1946, many had managed
to return to their homes in South-East Asia.
As chairman of the Hokkien Huay Kuan, Tan Kah-kee was extremely
concerned about education for the post-war children. He harboured two
visions of post-war Chinese education, one concerned the establishment
of schools for all Chinese, rather than narrowly for the Hokkien children,
and the other the training of qualified teachers. However, these two
visions had to remain dreams. His only major educational achievement in
the post-war era in Singapore was the founding of a Chinese secondary
school for girls, the Nan Ch’iao Girls High School, at Kim Yam Road,
in 1947.
Tan Kah-kee did not have any intention of establishing a Chinese
university in Singapore to serve all Chinese secondary school graduates
throughout South-East Asia because he considered such a venture too
costly. This vision belonged to a small group of younger generation lead-
ers of the Hokkien pang, including Lee Kong-chian, Tan Lark-sye and Ng
Aik-huan, who had cherished the concept from 1946 and saw it realized
in 1956 with the founding of Nanyang University at Jurong.15 The
founders of Nanyang University had been under the spiritual influence of
Tan Kah-kee for a very long time.
The post-war Tan Kah-kee was more broad-minded and more Asian in
political outlook. He was not only well-informed on Indonesian and
Indian nationalism which aimed at overthrowing Western colonial rule in
Asia but was more prepared to render moral support to the Indonesian and
Indian nationalists. He was especially grateful to Sukarno, whose men
safely escorted him from Surabaya to Batavia towards the end of his Java
retreat. On the eve of his return to Singapore from Batavia in October
1945, Tan spoke at a farewell party, encouraging the hua-ch’iao in
Indonesia to help the Indonesians achieve independence from the Dutch.16
It is, however, doubtful whether Tan Kah-kee had much inkling of the
coming decline and eventual demise of Western colonialism in Asia as
early as 1945.
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He sympathized with Indian nationalism and was an admirer of Pandit

Nehru. When Nehru visited Singapore and Malaya between 18 March and
26 March 1946, Tan Kah-kee personally led a Chinese party to welcome him
at the Kallang Airport. On 19 March, Nehru dined at the Ee Ho Hean Club
at the invitation of Tan Kah-kee, as chairman of the Southseas China Relief
Fund Union. At the Ee Ho Hean banquet, Tan Kah-kee made a short speech
to welcome him, saying that Nehru’s struggle for Indian independence and
liberation had the sympathy of the world and the respect of the Chinese
people. Moreover, the fate of hundreds of millions in India depended on his
great leadership. Tan Kah-kee used the opportunity to express his disap-
proval of Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership in China, and to drive home his point
by remarking that ‘we, the Chinese people, also need leaders possessing
sincerity and faith to solve the problems of over 450,000,000 people’.17 Tan
Kah-kee was the only Chinese in South-East Asia who publicly supported
the Indian nationalist movement in the immediate post-war years. In reply,
Nehru spoke on Asian unity to a receptive audience.
While Tan Kah-kee diplomatically refrained from commenting on
British rule in India, he was downright hostile towards Dutch colonial rule
in Indonesia.
What prompted first the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and
then Tah Kah-kee to condemn Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia in February
1947 was the Dutch actions and policy deemed to be unfriendly to the
Chinese interests in South-East Asia. It should be noted that the Indonesian
Chinese position had become extremely vulnerable in the course of mili-
tary struggle between the Indonesian nationalists and the Dutch, and here
the Battle of Palembang, Sumatra, is a case in point. In January 1947, the
Dutch attempted to dislodge Indonesian control over some parts of the city
by bombing, strafing and shelling it for five days. As a result, those
Chinese living in Palembang suffered heavily from loss of lives and prop-
erties alongside the Sumatran people. The Dutch then followed this with a
naval blockade against all imports into and exports from the Indonesian
nationalist-controlled territories. Goods exported from the Indonesian
controlled regions were intercepted, detained and confiscated, thus
adversely affecting the trading interests of the Chinese in both Indonesia
and Singapore. In response to the Dutch policy, the Singapore Chinese
Chamber of Commerce established a Chinese Protection Association
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314 TAN KAH-KEE
under the chairmanship of Lee Kong-chian, to negotiate with the Dutch

authorities. When this failed, Tan Kah-kee, as chairman of the Southseas
China Relief Fund Union, was persuaded to convene a public rally in
Singapore on 16 February 1947 to discuss measures to protect Chinese
trading rights and interests and to protest against the Dutch ‘atrocious
action’. It was at this meeting, attended by over one hundred concerned
Chinese businessmen, that Tan Kah-kee reserved his most severe condem-
nation of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.
At this public rally, Tan Kah-kee accused the Dutch of exploiting the
Indonesian people and criticized the Dutch for not abiding by the Atlantic
Charter and allowing the Indonesians to enjoy their political independence
and sovereignty. He castigated the Dutch for their incompetence in
defending Indonesia against the Japanese, thus forfeiting their right to rule
over the Indonesians. He praised the Indonesian independence movement
for fighting to recover their own territories and rights. On the naval
embargo, Tan Kah-kee accused the Dutch of attempting to damage the
Chinese commercial interests so as to monopolize shipping and the import
and export trade themselves.18
It was decided at this rally that the Chinese Protection Association
should negotiate further with the Dutch authorities concerning the issues
of naval blockades and confiscation of ships. Failing a successful out-
come, a Chinese boycott of Dutch goods and shipping would be instigated
and enforced throughout South-East Asia as a counter-offensive.19 The
Dutch Lieutenant Governor-General, H. J. van Mook, is said to have des-
patched a four-man delegation to meet with Tan Kah-kee in Singapore and
attempt to persuade him not to intervene in Indonesian affairs. The delega-
tion asked him to take the interests of 2.5 million Chinese in Indonesia
into consideration, should he see fit to intervene. Tan Kah-kee took this as
a threat and replied angrily that he had not expected civilized human
beings to make such remarks and predicted that the Dutch would be
evicted by the Indonesians from ‘the lands of Indonesia’.20
It seems that Lee Kong-chian, chairman of the Chinese Protection
Association, successfully negotiated with the Dutch authorities and per-
suaded them to relax their naval blockade and return detained Chinese
ships, as the proposed South-East Asian Chinese boycott of Dutch goods
and shipping was never carried out.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Although Tan Kah-kee was not a very active participant in Singapore

and Malayan politics during the post-war era as compared to Tan Cheng-
lock, for example, he was not disinterested in Singapore and Malayan
politics. Soon after his return from Java in October 1945, Tan Kah-kee
was persuaded by a newly formed Singapore General Labour Union to
convene a seminar at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce on
10 November 1945 with both labour and employers participating to dis-
cuss issues concerning the restoration of the Chinese manufacturing
industry and industrial peace.21 The seminar was duly chaired by him but
it is doubtful that much industrial peace could have been achieved in a
single seminar.
Tan Kah-kee was critical of both the British authorities and the Malayan
Communist Party over the so-called ‘February 15 Incident’ (1946) in
which some lives were lost and numerous demonstrators were wounded.
The incident was sparked off by the communist attempt to hold a mass
rally to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the fall of Singapore,
without obtaining a permit. The Singapore police moved in to disperse the
crowd, resulting in one death, while some fifteen people were killed in an
armed clash between the demonstrators and the police in Johore.22
According to the British intelligence report, Tan Kah-kee took an anti-
British stand on the ‘February 15 Incident’, attributing the incident to the
nature of the British who ‘refused to allow democracy and remarking that
if demonstrators had been British and not Chinese they would not have
been fired upon’.23 Tan Kah-kee later merely declared himself misreported
but did not retract what he had said on the incident.24 The Nanyang Siang
Pan (13 March 1946) reported that Tan Kah-kee blamed both the British
and the communists for the clashes.
Although Tan Kah-kee is known not to have commented on the
Malayan Union Scheme, the first constitution for the post-war Malaya and
Singapore drawn up in 1946, he certainly made his views clear on the
proposed Federation of Malaya constitution in March 1947. In his view,
all political parties in Singapore and Malaya should hold a round table
conference to sort out problems and differences when putting forward
proposals for the new constitution. The Chinese in Malaya should be
allowed to select one citizenship, either Chinese or Malayan citizenship.
Moreover, the Chinese in Malaya should respect the special position and
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316 TAN KAH-KEE
privileges of the Malays in Malaya. In addition, Tan Kah-kee believed that

Singapore should be a part of the new Federation of Malaya and not be
left out as a crown colony. Finally, Tan Kah-kee stressed that all members
of the Legislative Council in Singapore should be popularly elected.25 His
views on methods of resolving the constitutional problems, the Chinese
citizenship choices and rights, the privileged position of the Malays and
the practice of parliamentary democracy in Singapore, go a long way to
showing that he was concerned with political and constitutional develop-
ments in post-war Malaya.
In February 1948, the War Office in London published Lieutenant-
General A. E. Percival’s 120,000 word Despatch on the Malayan cam-
paign which created a controversy between Percival and the Chinese
community in Singapore and Malaya over the role of the Chinese in the
defence of these two territories. As Tan Kah-kee was personally
involved in the defence of Singapore, he was incensed that the Percival
Despatch contained some unfavourable accounts of the Asians, for
example, Asians tending ‘to take the side of the more powerful [the
Japanese]’.26 The tone of the Despatch and the silence over the Chinese
role in the Despatch prompted him to protest to the Secretary of State
for War, Mr Shinwell. In a three-page memorandum to the Secretary
dated 3 March 1948, Tan Kah-kee declared that unless suitable amend-
ments and an apology were made by General Percival, it would be nec-
essary for the Malayan Chinese to compile a separate report giving a
‘true picture of the Malayan campaign’.27 While documenting what the
Chinese in Singapore had contributed to the defence of the island under
the leadership of the Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council, Tan Kah-
kee accused the British government of curbing all anti-Japanese activi-
ties among the Chinese before the outbreak of war and claimed that this
was an important cause of the British defeat. Moreover, he blamed the
British government’s last-minute orders to send to the battlefront some
1,000 half-trained Chinese to fight against the invaders, which resulted
in severe Japanese reprisals against the Chinese in Johore and Singapore
after the surrender of the island. Tan Kah-kee castigated Percival’s
Despatch for omitting these facts in order to conceal the responsibility
of the British government for its unsound policy towards the Chinese.
To hammer home his point Tan Kah-kee made a most pungent remark,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
‘if the people were fettered in peacetime and are released only in an
emergency, defeat is inevitable’.28
Following Tan Kah-kee’s complaints against General Percival’s Despatch
on the fall of Singapore, Mr Gammans directed a question on 17 March to
the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Creech Jones, in the House of
Commons, on what action the Colonial Office proposed to take. Creech
Jones replied that the matter was under consideration but pointed out that ‘the
views expressed in General Percival’s despatch are the personal opinions of
the author’.29 Moreover, he added that ‘the Governor of Singapore paid pub-
lic tribute to the courage and bearing of the Chinese during the hostilities and
later during the Japanese occupation, when he assumed that office’.30
General Percival was kept informed by the War Office of the Chinese
protests and Creech Jones’ reply to Mr Gammans at the House of
Commons, he chose to make a public but evasive reply, saying that ‘many
of their contentions are undoubtedly true, but that the subject matter of
these contentions did not come within the province of my despatch’.31 Tan
Kah-kee protested further without success. There is no evidence that
Percival made an apology to the Chinese or amended the contents of his
Despatch. When Percival’s own book, The War in Malaya, was published
by Eyre and Spottiswoode (Publishers) Ltd., London, in 1949, it contained
no such offensive remarks as those referring to Asians tending to side with
the powerful. However, it should also be pointed out that his book made
no mention of the role of the Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council and
Tan Kah-kee either.
By far the greater proportion of the public life of Tan Kah-kee in the
post-war era was devoted to China politics — the Chinese Civil War,
China’s national reconstruction and his sword-crossing with the
Kuomintang forces in Singapore and Malaya over his anti-Chiang Kai-
shek campaigns.
Although Tan Kah-kee’s commitment to China politics generally and to
Mao Tse-tung in particular provoked displeasure from the British authori-
ties, he did not compromise his integrity for political expediency on China
politics. To some extent, his assertiveness and obstinacy in China politics
were a reflection of his own changing perception of Western colonial rule
in South-East Asia. What moral superiority did Western colonial rulers
have over their subjects when they had failed to defend their colonial
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318 TAN KAH-KEE
territories and people against the Japanese invasion? What right did the
British have to teach him a thing or two about how and what to think and
act in China politics? In any case, Tan Kah-kee had decided to follow what
Confucius had preached, ‘At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my
own heart; for what I desired no longer over-stepped the boundaries of
right’.32 He was seventy-one in 1945.
Although Tan Kah-kee personally witnessed and felt great tensions at
close quarters between the nationalists and the communists during his
1940 comfort mission to China, he was still hopeful in 1941 that a Chinese
civil war could be averted so long as China was still waging a war against
Japan. However, his hope for peace between the two rival factions grew
dimmer during his Java sojourn when he read that the communists were
gaining ground in the Japanese occupied territories and that mutual hos-
tilities had increased.33 He was reported to have told his hosts in Malang
that the Chinese Civil War was inevitable because Chiang Kai-shek had
no intention of returning power to the people. He had gone as far as saying
that if the Chinese people hoped to enjoy political power, it was tanta-
mount to mou-pe yü-hu (to negotiate with a tiger for his hide), a Chinese
idiom he was to use on numerous occasions in the post-war years to depict
the dictatorship of the Chiang Kai-shek regime.34
While Tan Kah-kee was conscious of not treading too heavily on the
toes of the Kuomintang supporters at the Batavia and Singapore functions
held to celebrate his personal safety in October 1945, he was soon to
speak his mind about China politics. In November 1945, Tan Kah-kee was
reported to have commented that China’s national crisis — conflicts
between the nationalists and communists — could not be solved at the
conference table but only on the battlefields. He made this assertion on the
grounds that Mao Tse-tung intended to carry out democracy while Chiang
Kai-shek adhered to his old way — dictatorship and corruption.35 Tan
Kah-kee could well have made similar statements about Chiang Kai-shek
elsewhere, for the Kuomintang supporters in Singapore and Malaya had,
by January 1946, labelled him as their ‘Public Enemy No. 1’;36 long after
the Chinese Civil War had ended some had not forgiven him for his acri-
monious attacks on Chiang.
In February 1946, the complete text of the Yalta Agreement was offi-
cially published in China. Many Overseas Chinese people were shocked
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
and dismayed to learn that Chiang Kai-shek had accepted the agreement
enshrined in the Moscow Treaty of 14 August 1945, signed between
China and the Soviet Union. In that Treaty, China recognized the Yalta
Agreement in exchange for Soviet military and material aid to the nation-
alist government as the legitimate government of China. The Yalta
Agreement restored to the Soviet Union the Czarist special rights in
Manchuria, including Port Arthur or Dairen, the southern part of Sakhalin
and all the islands adjacent to it. However, more damaging to the Chinese
interests was China’s recognition of Outer Mongolia as an independent
State, thus surrendering China’s sovereignty over this vast, arid land con-
quered by Emperor Ch’ien-lung (1736–95) of the Ch’ing dynasty. As
chairman of the Southseas China Relief Fund Union, Tan Kah-kee’s
response was swift and decisive. He condemned the Yalta Agreement and
denounced the Moscow Treaty for violating China’s sovereignty and ter-
ritorial integrity. In his view, the agreement was tantamount to a betrayal
of Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People, and traded away the
rights of the Chinese people.37 His protest served as an added note to his
disillusion with the Kuomintang regime in China.
By February 1946, the Manchurian crisis had deepened with the
Russians aiding the Chinese communists while the American transport
planes were flying in Kuomintang reinforcements to consolidate their
positions in the Manchurian cities. Not surprisingly, the Kuomintang
supporters in Singapore and Malaya whipped up a protest movement
against Soviet intervention and reaffirmed their support for Chiang
Kai-shek.38 In an interview with the Director for the Far East Bureau of
the American Associated Press on 11 March 1946, Tan Kah-kee expressed
the view that both the United States and Soviet Union should cease aiding
the warring parties in Manchuria and so help bring about peace and unifi-
cation in China.39 By now, Tan Kah-kee firmly believed that foreign inter-
vention in China was fuelling tensions between the nationalists and the
communists.
In the midst of the Manchurian crisis, on 15 April, a group of concerned
Chinese in Singapore founded the Singapore branch of the China
Democratic League, which aimed at promoting unity, independence,
democracy and peace in China. Originally founded in 1940 in Hong Kong,
the China Democratic League was hailed as the third party in China, capable
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320 TAN KAH-KEE
of providing a political alternative for the Chinese people to that of the

Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. As many of its key found-
ers, including Hu Yu-chih, Lee Tiat-ming, and Hsüeh Yung-shu, were
supporters and followers of Tan Kah-kee, the League soon fostered an
intimate relationship with him. However, it is important to note that Tan
Kah-kee declined an invitation from Hu Yu-chih to become a card-carry-
ing member on the grounds that he preferred to remain organizationally
non-partisan, thus maintaining his earlier stand on Kuomintang.
While branches of the China Democratic League in Singapore and
Malaya stressed the importance of peace during 1946 by despatching
telegrams to President Truman (urging the United States to stop giving
military aid to Chiang Kai-shek and to withdraw its troops from China),
Chiang Kai-shek and Chou En-lai (urging both to refrain from military
conflict),40 Tan Kah-kee campaigned for democracy in China. At a wel-
coming function given for him by the Selangor China Democratic League
in June 1946, Tan Kah-kee identified three political systems in the world,
namely dictatorship, communism and democracy, and named countries
like Germany, Italy, Japan and China as practising dictatorship. In his
analysis, after the collapse of the dictatorial regimes in Germany, Italy and
Japan at the end of the Second World War, China had remained the only
country which still practised one-party dictatorship. Tan Kah-kee believed
that democracy was the most feasible political solution to China’s prob-
lems, whereas ‘dictatorship is tantamount to death’.41
Many months before the Chinese Civil War finally broke out in June
1946, Tan Kah-kee had been repeatedly pressed by various concerned
Chinese leaders and organizations in Singapore and Malaya to do some-
thing to help bring about peace in China. These concerned individuals and
organizations suggested that he should telegraph Chiang Kai-shek and
Mao Tse-tung to urge them to settle their differences or to despatch a hua-
ch’iao peace mission to China to mediate between the two warring fac-
tions; his answer to them was invariably a single word — futility. But
three months after the Chinese Civil War had begun in earnest, Tan Kah-
kee could keep silent no longer. As chairman of the SCRFU, he sent a
telegram on 7 September to five American political leaders, including
President Harry Truman, the leaders of the US Congress, General George
C. Marshall, the US’s Special Representative to China and President
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Truman’s personal envoy, and John Leighton Stuart, the US Ambassador

to China. Tan Kah-kee told them of the feelings of the hua-ch’iao com-
munities in South-East Asia toward the Chinese Civil War. In his telegram,
Tan Kah-kee slammed the Kuomintang government and its ministers for
being corrupt, incompetent, tiresome, bigoted, dictatorial and incapable
of reforming China, but praised the Yenan regime for being democratic.
Moreover, he said that the Yenan regime had the support of the Chinese
masses and thus was capable of withstanding internal and external mili-
tary pressure. This being the case, it was the wish of the Chinese that the
United States should change her China policy by stopping aid to Chiang
Kai-shek and by withdrawing her naval, air and land forces from China
so as to bring the Chinese Civil War to a speedy end.42 President Truman
acknowledged receipt of Tan Kah-kee’s telegram and on 11 September,
the contents were revealed by the American Associated Press in Singapore.
The result of this was a stream of bitter political polemic, known as the
‘cable crisis’. This ‘cable crisis’ set the scene for a political confrontation
between the Kuomintang and anti-Kuomintang forces in South-East Asia
generally and in Singapore and Malaya in particular. It brought about the
final break between Tan Kah-kee and Chiang Kai-shek, and ushered in an
era of bitter rivalry between the pro-Tan Kah-kee and anti-Tan Kah-kee
forces within the South-East Asian hua-ch’iao communities.
Generally speaking, the pro-Chiang and anti-Tan forces consisted of
the Kuomintang supporters, the various chambers of commerce, and most
of the non-Hokkien community organizations as well as the public media,
while the anti-Chiang and pro-Tan forces had their power base in various
Hokkien pang organizations, branches of the China Democratic League
and the left-wing forces in Singapore and Malaya. In short, it was a con-
test between the Left and the Right within the hua-ch’iao communities in
Singapore and Malaya, with the Left siding with Mao Tse-tung and the
Right with Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War. By virtue of the
fact that the Right had dominated most of the non-Hokkien pang organi-
zations and enjoyed an overwhelming control over the Chinese Press, it
was to prove a formidable political force against the Left. To the Right,
Tan Kah-kee was a ‘traitor’ for siding with Mao Tse-tung; but to the Left,
Tan Kah-kee was a ‘patriot’ for attacking the corrupt regime of Chiang
Kai-shek.
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322 TAN KAH-KEE
With their drums beating, the forces of the Right from Kedah to
Singapore came out en masse to condemn Tan Kah-kee for abusing his
power by using his position as chairman of the SCRFU when cabling the
US President. They criticized him for ch’iang-chien ch’iao-i, meaning the
prostitution of public opinion.43 They attacked him for insulting the legiti-
mate government of China. They stigmatized his telegram as grossly
‘traitorous’. To support their verbal tirade, the Right in Singapore and
Malaya did a number of practical things. They petitioned the United States
government urging it to continue assistance to China.44 They despatched
telegrams to President Truman, General George C. Marshall and John
Leighton Stuart advising them to ignore Tan Kah-kee’s telegram.45 The
president of the Kwangtung Association in Singapore, Lien Ying-chow,
cabled the Executive Yüan in Nanking and requested it to dismantle the
SCRFU.46 In addition, numerous public rallies were held to denounce
Tan Kah-kee’s action. For the rest of 1946, the Right kept up its public
campaign against Tan Kah-kee relentlessly and with considerable success,
with an aim of undermining his political influence and credibility.
Tan Kah-kee’s supporters were somewhat taken aback by the hostile
reaction arising from the ‘cable crisis’. In support of Tan Kah-kee and his
cause, they mounted a counter-offensive by organizing a public rally at the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce on 27 September, attended by
some 800 people. This pro-Tan Kah-kee rally was chaired by Ng Aik-huan
who, with Lee Kong-chian, Tan Lark-sye and others, spoke in praise of
Tan Kah-kee and his action. At the meeting motions were passed in favour
of publishing a manifesto of support for Tan’s cause and sending a delega-
tion to see Tan Kah-kee to express appreciation for his leadership in the
‘cable crisis’.47 More significantly, the meeting also resolved to set up a
united front organization, called the Singapore Chinese Federation for
Peace and Democracy in China (the Democratic Alliance for short) to take
on the Right in matters concerning China politics. Not surprisingly,
Ng Aik-huan was elected as chairman of the preparatory committee of the
alliance with Hu Yu-chih as vice-chairman.48 When the alliance was offi-
cially founded at the end of October, it was exempted from registration
under the Societies Ordinance.49 Following the Singapore rally, the Left in
Malaya came to the fore with a series of such pro-Tan rallies being
organized and held in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Malacca, Johore Bahru and
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Seremban. Bangkok too held such a rally to endorse Tan Kah-kee’s

campaigns for peace and democracy in China.50
Tan Kah-kee’s supporters in Singapore, while coming from a cross sec-
tion of the Chinese community, lacked a public medium — newspaper —
to propagate their cause and sustain their political campaigns against the
Right in Malaya and the Kuomintang regime in China. It was against this
background that Ng Aik-huan, Tan Kok-kheng, Lau Boh-tan and seven
others founded a Chinese newspaper, the Nan Chiau Jit Pao in November
1946.51 With Tan Kah-kee’s approval, a sum of $264,050 was raised from
some 43 shareholders to form a newspaper company to run the Nan
Chiau Jit Pao.52 The British authorities gave their blessing and Hu
Yu-chih became managing director in charge of financial and editorial
policies. Hu was one of the most important leaders of the Singapore
branch of the China Democratic League, and it soon became clear that
the Nan Chiau Jit Pao was the organ of both Tan Kah-kee and the China
Democratic League in Singapore and Malaya. Thanks to the literary and
managerial skills of Hu Yu-chih and the dedication of many of its staff,
the Nan Chiau Jit Pao managed to survive for a period of three years and
ten months to be one of the most important organs of the Left in the
immediate post-war era, and to rank as one of the three most popular
Chinese newspapers in Singapore, with a daily circulation fluctuating
between 12,000 and 20,000.
Tan Kah-kee was elected chairman of the board of directors and a year
later, when it became a public limited liability company, Tan Kah-kee was
re-elected chairman of the new board of directors. Among the ten other
directors most were his close friends and fellow Ee Ho Hean Club mem-
bers, including Hu Yu-chih, Ng Aik-huan, Lee Tiat-ming, Li Leung-kie,
Lau Geok-swee, Lau Boh-tan and four others. By then, the Nan Chiau Jit
Pao had seventy-two shareholders with a paid up capital of $388,950.53
With the battlelines between the Left and the Right drawn, the
Chinese in Singapore and Malaya saw for the first time the most intense
rivalry between the two in the celebration of China’s national day, the
Double-tenth, in 1946. On that day the Right celebrated China’s national
day at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, with the Chinese
Consul-General and 200 other Chinese organization representatives
attending. They despatched good-will messages to Chiang Kai-shek and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
324 TAN KAH-KEE
his government, reassuring them that the Chinese in Singapore were sol-
idly behind their leadership. At the same time, the preparatory committee
of the Democratic Alliance held a mass meeting at the old race course at
Farrer Park which was attended by some thirty thousand people, consist-
ing of members of labour unions, cultural organizations and students.
Rousing speeches were made by Tan Kah-kee and many others, protest-
ing against the civil war and advocating peaceful solutions to China’s
internal disputes. As a result of this meeting, resolutions were passed to
send cables to both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, urging them
to stop fighting immediately, to solve internal conflicts peacefully, and to
carry out political democracy in China promptly. The Singapore police
force and Special Branch officers were visible at this rally. J. E. Fairbairn,
the Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.),
sat beside Tan Kok-kheng and taped all speeches for nearly three hours.54
This then was the celebration of China’s national day in 1946 by a politi-
cally divided and ideologically polarized community in Singapore while
the Chinese Civil War was raging.
Eleven days after the Double-tenth celebrations, the Singapore
Democratic Alliance launched a vigorous political campaign to induce
Americans to leave China. This week-long ‘Americans Quit China’ cam-
paign involved a mass of anti-US propaganda expressed through oration,
drama and forum. It was reported that a petition with some 30,000 signa-
tures had been presented to the Chinese Consul-General in Singapore,
denouncing the American support for the Chiang Kai-shek regime in the
Chinese Civil War.55
The British authorities had been monitoring Tan Kah-kee’s public state-
ments on China politics with concern and are said to have despatched Sng
Choon-yee to advise Tan Kah-kee to cool off or tone down his attacks on
Chiang Kai-shek. Tan Kah-kee is said to have been unrepentant, saying
that he had never broken any British law and was unlikely to break one by
playing China politics.56 Judging from Tan Kah-kee’s continuous and
relentless involvement in China politics in subsequent years, Sng Choon-
yee’s mission was not a successful one. Later Sng Choon-yee was only
prepared to say that Tan Kah-kee was more assertive in the post-war years
in China politics and that he himself was rarely consulted on actions
Tan Kah-kee had decided to take.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
A final note on the ‘cable crisis’ was that Tan Kah-kee was moved by
the amount of moral support he had received from his friends, the Hokkien
pang in Singapore and Malaya and the Left. In a note of thanks written in
October 1946 which was subsequently incorporated in the Nan-ch’iao
cheng-lun-chi, Tan Kah-kee revealed that it was the hypocrisy and arro-
gance of the Kuomintang leaders which prompted him to telegraph
President Truman on 7 September.57 In an interview with a Chinese
reporter on 26 September 1946, Tan Kah-kee is reported to have said that
his telegram to President Truman was aimed at creating an international
opinion against the American intervention in the Chinese Civil War.58 It
can fairly be said then that Tan Kah-kee was stirring up a hornet’s nest
intentionally; he may not have calculated that it could have created such a
furore in its wake.
The commotion over the ‘cable crisis’ had subsided by the end of 1946,
but it left behind untold political scars in the Chinese communities in
Singapore and Malaya. With his considerable support and power base, Tan
Kah-kee carried on with his personal crusade against the Chiang Kai-shek
regime and the US intervention in the Chinese Civil War during the next
two years. Again, in his fight against both the local Kuomintang forces
and the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China, he received considerable sup-
port from the Left, including the Malayan Communist Party and the China
Democratic League,59 with the Singapore Democratic Alliance acting as
their united front organization.
In March 1947, news of the Taiwanese rebellion against Governor
Ch’en Yi reached Singapore and helped revive the so-called ‘Ch’en Yi
Affair’ of seven years earlier. Tan Kah-kee took another heavy swipe at the
governor and the Kuomintang government for their misrule in Taiwan. In
an article written by him which appeared on 10 March 1947 in the Nan
Chiau Jit Pao, Tan Kah-kee attacked Ch’en Yi savagely, depicting him as
a crafty, ruthless, dangerous and corrupt person, who deserved to be
booted out by the Taiwanese. Moreover, he accused the Kuomintang gov-
ernment of being unable to differentiate right from wrong when appoint-
ing this notorious man to the governorship of Taiwan. At the annual
meeting of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan presided over by Tan Kah-
kee on 30 March, speeches against Ch’en Yi were made and sympathy for
the victims of the Taiwanese rebellion was recorded. More importantly, a
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326 TAN KAH-KEE
resolution was passed to send a telegram to the Kuomintang government

in Nanking condemning Ch’en Yi’s harsh action against the Taiwanese. In
it, the Hokkien Huay Kuan demanded the immediate dismissal of
Governor Ch’en Yi and the establishment of an inquiry into the causes of
the Taiwanese rebellion.60 The ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’ proved that Tan Kah-kee
was a shrewd judge of the men in power in China. It vindicated his 1940–1
crusade against the misgovernment of Ch’en Yi in Fukien province.
In the first half of 1947, the anti-war movement of China gathered
momentum and reached fever pitch by May, with students, academics and
newspaper staff agitating on a nationwide scale. They demanded that the
Kuomintang end the civil war promptly, negotiate with the communists
and establish a coalition government. Chiang Kai-shek regarded the agita-
tion as a communist plot and took stern measures to crack down on it by
suspending newspapers, arresting students and imprisoning newspaper
staff. Tan Kah-kee and the Left in Singapore responded. As chairman of
the SCRFU, Tan Kah-kee despatched a telegram on 28 May to the
People’s Political Council in Nanking, supporting student demands for the
restoration of freedom of speech and the protection of human rights.
Meanwhile, the Singapore Democratic Alliance held its meeting at the
Ee Ho Hean Ciub to sponsor a mass rally at the Victoria Memorial Hall
on 31 May in sympathy with the Chinese student demonstrations against
the civil war and political dictatorship.61 When the public rally took place
at the Victoria Memorial Hall, some 700 people attended with Tan Kah-
kee as their chairman. It was in this hall that Tan Kah-kee made one of his
severest and most venomous speeches against the Kuomintang regime,
condemning it for selling out China’s territories in Outer Mongolia and
forfeiting China’s sovereign rights to both the Soviet Union and the
United States in order to consolidate its own power.62
Tan Kah-kee was adamant that there was no more hope of peace
between the nationalists and the communists. He predicted that the win-
ners of this civil war would democratize China’s politics, promote mod-
ernization programmes and abrogate all ‘illegal’ treaties signed by Chiang
Kai-shek.63
At this memorable Victoria Memorial Hall rally, three resolutions were
passed. The first was to despatch a telegram to all university students in
China, expressing support and sympathy for their anti-war movement.
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A second resolution took the form of a manifesto, calling upon the

Chinese people in China to marshal all their means and resources to boy-
cott classes and suspend businesses as a sign of protest against the war.
Moreover, the manifesto urged the people of China to attempt to force the
Kuomintang regime to stop conscription and extortion, to release political
prisoners, to safeguard the freedom of speech, publication, assembly and
demonstration, to abolish China’s secret agents and martial law, to eradi-
cate corruption, to confiscate properties of corrupt, high-ranking
Kuomintang officials, to raise wages for civil servants and labourers, to
increase educational expenditure, to withdraw American troops stationed
in China, to stop taking foreign loans for the civil war, and to guarantee
the legal and equal rights of various political parties in China. The last
resolution instructed that the manifesto of the rally be sent to the
Legislative Yüan in Nanking and to all the Chinese people.64 Following
this public protest rally, the Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Association and
the Singapore Chinese Journalists’ Association made their own protest
moves by sending separate telegrams to the Kuomintang regime, express-
ing their opposition to the government clamp down on the student protest
movement and demanding the release of detained journalists and the res-
toration of the operation of suspended newspapers in China.65
While Tan Kah-kee and the Left in Singapore and Malaya were cam-
paigning against war and Chiang Kai-shek, the Right did not sit idly by of
course. Far from it, it drummed up considerable support for Chiang Kai-
shek after the State Council of the Kuomintang government ordered a
general nationwide mobilization on 4 July 1947 to suppress the commu-
nist rebellion. The Right hailed it as a timely move, insinuating that the
government’s toleration of the communists in the past was a major cause
for the communist rebellion in China. Its newspapers attacked the com-
munist expansion as constituting a major hindrance to peaceful unification
and democracy in China. Both the Kuomintang newspapers in Malaya, the
China Press and the Kwong Wah Yit Poh, appealed to the hua-ch’iao to
support the Mobilization Order, to give moral and material aid to the gov-
ernment, and to dispel any rumours and heresies spread by the ‘commu-
nist bandits’ and their ‘running dogs’.66 Apart from the Kuomintang Press
and party organizations which wholeheartedly supported Chiang’s move
to quell the communists, the various Chinese Chambers of Commerce in
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328 TAN KAH-KEE
Malaya also responded by sending telegrams of congratulations to Chiang

Kai-shek, urging him to suppress the communist revolt in China by
force.67
On the other hand, the Left in Singapore and Malaya attacked the
Mobilization Order of 4 July as expected. The editorial of the Nan
Chiau Jit Pao of 10 July, for example, slammed the Order as a means of
legalizing the civil war and a pretext for attack against not only the so-
called ‘communist bandits’ but also against all the anti-civil war
elements.
On 27 September 1947 when the First Pan-Malayan Delegates
Convention of the China Democratic League was held in Singapore, Tan
Kah-kee was invited to speak. On this occasion, Tan Kah-kee predicted a
bright future for the democratic movement in China.68 The convention went
on for three days during which six motions were passed. Among them were
a call for a stand against the dictatorial government of Chiang Kai-shek and
the despatch of telegrams to the Security Council of the United Nations and
President Truman, condemning the continued stationing of American
troops in China. These telegrams also protested against the American
goverment for supplying financial and military aid to the Kuomintang
regime.69 An even more radical resolution was one that approved the send-
ing of a telegram to the People’s Liberation Army, praising it for its brave
struggle for peace and democracy in China. This was the first time that the
China Democratic League in Singapore and Malaya had boldly, directly
and openly supported the communist faction in the civil war.
In October 1947 Chiang Kai-shek banned the China Democratic
League amidst vigorous protests from its branches inside and outside
China, While the China Democratic League in Singapore condemned the
action as destruction of civil rights, it urged the China Democratic League
to shift its headquarters to Hong Kong to carry on its legitimate political
struggle.70 The radicalization and expansion of the China Democratic
League in both Singapore and Malaya came to a halt however when the
British authorities finally proscribed the organization in May 1949 on
the grounds that it was a ‘foreign’ political party which militated against
‘the growth of Malayan civic consciousness’.71
In a most interesting and revealing interview with a group of Shanghai
journalists in September 1947, Tan Kah-kee talked freely about China
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politics, local Chinese community unity and his own involvement. Tan
Kah-kee likened the relationships between the nationalists and the com-
munists in China to water and fire. He confirmed that he had found a great
man who was capable of ruling China, but was disinclined to name him.
His answer to the question of whether he was influenced by the commu-
nists was a classic; he said that he had practised ‘communism’ long before
the Bolsheviks came into power in the Soviet Union, and that since the fall
of the Manchu regime in 1911, he had decided to donate all his personal
assets to establishing the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University.72 As
regards the unity of the local Chinese community, Tan Kah-kee believed
that could only be achieved when China had itself been united.73
Indeed, the rift in the Singapore Chinese community was reflected
again in the celebrations of the Double-tenth of 1947 when for the second
year in a row, there was no unity in the celebration of China’s national day.
The Left and the Right held separate celebrations with the Singapore
Chinese Chamber of Commerce siding with the Kuomintang forces. The
Chamber’s decision to send a congratulatory message to Chiang Kai-shek
on this national day was regarded by Tan Kah-kee as a recipe for com-
munity disunity.74 He himself celebrated China’s national day with fellow
members of the Hokkien Huay Kuan and students from four of the
Hokkien Huay Kuan’s affiliated schools, the Nan Ch’iao Girls High
School, Tao Nan, Ai Tong and Chung Fook Girls Schools.
To sum up the nature of the Chinese Civil War in 1947, Tan Kah-kee
published a lucid article in the Nan Chiau Jit Pao on the inevitable failure
of US aid to Chiang Kai-shek. In it he declared that the Chinese Civil War
was one ‘between Democracy and Dictatorship as well as between the
poor masses of the Chinese people and the wealthy and corrupt offi-
cials’.75 He made no bones about whose side he supported.
Although he was quietly confident that the forces of Democracy in
China would win the contest in the civil war, he agonized over the power-
ful war machine of the Kuomintang regime, aided financially and militar-
ily by the US government. Moreover, he was saddened by the community
disunity over China politics. His own personal crusade against Chiang
Kai-shek certainly exacerbated this disunity.
On 1 January 1948, Tan Kah-kee felt compelled to publish his New Year
message in the Nan Chiau Jit Pao in order to share his political thoughts
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330 TAN KAH-KEE
on China with its readers. In this message, Tan Kah-kee gave another sav-
age mauling to the Kuomintang regime — its corruption, incompetence,
dictatorship, mismanagement of economic affairs, high inflation and
devaluation of the Chinese currency and the disposal of Chinese territories
and rights to the Soviet Union and the United States. He again accused
Chiang Kai-shek of selling out China and condemned him for committing
sins far exceeding those of Shih Ching-t’ang (d.942), Ch’in K’uai, Wu San-
kuei and Wang Ching-wei. Shih Ching-t’ang ceded North China to the
Kitans, a Mongolian tribe, in 936 in exchange for the latter’s support of his
regime, while Wu San-kuei opened the gates of the Great Wall in Manchuria
in 1644 to allow the Manchu bannermen to overrun China. He was again
ruthless in his personal attacks on Chiang Kai-shek and his regime.
While running down the Chiang Kai-shek regime, he took this oppor-
tunity to defend the Chinese Communist Party and its objectives. In his
view, the Chinese Communist Party in China aimed at redistribution of
wealth and elimination of abject poverty. It reformed politics, eradicated
corruption, equalized landownership, restored the rural economy, devel-
oped industries, improved transportation networks, stabilized people’s
livelihood, and popularized education in liberated areas. What the com-
munists had done, according to Tan Kah-kee, was congruent with Sun
Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People.76
With considerable optimism and euphoria, Tan Kah-kee predicted that
1948 would be a year of great historical change as Manchuria and North
China would be ‘liberated’ and that Central and South China would be
fraught with rebellions and unrest. The Chinese Liberation Army’s south-
ward drive would see the passing of dictatorship and the victory of democ-
racy. And when this happened, the new government must first abrogate all
illegal treaties signed and foreign loans borrowed by the Chiang Kai-shek
government, then confiscate all assets and properties of corrupt officials
and build a new China.77 It is important to point out that Tan Kah-kee had
staked his own prestige in correctly predicting the inevitable outcome of
the Chinese Civil War at this early phase of the communist-nationalist
conflict. His prediction was based largely on his personal experiences dur-
ing his 1940 political odyssey to China.
Following the New Year messages by Tan Kah-kee, there began in
Singapore a keen struggle for control of the Hokkien Huay Kuan between
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
the ‘China Democratic League clique on the one hand and the KMT
clique on the other’.78 British political intelligence had it that: ‘. . . both
sides have offered to pay entrance fees of members who join on their
behalf. As such leading personalities as Lee Kong Chian, Ng Aik-huan
and Lau Boh Tan on the one side and Tay Koh Yat, Ong Kiat Su and
Chong [Chuang] Hui Chuan on the other are concerned in this rivalry, it
may assume important political significance in the near future.’79
The contest turned out to be a fiasco for the Kuomintang forces within
the Hokkien pang, for Tan Kah-kee’s supporters were swept back into
power with Tan Kah-kee re-elected chairman of the executive committee
of the Hokkien Huay Kuan in March.80
The next conflict between the Left and the Right in Singapore and
Malaya flared up between April and June 1948 over the issue of Chiang
Kai-shek’s election as the president of China in the National Assembly in
Nanking on 29 March. The Left came out en masse, disowned the
so-called ‘bogus president’ and protested against Chiang’s election. The
Malayan branch of the China Democratic League was reported to have
issued instructions to sub-branches to hold protest meetings on 4 May to
demonstrate a refusal to recognize Chiang Kai-shek as President of China.
Numerous mass rallies were held by the Left on 4 May in Singapore and
Malaya to whip up an anti-Chiang movement. The Right, on the other
hand, congratulated Chiang Kai-shek and celebrated Chiang’s installation
as president on 20 May on a big scale, staging a huge rally at the premises
of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, reported to be attended
by hundreds of people representing some 520 Chinese organizations. At
night thousands more Chinese crowded Singapore’s three recreation cen-
tres for variety shows to celebrate the presidential inauguration.81
Tan Kah-kee played a prominent role in the anti-Chiang campaign in
Singapore during these months. On 8 April, he published an article in the
Nan Chiau Jit Pao ridiculing Chiang Kai-shek’s false modesty for his
unwillingness to become China’s president. In late April, as chairman of
the SCRFU, Tan Kah-kee despatched a circular condemning ‘one-party
dictatorship and one-man dictatorship’ in China.82 The circular provoked
an outburst from the Right because Tan Kah-kee stated that the SCRFU
would not recognize the ‘bogus National Assemblymen’, the elected
‘bogus president’, and the ‘bogus constitution’.83 One Singapore
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332 TAN KAH-KEE
Kuomintang-controlled newspaper, the Chung Shing Jit Pau, labelled him

a ‘traitor’, while another Kuomintang paper from Penang, the Kwong Wah
Yit Poh, condemned him as being ‘rebellious’, ‘devoid of national inter-
ests’ and a ‘national enemy’.84
On 4 May 1948, Tan Kah-kee sent a telegram to the United Nations to
register his protest on behalf of the Democratic Alliance in Singapore
against Chiang Kai-shek as the new president of China.85 On that same
day Tan Kah-kee sent a stiff note to the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce stating that he deplored the fact that the Chamber had sided
with the Right and that it had been involved in anti-Tan Kah-kee activi-
ties.86 The Chamber duly replied, arguing that it was involved in organiz-
ing a celebration function for President Chiang but denying that it was
engaged in an anti-Tan movement.87
Since the end of the war, the British authorities had been concerned
about the politicization process of the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore in
general and the organized muscle of the Left in particular. As China’s civil
war crisis deepened and their own relationships with the Left generally
and the Malayan Communist Party in particular worsened, the British had
to exert their authority more openly and firmly. Thus, on 19 May 1948, G.
W. Webb, Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Singapore, called a press con-
ference and issued a stern warning to the Chinese Press on matters related
to the anti-Chiang movement of the Left. He explained that the Government
had given considerable latitude in the past to the Press to express its opin-
ions on China politics but now it could not and would not tolerate abuses
and insults directed at the head of the government in China. Webb warned
that the government would not allow the colony to be used as a battle-
ground on which rival Chinese factions fought out their political cam-
paigns. Webb went on to warn all societies and individuals who were
involved in the mud-slinging against China’s head of government.88
Webb followed this up by summoning the leaders from the various
organizations connected with the anti-Chiang campaigns, including such
organizations as the Singapore China Democratic League, the Singapore
General Labour Union, the New Democratic Youth Corps, the Chi Kung
Tang, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, the Chinese Teachers’ Association
and others. Webb pointed out the seriousness of campaigning against such
foreign states as China which were friendly to Britain. He warned them
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that the government would not condone the burning of effigies of Chiang
Kai-shek on his Presidential Inauguration Day on 20 May.89 Ten days later,
the Kuomintang branches in Singapore also received a similar caution
from the Secretary for Chinese Affairs on Chinese political infighting.90
If the anti-Chiang campaign of Tan Kah-kee and the Left in May
prompted the British authorities to intervene, it was the Malayan commu-
nist challenge to the British rule which heightened political tensions
between the British authorities on the one hand and the Left and Tan Kah-
kee forces on the other. How did the British view Tan Kah-kee? Was he
regarded as a ‘dangerous’ and ‘subversive’ person? Victor Purcell, Adviser
on Chinese Affairs during the era of the British Military Administration
(1945–6), thought Tan Kah-kee ‘might conceivably become the George
Washington of a Nanyang Chinese Independence movement’. Tan Kah-
kee was at this time regarded as an influential and respectable community
leader among the Chinese in South-East Asia and the British followed his
career closely and monitored his actions and speeches on China politics
consistently. The Malayan security services kept an up-to-date dossier on
him as they did on many other prominent political and community leaders.
His political career was accurately documented in one dossier compiled
by the Malayan security services and dated 1 January 1948:
Politically, his only membership to any political party was Dr Sun Yat Sen’s
Tong Beng Hoey [Tung Meng Hui] . . . to which he made extensive financial
contribution. Following the establishment of the China Republic — Tan
Kah-kee has not belonged to any specific political party.
As years went by, Tan Kah-kee became more and more antagonised
against the K.M.T. and sympathetic towards the China Communist Party.
His sympathy to the C.C.P. was very pronounced after his visit to China in
1940, as head of the South Seas Federation [the SCRFU], when he discov-
ered the corruption of Chinese officials.
On his return he started a campaign against General Chen Yi, Governor
of Fukien Province which resulted in his being removed from office.
Since then he has made frequent attacks on K.M.T. and its officials, both
local and in China,
He appears to have no desire to participate in any politics or official activi-
ties, either in China and Malaya, and is reported to have turned down various
invitations from the Chinese Government as well as the local government.
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334 TAN KAH-KEE
He returned to Malaya after the reoccupation and was warmly received

by the Chinese community. Although he does not take any active part in
politics he appears to support the C.D.L. [China Democratic League].
Tan Kah-kee is not anti-British and has on numerous occasions defended
the British Government.91
If this dossier accurately represented the British view of Tan Kah-kee

in January 1948, then it was obvious that Tan Kah-kee was not seen as a
threat to the British rule in Malaya. Tan Kah-kee was pro-Chinese
Communist Party and anti-Kuomintang; he was close to the China
Democratic League in Singapore but was not anti-British. There is no
evidence to show in this document that he was either pro-Malayan
Communist Party or sympathetic to Malayan communism. If Tan Kah-kee
and the Left generally had struck up a cordial relationship, it was because
they harboured a common political objective in China politics — unity,
peace, democracy and the ending of the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China.
However, as the British and the Malayan Communist Party drifted
towards a military confrontation of June 1948 known as the Emergency,
Tan Kah-kee came under tremendous British pressure to disclose his
political stand and loyalty. Two weeks before the declaration of the
Emergency, rumours said to have come from the Kuomintang quarters
revealed that both Tan Kah-kee and Hu Yu-shih were to be deported by the
British to Hong Kong. This was denied by the Nan Chiau Jit Pao of 10
June 1948, which regarded the rumours as a Kuomintang propaganda
offensive. In July 1948, the Kuomintang forces spread further rumours
that Tan Kah-kee ‘was actively co-operating with the Communists’.92
However, the Malayan security services discounted the rumours on three
grounds; first, that Tan Kah-kee’s own rubber estate was ‘under constant
pressure from the Communists in Johore’; second, that Tan Kah-kee had
reported to the British authorities through his son, Tan Kok-kheng, on the
communist harassment; and third, that Tan Kah-kee was ‘persuaded’ to
issue a Press statement on 22 July 1948 stressing the importance of law
and order and disapproving of the Malayan communist uprising.93
Indeed, Tan Kah-kee’s Press statement of 22 July on law and order and
non-violence was correctly described by the Malayan security services’
Political Intelligence Journal as one he was ‘persuaded’ to make. One can
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only speculate what might have happened to him had he not chosen to be
‘persuaded’. One story has it that a senior member of the Chinese
Secretariat staff, Homer Cheng, was directed by the British to persuade
Tan Kah-kee to sign a statement condemning the Malayan communist
uprising outright; he could not. Sng Choon Yee’s assistance was again
sought to solve this delicate impasse.94 Through Sng’s patience, tact and
personal friendship with Tan Kah-kee, the problems were thrashed out and
a ‘compromise’ wording of the statement was arrived at. This Press state-
ment was published in the Nan Chiau Jit Pao on 22 July. Although the
statement made no mention of the communist uprising, it made clear his
stand on the side of law and order. Because Tan Kah-kee was such a
prominent leader of the Chinese community, his statement was repro-
duced in all the Singapore Chinese newspapers, including the Kuomintang-
controlled Chung Shing Jit Pau. Moreover, it also had a good reception in
the English Press.95 The British won a major political and moral victory at
this early stage of the Emergency by getting Tan Kah-kee to sign and
publish an ‘agreed’ statement and by having the statement published in all
the Chinese newspapers in Singapore. Indeed, the British succeeded in
isolating the communist cause and prevented Tan Kah-kee giving it his
moral support. For Tan Kah-kee the publication of the statement was
‘unpleasant’ to say the least, and it might provide some clues as to why he
finally chose to return to the People’s Republic of China in 1950.
The Malayan Emergency weakened the Left, for the Malayan
Communist Party was proscribed and its leaders, if not arrested or
deported, went underground. Both Tan Kah-kee and the China Democratic
League became conspicuously more subdued after the declaration of the
Emergency. The anti-Chiang movement of the heady days of May and
June was retarded and eventually allowed to lapse. A physically tired 96 but
spiritually optimistic Tan Kah-kee carried on his personal crusade against
the Chiang Kai-shek regime almost single-handedly. He wrote a number
of important articles on the state of the Chinese Civil War.97 He did not
forget to remind his readers of the corruption of the so-called ‘four great
clans’ (the Soongs, Ch’ens, Chiangs and Kungs) of the Kuomintang
regime and branded them as the ‘four great bandit clans’.98 He spoke
on China politics on various occasions, on one occasion referring to
the inevitable collapse of the Chiang regime at a celebration of the
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336 TAN KAH-KEE
Double-tenth in 1948. By quoting and elaborating the relationships

between dictatorship and the collapse of Imperial Russia, Germany, Italy
and Japan of the pre-war years, he predicted the ending of the Kuomintang
regime in China.99 Tan Kah-kee had done all he could under difficult cir-
cumstances to expedite the birth of a new China under which there was
peace, unity and democracy. He could easily have been a heart-broken
man with his hope dashed and his judgement gone astray. But history was
kind to him, a man of high principle, integrity and courage. The collapse
of the Kuomintang regime was not only imminent but a fact, following the
three successful communist offensives in Manchuria, North China and
Central China between September 1948 and January 1949.
In August 1948, Mao Tse-tung sent him a message inviting him to com-
ment on the convening of a new People’s Political Consultative Conference
(PPCC) for the establishment of a new coalition government in China.100
When asked by reporters if he would attend the proposed conference con-
vened by Mao, he answered that he had not considered attending it.101
However, Mao’s message rekindled his expressed intention to visit
China.102
On 20 January 1949, Tan Kah-kee received a telegram from Mao Tse-
tung, officially inviting him to return to Peking to take part in the People’s
Political Consultative Conference (PPCC). Tan Kah-kee replied that he
would return to China after the Chinese winter had passed to congratulate
Mao personally but wished to be excused from participating in the confer-
ence.103 In the interim, Tan Kah-kee, through his fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng,
secured a passport for his China visit.104
On 22 February, Tan Kah-kee in an interview with Masterson, the
Singapore director of the American Associated Press, said that he would
take a sightseeing trip to China after the liberation of Shanghai to see how
the new government was to reform the country.105 He freely expressed his
view of Mao Tse-tung as a good man and a good leader. He approved of
the new government’s intention to include leaders from all political parties
except those of the Kuomintang ‘reactionaries’, and to welcome Western
nations to establish trading relations with China.106
The British were naturally concerned about Tan Kah-kee’s overt sup-
port for Mao Tse-tung and regarded his exchange of telegrams with Mao
as setting ‘a bad example for Chinese in Malaya who do not distinguish
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as clearly as he does between the China [Chinese] Communist Party and

the Malayan Communist Party’.107 The British admitted that they were,
however, not in a strong position to ask Tan Kah-kee ‘to condemn
the China [Chinese] Communist Party at a time when the possibility of
H. M. Government recognizing the Chinese Communists as a de facto
Government is in the air’.108
In early May 1949, Tan Kah-kee spoke at a farewell party for his
impending China trip hosted in his honour by fellow directors and staff of
the Nan Chiau Jit Pao. In his speech he outlined his itinerary which cov-
ered much of ‘liberated’ China, and revealed for the first time his intention
to spend much of the rest of his life in China.109 This public revelation
shows that he had indeed thought of living in China for good.
On 5 May 1949 Tan Kah-kee sailed for Hong Kong on the Cathay,
accompanied by Chuang Ming-li of Penang, a close friend since the 1940
Comfort Mission to China. Thousands of well-wishers gathered to send
him off at the Singapore Harbour Board, including his friends, fellow
members of the Ee Ho Hean Club and the Hokkien Huay Kuan, trade
union members, and students from the Chinese schools, as well as mem-
bers of his immediate family and relatives. Few were sure of how long Tan
Kah-kee was to stay in China or whether he was indeed leaving for good.
Four days later Tan Kah-kee arrived in Hong Kong to a warm welcome
extended by the Chinese there. The Hong Kong Chinese Chamber of
Commerce in conjunction with other Chinese associations gave him a
huge reception on 14 May. His movements and various speeches in
Hong Kong were well covered by the Nan Chiau Jit Pao. On 28 May, Tan
Kah-kee left Hong Kong by ship, the s.s. Zhen Sheng, and arrived at Taku,
Hopeh province, on 3 June. A day later, Tan Kah-kee was in Peking to
begin his China sojourn of ten months, meeting and dining with Mao Tse-
tung, Chu Teh, Chou En-lai and their colleagues, and touring over forty
cities and fourteen provinces in China.
While in Hong Kong, Tan Kah-kee was asked by a reporter from an
English newspaper whether it was true that his departure for China had
been requested by the British authorities. Tan Kah-kee denied that he
belonged to any political parties, or that he had been requested to leave
Singapore by the British. It was obvious that since the British had issued
him with a passport there was no truth in the rumours of ‘deportation’.110
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338 TAN KAH-KEE
Tan Kah-kee’s own version of his 1949 visit to China is well docu-
mented and seems convincing. There were three major reasons why he
wanted to visit China in 1949. First, he had always wanted to visit the rich
and prosperous Manchuria and wanted to see what had happened to it in
the aftermath of both the Sino-Japanese and the Chinese Civil Wars.
Second, he was most interested to observe how the communists ruled the
cities and reformed China. Third, he wanted to make some contribution to
the health of the Chinese people by disseminating ideas about housing and
hygiene and their relationship with longevity.111 Tan Kah-kee categorically
denied that his visit to China in May was to attend the People’s Political
Consultative Conference (PPCC) as he had no idea when it was to be held
in the first place. It was not until he had arrived in Peking that he knew
that the preparatory meeting of the conference was to be convened on
13 June.
After his arrival in Peking, immense pressure was exerted from all
directions to get him invited as the principal representative of the hua-
ch’iao communities to attend the preparatory meeting and Tan Kah-kee
eventually yielded with reluctance. The meeting, apart from adopting
rules and provisions for the convention of the PPCC scheduled to be held
in September, elected Tan Kah-kee onto a twenty-one-man Preparatory
Executive Committee for the conference, headed by Mao Tse-tung,
Chu Teh and Chou En-lai.
Soon after the conclusion of this June meeting, Tan Kah-kee, accompa-
nied by Chuang Ming-li, embarked on his tour of Manchuria on 22 June.
He visited more than ten cities in Manchuria and inspected the economic
reconstruction in China’s north-eastern provinces. He arrived back on
30 August in time to attend the first plenary session of the PPCC com-
mencing 21 September. This historic conference was attended by 662
representatives from the Chinese Communist Party, the China Democratic
League, regional democratic groups, representatives from labour, peas-
ants, business, industry, field armies, public bodies and ‘democratic’ per-
sonalities. The composition of the conference participants reflected Mao’s
concept of ‘New Democracy’ in operation, namely, that a new Chinese
government must accommodate representatives from all social classes and
all geographical regions under the leadership of the Chinese Communist
Party. Among other things, the PPCC adopted the Organic Law of the
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Central Government which set up the central government administration

and defined the functions of the various state organs and their relationship
to one another. It also adopted a national flag and designated Peking the
official capital of the People’s Republic of China. On 30 September, the
last day of the conference, Tan Kah-kee was elected onto the 180-member
national committee of the PPCC with a term of office of three years. On
1 October, he was elected a member of the Central People’s Government
in Peking and also a member of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission
(OCAC). In other words, Tan Kah-kee became an official of the People’s
Republic of China from its birth on 1 October 1949.
After weeks of celebrating the birth of a new China in Peking, Tan Kah-
kee left on 30 October for his southbound tour of Shantung, Honan,
Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Anhwei, Kiangsu, Fukien and Kwangtung prov-
inces, arriving at his beloved home village, Chi Mei, where he stayed for
two weeks, on 27 December. He was distressed to see the extensive dam-
age caused by the civil war to his schools and to the village and was
determined to rebuild both from scratch. He was still resilient and enthu-
siastic, planning to re-open all the Chi Mei Schools and add a teachers’
training college, an industrial and a mining school. In an intimate conver-
sation with his nephew in Chi Mei, Tan Kah-kee confirmed that for the
rest of his life he would settle in China to participate in the socialist
reconstruction with specific attention to cultural and educational develop-
ment.112 He needed to return to Singapore, however, to wind up his per-
sonal businesses.
It was from Chi Mei in January 1950 that Tan Kah-kee wrote a letter to
his fifth son, Tan Kok-kheng, asking him to sound out the British authori-
ties about objections they might have to his returning to the colony now
that he was an official of the People’s Republic of China. His son con-
sulted A. E. G. Blade, the Director of C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation
Department) who referred the matter to the Colonial Secretary who, no
doubt, consulted the Governor, F. Gimson. The news of the government’s
approval of Tan Kah-kee’s proposed return was broken by the British
Commissioner-General, Malcolm MacDonald, to Lee Kong-chian at a
dinner party given by Tan Cheng-lock in Singapore. Blade duly conveyed
the message of approval to Tan Kok-kheng a day or two after he had heard
it from Lee Kong-chian.113 With the approval given, Tan Kah-kee arrived
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340 TAN KAH-KEE
back in Singapore by plane on 15 February 1950, ending his seventh trip

to China.
It is now clear that the British authorities in Singapore had been less
than pleased with Tan Kah-kee’s stance in China politics as a staunch sup-
porter of Mao Tse-tung. Soon after Tan Kah-kee’s departure for China in
May 1949, the British toughened their attitude towards him by consider-
ing the possibility of cancelling his British citizenship so as to deny him
re-entry into the colony.114 However, no action was taken as the Law
Officers in Singapore had advised that cancellation of Tan Kah-kee’s citi-
zenship would not be justified.115
In October 1949, when Radio Peking reported that Tan Kah-kee had
become a government member of the People’s Republic of China, the
British authorities seized the opportunity to further review the situation.
They kept their options open, not deciding whether to cancel his British
naturalization or his British passport or to keep him out of Singapore and
Malaya ‘by an indirectly-conveyed threat of detention should he
return’.116 In British view, Tan Kah-kee had become a leading ‘Fellow-
Traveller’ of Mao Tse-tung, thus ‘a threat to the future of a self-govern-
ing Malaya possibly more potent than the present war being waged by
the Malayan Communist Party.’117 Again, no drastic action was taken
against Tan Kah-kee on the advice from the Singapore Law Officers who
held the view that radio broadcasts ‘are not proof in a Court of Law that
anyone has said what the Radio says he has said’.118 Moreover, the
British also doubted whether ‘it would not do more harm than good to
act against him. It would certainly make him a valuable martyr for
Peking propaganda,’119
By November 1949 when it was confirmed that Tan Kah-kee was
indeed a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Government
and a member of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, the British
served a warning to Tan Kah-kee by refusing the re-entry of Lee Tiat-
ming, his close friend and fellow member of the OCAC, back to
Singapore.120 The following extract from the Singapore Political Report
for November 1949 shows that the British had still not decided what to do
with Tan Kah-kee: ‘This case of Tan Kah-kee is dealt with in some detail
once again to illustrate the extraordinary complexity of the Chinese prob-
lem, for the Chinese remain Chinese and insist on keeping a foot in both
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
camps. Perhaps it is better this way than for them to have both feet in the
wrong camp.’121
On the final confirmation in January 1950 that Tan Kah-kee was on his
way back to Singapore from China, the British continued to agonize over
a decision on how to deal with Tan Kah-kee. While the British would have
preferred to see Tan Kah-kee stay in China, they had no choice but to let
him in. Again, their rationale was that Tan Kah-kee was a naturalized
British subject of over thirty years’ standing and that it ‘would cause a
great deal more local trouble’ if he was detained.122 However, the British
decided to closely and carefully monitor his activities on his return.123
Monitor the British did on Tan Kah-kee’s return to Singapore on
15 February 1950 and relieved they were, at least for the time being, to
find Tan Kah-kee well behaved and most discreet in his replies to provoca-
tive queries from the pressmen of English, American and Chinese
papers.124 At the Press conference on his arrival, Tan Kah-kee denied that
he was either a communist or a member of the Chinese government.
However, he admitted that he was a member of the People’s Political
Consultative Conference which met every six months or so to advise the
Government of China generally.125
Tan Kah-kee’s ten-month tour of China must have done him good, for
he felt refreshed and rejuvenated and appeared in a less acrimonious
mood. He had been pleased with what he saw in the new China, which he
was convinced had a bright future. In fact, he told his friend Pan Kuo-chu
privately that he was absolutely delighted with the new leadership in
China.126 Publicly, Tan Kah-kee could not conceal his admiration for Mao
Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Chu Teh and many of the top-ranking leaders of
China. He saw fit to describe Mao Tse-tung as a sincere, kind, temperate,
frugal, simple and understanding person. In his view, Mao Tse-tung was
particularly good at understanding other people’s problems.127 At a wel-
coming reception given by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
on 4 March 1950, Tan Kah-kee repeated what he had expressed in public
about the new leadership in China. Moreover, he added that Mao Tse-tung
was a modest and widely read person who had a high intellect and a pho-
tographic memory.128 His son, Tan Kok-kheng, noticed his father’s obvi-
ous emotion when one day Tan Kah-kee grasped and shook hands with
him at the Ee Ho Hean Club, congratulating him for no apparent and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
342 TAN KAH-KEE
justifiable reason. His father explained that he congratulated his son and
his son’s generation because he was convinced that China was to be
strong, independent and dignified and that no other foreign countries
would dare bully her again. Tan Kok-kheng was rather touched by his
father’s stirring remarks.129
During the last three months of his stay in Singapore as a British sub-
ject, Tan Kah-kee published numerous articles in the Nan Chiau Jit Pao
on his impressions of his ten-month tour of China. These were collated
and published as a book entitled Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, in May
1950. Consistent with his political stand, Tan Kah-kee defended China’s
territorial integrity and condemned the US for interfering with the internal
affairs of China. Moreover, he launched his own propaganda campaign
against the ‘malicious’ view that China was a satellite state of the Soviet
Union, subservient to the Soviet interests.130 So, Tan Kah-kee’s last three-
month sojourn in Singapore was political, without a doubt. The British
may well have viewed his political utterances with alarm and embarrass-
ment as Tan Kah-kee was still a British subject but now a Chinese official.
In any case, Tan Kah-kee solved their problems in April 1950 by deciding
to return to China to live out his days.
What then prompted Tan Kah-kee to leave Singapore, his adopted land
since 1890, for good, on 21 May 1950?
Han Suyin, in My House Has Two Doors (Granada, 1982), makes the
assertion that Tan Kah-kee ‘returned to China to avoid detention’ (p. 108).
Her statement had sparked off some controversies as to whether Tan Kah-
kee was in fact to be detained or deported by the British for political rea-
sons after his return from China in February 1950. The Public Record
Office in Kew, Richmond, England, possesses no available documentary
evidence to solve this historical puzzle, so the question will have to be left
unanswered, at least for the time being.
At one level his return to China in May was a shrewd, calculated and
logical move, taken in the midst of socio-political change in both China
and Malaya. His 1949 trip to China greatly hastened his decision to make
his exit. This crucial ten-month tour of China not only brought him govern-
ment positions but, more importantly, allowed him to gauge for himself
where China was heading. What he saw and found pleased him — the
competence and honesty of the new leadership, the spirit of unity and
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co-operation between the leadership and the great mass of the Chinese
people, the intense desire and firm commitment of the Chinese people to
modernize the nation, the obvious pride and honour of the Chinese people
feeling liberated, and the room made for non-communist elements to play
their part in the national reconstruction. For Tan Kah-kee, what could be
more stirring than to see his nation moving in unison, and moreover to
participate and contribute towards its rebuilding? Affected by the spirit of
unity, democracy, peace and progress, Tan Kah-kee pledged to do his best
to rebuild the Chi Mei Schools and Chi Mei village and wanted to prove
that he was capable of this endeavour. He seemed to welcome the chal-
lenge to do something more in education for the people in South China and
he wanted to be in Chi Mei to do it. The dream of a reborn and rejuvenated
China had been fulfilled and now his heart could be at ease in his old age.
However, while the lure of nation-building in a new China kept his soul
quivering, the hard reality of the Malayan political conditions appalled
him, and made it uncongenial for him to stay. Forces of the Left in Malaya
were dissipated; the communists were hunted down and the China
Democratic League banned. The British were masters in the land and call-
ing the tune. He could not bear to suffer the humiliation again of signing
and publishing a statement against his own will, applauding law and order
and condemning violence and bloodshed as he had done in July 1948. In
any case, there were no more emotive and excitable issues in China poli-
tics in Singapore and Malaya. Tan Kah-kee would have lived a politically
lonely, restricted, miserable and frustrating life in Singapore had he cho-
sen to stay on.
It is necessary to emphasize that it was Tan Kah-kee alone who made
the decision to go back to China; it was Tan Kah-kee who alone returned
to China. None of his family or clan members followed in his footsteps
for political or family reasons. Though they all had roots in the land of
their adoption or birth they were loathe to part with their patriarch. They
wished him bon voyage and visited him either in Peking or Chi Mei when
opportunities arose. After 21 May 1950, Tan Kah-kee finally threw his
destiny in with China for the rest of his life.
Two moves made by Tan Kah-kee during April 1950 pointed to his
ultimate plans after he had left Singapore. First, the fact that he gave both
his eldest son and his fifth son power of attorney over his financial
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344 TAN KAH-KEE
interests in Malaya and Singapore confirmed that his return to China was
to be for good. Second, his flying to Peking in May 1950 to attend the
second meeting of the national committee of the PPCC indicated that he
took his official duties seriously. In other words, Tan Kah-kee would not
retire from public life in China at all.
The Chinese government honoured him highly by providing him with
a historic residence in Peking, formerly occupied by Li Hung-chang
(1823–1901), the founder of the Anhwei Army and governor of Chili
province, during the Ch’ing dynasty. The new government also paid him
a generous monthly emolument of $300 (Chinese currency) for the vari-
ous positions he held. Apart from paying his food bill of $15 per month,
Tan Kah-kee devoted his salaries to the Chi Mei Schools maintenance
funds.131 In Chi Mei, Tan Kah-kee lived a frugal and austere life with few
possessions, not even owning a house since his had been destroyed during
the Sino-Japanese War. He lived in a small room in a building which
housed the Chi Mei Schools Board and denied himself the luxuries a man
of his standing and age might have been expected to have. On the contrary,
his possessions were meagre — an old bed, a desk, a couple of sofas, a
water jug, a portable washing bowl, a tooth tumbler, a dozen wooden
chairs and two old and broken leather trunks.132 However even these pos-
sessions compared favourably to the sparse furnishing of his room at the
Ee Ho Hean Club in Singapore.
Apart from three extensive inspection and sightseeing tours of China in
1950, 1955 and 1958, Tan Kah-kee spent most of his time in Chi Mei,
looking after the rebuilding projects of the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy
University. However, he stayed in Peking from time to time when he had
to attend meetings or conferences either in his capacity as a government
official or as a private citizen. A list of his official positions during his
China phase included membership of the PPCC (1949–53), vice-chairman
of the PPCC (1954–8; 1958–61), an executive member of the People’s
National Congress (PNC, 1954–8; 1959–61), and membership of the
People’s government and of the OCAC (1949–61). Tan Kah-kee was also
chairman of the All-China Returned Overseas Chinese Association
(ACROCA) from its foundation on 5 October 1956. This organization,
however, was not an official body; its purpose was to take care of the
returned hua-ch’iao within China.
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His interests and activities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) lay
broadly in four areas: international relations, internal affairs, hua-ch’iao,
and education and economic development in his native province, Fukien.
In international relations, Tan Kah-kee fully endorsed the PRC’s policy
of rendering moral support to the independence and democratic move-
ments of the Asian, African and Latin American people against colonial
rule and political dictatorship. As might have been expected, Tan Kah-kee
strongly attacked the US policy in Asia and condemned it for propping up
the Chiang Kai-shek regime in Taiwan.133 At the third meeting of the
national committee of the PPCC in October 1951, Tan Kah-kee spoke at
length in support of China’s stand in the Korean War in which they
resisted the Americans and assisted the Koreans.134 In September 1959,
Tan Kah-kee made comments on the Sino-Indian border conflict, backing
the PRC’s policy and solutions to the dispute, and stating that ‘China
could not tolerate any countries breaching her territorial sovereignty’.135
All these utterances show that Tan Kah-kee was very much a Chinese
‘nationalist’ at heart.
In 1957, Tan Kah-kee renounced his British citizenship but he always
retained a soft spot for Singapore, keeping himself informed of the socio-
political development there after his return to China. In 1956, Tan Kah-
kee received a Singapore trade mission in Peking under the auspices of the
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and congratulated them on the
fact that Singapore was soon to achieve self-government and ultimate
independence from the British. Tan Kah-kee encouraged the Singapore
people to take out Singapore citizenship as a matter of urgency and a sign
of loyalty.136 When Lee Kuan-yew was swept to power in Singapore in
1959, Tan Kah-kee wrote a congratulatory letter to Lee personally, show-
ing his approval and jubilation, and wishing Lee and his People’s Action
Party well,137
In internal affairs, Tan Kah-kee approved of the general thrust of
China’s socialist reconstruction during the 1950s, and publicly supported
major policies on domestic affairs. These policies included stabilization of
food prices, land reform, repression of ‘counter-revolutionaries’, agitation
for the return of Taiwan, ideological reform of Chinese intellectuals, the
‘Great Leap Forward’ movement for industrialization of China and for
the creation of People’s Communes as a further step towards socialist
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346 TAN KAH-KEE
transformation. He supported land reform on the grounds that it would

improve productivity if the land belonged to the tillers.138 He applauded
the policy of ‘liberating’ Taiwan on the grounds that Taiwan was Chinese
territory and as such it was the right of China to solve her own internal
affairs the way she chose.139 Tan Kah-kee unequivocally endorsed the
commune movement as a beneficial economic move and his unqualified
praise for it in rural China was based on his conviction that it would bring
benefits to the rural people — employment, more economic use of labour
and land, improved productivity, increased production potential and better
earnings for families.140 Thus, Tan Kah-kee’s endorsement of the eco-
nomic measures of the PRC was a result largely of pragmatic considera-
tions rather than the ideological rationale that they would bring
socio-economic benefits to the Chinese people.
Although Tan Kah-kee was generally supportive of the objectives of
the CCP to build a socialist state in a hurry; he spoke his mind and often took
issues with the party over seemingly harsh and extreme measures or cam-
paigns to achieve it. He was certainly concerned with the so-called Five-anti
campaign (anti-bridery, tax evasion, thefts of state assets, cheating in labour
and materials, and stealing of state economic intelligence) of 1952 which
screened all urban traders, manufacturers and capitalists. Often confessions
were extracted and culprits ended up in suicide, execution or exile to labour
camps for reforms. The campaign weakened the power and influence of
urban bourgeosie and paved the way for the emergence of state enterprises
and state-controlled economy. Being a bourgeosie himself, Tan Kah-kee had
some sympathy for this class under duress. He therefore protested against
the harshness of the campaign on the grounds that the party had deviated
from the Common Program, passed by the Preparatory Committee of the
People’s Political Consultative Conference in Peking in September 1949.
That program clearly stated that the state would protect China’s national
bourgeosie and petty bourgeosie and their property rights.141
Again, Tan Kah-kee was alarmed at the large-scale purges of part cad-
res and intellectuals in 1954 and 1955 which resulted in untold sufferings
and losses of lives. On this occasion, he blamed the party for neglecting
basic human rights and for damaging China’s national interests.142
In 1957, Mao Tse-tung initiated the so-called Hundred Flowers
campaign to encourage freer criticism of the cadres and bureaucracy. Tan
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Kah-kee responded by making one of his candid speeches in Peking in

July that year. In it, he singled out the evils of China’s bureaucratism for
condemnation. While highlighting laxity, arrogance and corruption of the
bureaucrats as problematic, Tan Kah-kee stressed that these problems
were deep-rooted, widespread and getting worse. He provided a short-
term remedy by suggesting that these culprits be sent to special schools
for retraining and reforms. A long-term solution, in his view, lay in
China’s government schools to provide sound education to students.143
Tan Kah-kee’s criticisms of the CCP regime were largely driven by his
own conscience and probably coloured by his perception that nation-
building could be better achieved through peaceful means rather than by
orthodox Marxist methods of constant struggle and permanent revolution.
Despite his bourgeois background and his committing the sin of
political incorrectness, the CCP leadership tolerated and respected him for
his patriotism and his numerous contributions to the birth of new China
and subsequent nation-building endeavours. The CCP leadership managed
him well enough for not totally alienating him.
Being a returned hua-ch’iao himself and a member of the OCAC, Tan
Kah-kee was naturally outspoken about hua-ch’iao affairs inside and out-
side China. He praised the draft constitution of the PRC of 1954 in which
two basic areas of hua-ch’iao interests were enshrined. First, hua-ch’iao
were represented in the People’s National Congress, and second, the PRC
had an obligation to protect the proper rights and interests of the hua-
ch’iao. In his view, these clauses would enhance the hua-ch’iao confi-
dence in themselves and prompt them to unite and love China. As the PRC
did not have diplomatic relations with South-East Asian countries, with
the exception of Burma and Indonesia, it is difficult to see how this ‘pro-
tection’ could be effected.
Tan Kah-kee and various organizations responsible for hua-ch’iao
affairs in China rendered various useful services to the returned hua-
ch’iao, including resettling deportees from Malaya, providing solutions
to the problems posed by the mass exodus of the Chinese from Indonesia,
and placing hua-ch’iao students in suitable educational institutions. As
the returned hua-ch’iao community grew in size in China, much of Tan
Kah-kee’s own energy was spent on solving these domestic problems
alone.
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348 TAN KAH-KEE
Tan Kah-kee gave unqualified blessing to the signing of the Dual

Nationality Treaty in April 1955 between the PRC and Indonesia, hailing
it as the best solution to the nagging issue of nationality among the
Chinese in Indonesia. The treaty permitted the Chinese in Indonesia to
choose either Chinese or Indonesian nationality and, in the long run, it did
help solve the sensitive issue of dual nationality.
Tan Kah-kee encouraged hua-ch’iao to invest in enterprises in China,
regarding the hua-ch’iao investments as an act of patriotism. He believed
that hua-ch’iao investments would benefit both China and the individual
investors themselves as China would give them guidance, privileges and
preferential treatment. However, Tan Kah-kee did not spell out what the
promised guidance, privileges and preferential treatment entailed. One
recent source has it that Tan Kah-kee personally succeeded in enticing the
hua-ch’iao communities overseas to remit an estimated sum of HK$30
million to China between 1950 and 1961.144
In 1951, Tan Kah-kee claimed that the hua-ch’iao was no longer an
‘overseas orphan’, as every hua-ch’iao would now be protected by a kind
mother in the PRC. Eight years later in 1959, in response to a mass exodus
of Chinese from Indonesia, a sanguine Tan Kah-kee said that the Chinese
government would not sit idly by to see hua-ch’iao humiliated and perse-
cuted and that it would welcome their return to participate in China’s
national reconstruction should they lose their employment as a result of
any discriminatory policy of foreign countries. To emphasize the close
relationships between China and the hua-ch’iao, Tan Kah-kee roared
that ‘our great homeland is the supportive backbone of the hua-ch’iao
overseas’.145
Tan Kah-kee’s rhetoric may not have yielded results, but it does show
that he was a champion for the hua-ch’iao interests and cause, even when
comfortably settled in China.
Closest to Tan Kah-kee’s heart was economic development and educa-
tional reconstruction in Fukien province. Here tangible results of Tan
Kah-kee’s efforts can be more confidently documented. Many of the mod-
ern institutions and monuments in Fukien today serve as fine testimonies
to his endeavours and achievements.
At the second meeting of the national committee of the PPCC in May
1950, Tan Kah-kee pushed hard for the building of a railway line in
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Fukien province by the Chinese government, using the hard-hitting argu-

ment that a province with 12 million people needed a communication
network for economic and security reasons. In addition, he personally
wrote to Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, appealing for help to build his
proposed railway line across Fukien province and remove the ignominy
that Fukien province had not had a single inch of railway line. Both Mao
and Chou supported his proposal and work began on the Fukien railway
line in 1954 and was completed within two years, months ahead of the
scheduled time,146
Tan Kah-kee was also instrumental in getting the government in Peking
to build the Chi Mei–Amoy Causeway. He proposed its construction in
February 1953 on the grounds that it would facilitate transportation and
communication between the island of Amoy and the mainland of Fukien
province. The government was again receptive to his idea and had the
causeway project completed by October 1955.
The people of Foochow, capital of Fukien, had no water supply prior to
the communist rule in 1949. They used water from artesian wells and from
rivers and streams, which often created a health hazard for the people. Tan
Kah-kee’s persistent effort convinced both the provincial government and
China’s water control engineers to help build reservoirs in 1950 to supply
fresh water on tap to a population of 800,000 living in the capital.147
Tan Kah-kee also proposed three other economic projects in Fukien
between 1954 and 1959. The first, which had government support, con-
verted some of Fukien’s beaches to fishery and wet-rice cultivation. A
second project established a salt pan in Amoy which produced some
130,000 tons of salt per year for the consumption of the people in
Fukien.148 A third, which had to be dropped, was an experiment with the
production of electricity from surf power in Chi Mei in 1959. However,
this bold, exciting but costly experimentation was abandoned because of
failure to achieve the necessary technological breakthrough.149
Tan Kah-kee devoted by far the larger part of his time and his own
financial resources to rebuilding both Amoy University and the Chi Mei
Schools. While the central government generously provided $8 million
(Chinese currency) for the Chi Mei Schools’ rebuilding programmes dur-
ing the 1950s,150 Tan Kah-kee himself contributed $4.2 million toward the
building programmes and $860,000 towards the maintenance of the
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350 TAN KAH-KEE
Chi Mei Schools during the same period.151 Tan Kah-kee was again
responsible for raising a substantial sum from his well-to-do clansmen,
relatives and the graduates of his two educational institutions for financing
the repairs and rebuilding of Amoy University. Between 1950 and 1955,
Lee Kong-chain remitted large donations to the tune of $5 million, mainly
for the rebuilding of the Amoy University.152 It is important to point out
that although Tan Kah-kee was heavily involved in reconstructing these
two institutions, he never interfered with the administration and curricula
of Amoy University.153
Between 1951 and 1954, Tan Kah-kee not only busied himself with
fund-raising for rebuilding Amoy University, but also with the designs of
its new buildings. Moreover, he made weekly inspections of the construc-
tion programmes without fail. All in all, some twenty-four buildings of
Amoy University personally designed by him were completed by 1954,
including a conference hall with a capacity for 5,000 people, a library for
2,000 students, biology, physics and chemistry buildings, nine dormitories
for staff and students, a hospital, a swimming-pool, a huge sports stadium
and an outdoor gymnasium.154 The whole building project was undertaken
by the Architecture Department of Amoy University, set up by Tan Kah-kee
in December 1950. It employed over 1,000 stone masons, carpenters,
builders and labourers for a four-year undertaking. Apart from five major
faculties, that is, Arts, Physics, Law, Finance and Economics, and Foreign
Languages, and eleven departments, Amoy University founded the Nanyang
Research Institute in 1956 to promote South-East Asian studies. In 1981,
Amoy University had a student enrolment of 4,500, as well as over a hun-
dred post-graduate students, some of these being hua-ch’iao students from
South-East Asia.155 It had a student population of over 6,000 in 1984.
One other monument to Tan Kah-kee in Amoy was the building of a
six-storey Hua-ch’iao museum, started in September 1956 and completed
in December 1958. Tan Kah-kee donated a sum of $100,000 (Chinese
currency) towards its building.156 Among other material, the museum col-
lected and exhibited articles concerning the history, geography, economics
and politics of South-East Asian countries as well as those concerning
hua-ch’iao history. In July 1960, Tan Kah-kee proposed the founding of a
similar hua-ch’iao museum in Peking and promised to donate $500,000
to start it off. The Peking project has yet to get off the ground.
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If the rebuilding of Amoy University uplifted his spirit, the construction

programmes of the Chi Mei Schools rekindled his passion for education.
Tan Kah-kee spent considerable time planning, designing and inspecting
the construction of school buildings. In 1955, a school hall, accommodating
4,000 people, was built, followed in 1957 by the completion of a fifteen-
storey Chi Mei High School. Soon, two other high-rise school buildings
were added to the various other constructions, including a sports stadium, a
swimming-pool, a fresh-water fish pond and numerous laboratories for
students and staff. By 1960, the Chi Mei Schools had developed into a sig-
nificant regional educational institution with a student enrolment of 11,000,
which was nine and a half times more than the figure for 1950.l57 As well as
all this the Chi Mei Schools improved their amenities and facilities with an
expanded hospital of eighty beds, a library holding of 200,000 books in
1961, and with the installation of better equipment and laboratories on
campus. Between 1913 and 1949, the Chi Mei Schools claimed to have
produced 6,709 secondary school graduates but a figure of 50,584 second-
ary school graduates was provided for the period between 1950 and 1983.158
Two of Tan Kah-kee’s favourite schools in Chi Mei had also expanded.
The Marine School, founded in 1920, was in 1952 divided into two sepa-
rate schools, the Marine and the Fishery; together they had a total student
enrolment of 1,300. His Chi Mei Finance and Economics School was
turned into a school for light industries in 1959, with a healthy student
intake of over 1,400 that years. All this pointed to the fact that the Chi Mei
Schools had entered into a new expansionist era by the time Tan Kah-kee
passed away in 1961.
Tan Kah-kee’s final monument in Chi Mei was the ornate and costly Ao
Garden159 which was under construction for a period of ten years between
1950 and 1960. This elaborate project was again personally designed and
paid for by him. Located on the Chi Mei peninsula, the garden covered an
area of 8,789 square metres, much of which was reclaimed from the
shallow shores. The garden was lined and linked with stone walls, carved
by specially employed sculptors and stone masons from Fukien. In the
middle of it stood the 86 feet high Chi Mei Liberation Monument with its
seven-letter name handwritten by Mao Tse-tung himself. The erection of
this monument was aimed at commemorating the deaths arising from the
liberation of Chi Mei during the last leg of the Chinese Civil War. This
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352 TAN KAH-KEE
towering monument has since become one of the unmistakable land-

marks of Chi Mei. The themes of the ornate carvings on the base of the
monument were episodes from the more recent history of China — the
Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. What Tan Kah-kee had in
mind was to educate and impress on visitors that the Chinese revolution
was long, arduous and hard won, and that it was to be treasured and cher-
ished for generations to come. No doubt, these social and political mes-
sages were made loud and clear.
Accompanying the monument was an elaborate Chinese-style pavilion
which, during the 1950s, housed sixteen stone statues of the top party and
military leaders of the PRC. These statues were intended to induce respect
in visitors for the leaders’ contributions in the Chinese revolution. One
story has it that the pavilion was closed down in 1961 by local communist
authorities and that the statues were shifted elsewhere so that these statues
might not be seen as guardians of Tan Kah-kee’s own grave.160
More significantly, the Ao Garden was designed to be Tan Kah-kee’s
resting place, the site of his carved and ornate tomb, decorated with a saga
of Tan Kah-kee’s own career in both China and overseas. The construction
of Ao Garden was apparently not all plain sailing. There was opposition
from among the local Communist Party cadres and youths who attacked
Tan Kah-kee’s action as being a waste of people’s money and energy.
Their case against the erection of the so-called ‘feudal tomb garden’ was
said to have gone to the Party High Command in Peking.161 As the con-
struction of this project was never interrupted during the 1950s, the local
party intervention obviously did not succeed. Whatever the opposition,
Tah Kah-kee never questioned the wisdom of the project. On the contrary,
he publicly regarded the project as a means of providing employment to
hundreds of workers and sculptors, and of preserving the traditional
Chinese art of carving and stone-masonry, quite apart from the socio-
political messages mentioned earlier. In private, however, he was prepared
to admit that the erection of Ao Garden as his burial ground was largely a
response to the fact that all his close family members were overseas and
might not be expected to return to Chi Mei to attend or arrange for his
funeral should he pass away.162 In any case, one of the practical legacies
of the Ao Garden has been a booming tourist trade for Chi Mei, with con-
siderable economic benefit for Chi Mei town and its people.
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During the last four years of his life in China, Tan Kah-kee suffered
from an eye ailment which was controlled under the care of some of the
best specialists in Peking. From March 1961, Tan Kah-kee became bed-
ridden as his condition deteriorated steadily. Premier Chou En-lai was
concerned about his health and called on him once a month. In spite of his
heavy workload, Premier Chou took time to read the medical reports on
Tan Kah-kee submitted to him by the doctors at his request.163 Tan
Kah-kee was genuinely grateful for what Premier Chou did.
On 12 August 1961, Tan Kah-kee died from a stroke in Peking. Shortly
before he died, he left a will containing four wishes. First, he urged his
relatives and friends to work for the early return of Taiwan as part of
the Chinese territory. Second, he advised them to keep on promoting the
Marine School in Chi Mei as China’s coastline was extensive and the
marine enterprises had great potential. Third, he wanted them to transport
his body back to Chi Mei for burial, discouraging them from too much
grief, saying that wearing a black band would do. Last, he instructed
them to disperse his $3 million bank account in the following ways — $2
million to go to the building funds of the Chi Mei Schools, $500,000 to
the Chi Mei welfare funds, and $500,000 towards the building funds of the
hua-ch’iao museum in Peking.164
Nearly a quarter of a century after Tan Kah-kee’s death, the first of his
four wishes has yet to be realized, although Tan Kah-kee wisely did not
indicate himself how long he thought the unification between Taiwan and
China would take. Nevertheless, Tan Kah-kee should have rested in peace
as China forged ahead after the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution
(1966–75) and vigorously embarked on the modernization programmes
which he himself had promoted in his own lifetime. More significantly,
the Chinese government celebrated the 110th anniversary of Tan Kah-
kee’s birthday in October 1984 in Peking, followed by a three-day sym-
posium on Tan Kah-kee, hosted by Amoy University in Amoy. In 1984
Tan Kah-kee was still remembered and honoured as a patriot, an educator,
a social reformer, a far-sighted entrepreneur, and a model emigrant in
China. As a mark of respect for him and his achievements, the Chinese
government brought out two commemorative publications, Hui-i Ch’en
Chia-keng and Ch’en chia-keng hua-ts’e, which have since added much
impetus to the studies of Tan Kah-kee in China and overseas. In Singapore
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354 TAN KAH-KEE
too, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce paid him high regard
by naming its hall after him. In addition, it established in 1961 a scholarship
named after him; the Tan Kah Kee Scholarship has since 1983 been
transformed into the Tan Kah-kee Foundation, with a subscription of
$5 million for the promotion of charity, education and research.
1. WO 203/5302, Malaya’s Political Climate, II, 1–19 October 1945, p. 1.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
1946, pp. 362, 369.
5. Ibid., p. 370.
6. Ibid., p. 369.
7. An interview with Ng Aik-huan on 29 February 1984 at his office at Asia
Insurance Building, Singapore.
8. WO 203/5302, op. cit., p. 1.
10. 10. WO 203/2320, Malaya’s Political Climate, VI, 21 December 1945–7
January 1946, p. 7.
11. WO 203/5660, Malaya’s Political Climate, VIII, 5 February–4 March
1946, p. 9.
12. WO 203/2320, op. cit., p. 7.
14. Ibid.
15. An interview with Ng Aik-huan on 17 December 1982 at his Asia
Insurance office, Singapore.
16. Ng Tan-kwee, ‘Chi-feng chih chin-ts’ao’, Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng,
Peking, Wen-shih tzu-liao ch’u-pan-she, 1984, p. 95.
17. ST, 20 March 1946; NYSP, 20 March 1946.
19. Ibid.
20. Minh Pao, 5 September 1961.
22. Gene Z. Hanrahan, The Communist Struggle in Malaya, reprint, Kuala
Lumpur, University of Malaya Press, 1971, p. 99.
23. WO 203/5660, op. cit., p. 9.
24. Ibid.
25. NCJP, 10 March 1947.
26. Tan Kah-kee’s memorandum to the Secretary of State for War dated
3 March 1948 can now be found among Lieutenant-General A. E. Percival Papers
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Box P. 26, File 43 at the Imperial War Museum, London. This document was
kindly passed on to me by Dr Ong Chit-chung, of the National University of
Singapore, Singapore.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., see a letter from Major A. L. Birt, War Office, Whitehall, to Lieu-
tenant-General A. E. Percival of Little Hadham, Hertshire, dated 20 April 1948.
30. Ibid.
31. ST, 24 March 1948.
32. Arthur Waley, trans., The Anateas of Confucius, New York, Vintage
Books, 1970 (?), p. 88.
33. Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi, Singapore, SCRFU, 1948, preface.
34. Ibid.; Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng cki-nien-is’e, Peking, 1961, p. 44.
35. The New Democracy, 29 November 1945. Cited by ChuL Kwei-chiang,
in an unpublished paper on ‘The China Democratic League in Singapore and
Malaya, 1946–1948’, p. 22. (Text in Chinese.)
36. WO 203/2320, Malaya’s Political Climate, VI, 21 December 1945–7
January 1946, p. 7.
37. Tan Kok-kheng, ‘Recollections of Tan Kah-kee, My Father’, Singapore,
1982, p. 469. (mimeo.)
38. Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the Malayan Chinese to Political
and Military Developments in China, 1945–1949, Singapore, Institute of
Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang University, 1977, pp. 12–14.
39. NCJP, 13 March 1946.
40. Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the Malayan Chinese, p. 15.
41. NYSP, 20 June 1946.
42. Ibid., 16 September 1946, 24 September 1946. Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-
chi, op. cit., pp. 1–2.
43. NYSP, 19 September 1946, 24 September 1946.
48. Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi, op. cit., p. 112.
49. Cited by Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the Malayan Chinese,
p, 24, n. 56.
50. Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi, op. cit., pp. 112–25.
51. The identity of the founders of the Nan Chiau Jit Pao has remained a
contentious issue up to now. While Tan Kok-kheng has maintained that it was he,
Ng Aik-huan, Lau Boh-tan and seven others who persuaded Tan Kah-kee to
establish the paper, Chang Ch’u-k’un claims in his article on ‘Ch’en Chia-keng
yü Nan Chiau Jit Pao’ which appears in Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng (Peking, 1984)
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356 TAN KAH-KEE
that it was he, Lee Tiat-ming, Hu Yu-chih and other members of the Singapore
branches of the China Democratic League, who prompted Tan Kah-kee to found it.
It seems possible that Tan Kah-kee was persuaded by both these groups of his
supporters.
52. Tan Kok-kheng, op, cit., p. 486.
53. NCJP, 10 November 1947.
55. ST, 2 November 1946. Cited by Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the
Malayan Chinese, p. 27.
56. Information kindly provided by Ng Aik-huan on 17 December 1982 at
his Asia Insurance office, Singapore.
57. Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi, op. cit., p. 162.
59. WO 203/6246/1316/2, The Chinese Factor in the Problem of the Security
and Defence of South East Asia, appreciation by the Joint Intelligence Committee,
Singapore, 20 February 1947, p. 8.
60. NCJP, 31 March 1947.
61. Ibid., 29 May 1947.
62. Ibid., 1 June 1947.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., 2 June 1947.
65. Ibid., 9 June 1947.
66. China Press, 9 July 1947; Kwong Wah Jit Poh, 9 July 1947. Cited by
Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the Malayan Chinese, p. 36.
67. Chui Kwei-chiang, The Response of the Malayan Chinese, p. 37.
71. CO 537/4835/54463, Control of Foreign Political Parties, 1949,
Correspondence between Sir F. Gimson, Governor of Singapore, and the CO on
6 May 1949.
73. Ibid.
75. Ibid., 25 December 1947.
76. Ibid., 1 January 1948.
77. Ibid.
78. CO 537/3751/55400/5 Part 1, Political Intelligence Journal, No. 1, 15
January 1948, p. 16.
79. Ibid.
80. NCJP, 23 March 1948.
81. NYSP, 21 May 1948.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
82. NCJP, 1 May 1948.

83. Ibid.
84. Chui Kwei-chiang, ‘The Kuomintang in Singapore and Malaya in the
immediate post-war era 1945–1949’, SCJP, 15 March 1982. (Text in Chinese.)
85. CO 537/3751/55400/5 Part 1, Political Intelligence Journal, No. 8,
30 April 1948, p. 270.
86. NCJP, 5 May 1948.
87. Ibid., 8 May 1948.
88. ST, 20 May 1948.
89. NCJP, 20 May 1948.
90. Ibid., 3 May 1948.
91. CO 537/3751/55400/5 Part 1, Political Intelligence Journals, 1948; con-
sult Who’s Who, Serial 6, 1 January 1948. This is a two-page dossier.
92. CO 537/3753/55400/5 Part 3, Political Intelligence Journal, No. 14, 31
July 1948, p. 562.
93. Ibid.
94. Information kindly provided by Sng Choon-yee on 16 December 1982 at
his home at 67, Farleigh Avenue, Serangoon Garden, Singapore.
95. CO 537/3753/55400/5 Part 3, op. cit., p. 562.
96. NCJP, 12 August 1948. Tan Kah-kee complained that his health was poor
and he had received numerous injections from Dr C. S. Yin since September
1947.
97. Articles written by him were as follows: ‘On the future of the Chinese
civil war again’, NCJP, 9 August 1948; ‘No peace between the Communists and
the Nationalists’, NCJP, 2 August 1948; ‘The mission of our paper and the future
of China’, NCJP, 22 November 1948; ‘The Battle for Hsuchow and its decisive-
ness for the whole political situation’, NCJP, 11 November 1949; ‘On
differentiating the issue of banditry’, NCJP, 31 January 1949.
98. NCJP, 31 January 1949.
100. Ibid., 8 August 1948.
101. Ibid., 12 August 1948.
102. NYSP, 13 March 1946. In an interview with the director of the Far
Eastern Bureau, the American Associated Press, Tan Kah-kee expressed that he
wished to visit Japan, Korea and Manchuria in the near future.
104. Tan Kok-kheng, op. cit., pp. 489–90.
106. Ibid.
107. CO 825/74/55404/3, Federation of Malaya Political Report (FMPR),
No. 5, 20 April 1949, p. 3.
108. Ibid.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
358 TAN KAH-KEE
109. CO 825/74/55404/4, Singapore Political Report (SPR), No. 4, 28 April

1949, p. 1. This Report was compiled by the Secretary for Internal Affairs,
Singapore.
110. NCJP, 12 May 1949.
111. Tan Kah-kee, Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, Singapore, Southseas
China Relief Fund Union, 1950. Consult the preface written by Tan Kah-kee.
112. Ch’en Jen-chieh, ‘Nan-wang ti chiao-hui’, Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng,
Peking, Wen-shib tzu-liao ch’u-pan-she, 1984, p. 300.
114. CO 825/74/55404/4, SPR, No. 6, 30 June 1949, pp. 2–3.
115. Ibid., p. 3.
116. CO 825/74/55404/4, SPR, No. 10, 9 November 1949, p. 5.
117. Ibid.
118. Ibid.
119. Ibid.
120. CO 825/74/55404/4, SPR, No. 11, 21 December 1949, p. 2.
121. Ibid., p. 3.
122. CO 825/74/55404/4, SPR, No. 12, 28 January 1950, p. 2.
123. Ibid.
124. CO 825/82/55404/4, SPR, No. 2, 8 March 1950, p. 2.
125. Ibid.
126. Pan Kuo-chu kindly provided this information on 28 February 1984 at
the Asia Insurance Building, Collyer Quay, Singapore.
128. Ibid., 4 March 1950.
130. NCJP, 4 March 1950, 7 March 1950, 27 March 1950.
131. Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, Foochow,
Fukien jen-min ch’u-pan-she, 1981, p. 183.
132. Ibid., p. 184.
133. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-ts’e, p. 8.
134. Ibid., p. 125.
135. Ibid., p. 115.
136. Ibid., p. 35.
137. Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, op. cit., p. 172.
138. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-ts’e, p. 126.
139. Ibid. pp. 128–9.
140. Ibid., p.132.
141. Tan Keong-choon and Hung Yung-hung, Chen Chia-keng Hsin-ch’uan,
Singapore, Tan Kah-kee International Society, 2003, p. 324.
142. Ibid., p.351.
143. Ibid., pp. 364–68.
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144. Chiu Fang-k’un, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng chieh-fang-hou ch’ou-hua pan-hsüeh

ching-fei chi-shih’, Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng, Peking, Wen-shih izu-liao ch’u-pan-
she, 1984, p. 264.
145. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-t’se, op. cit., p. 135.
146. Ibid., p. 114; Ch’en Pick-seng and Yang Kuo-cheng, pp. 174–5.
147. Ibid., p. 174.
148. Ibid., pp. 174–5.
149. Ibid., p. 175. It cost the provincial government a sum of $900,000 for the
project.
150. Wang Chen-ping and Yü Kang, Ch’en Chia-keng hsing-hsüeh chi,
Foochow, Fukien chiao-yü ch’u-pan-she, 1981, p. 80.
151. Chi-mei hsüeh-hsiao ch’i-shih-nien, Foochow, Fukien jen-min ch’u-pan-
she, 1983, pp. 138, 167.
152. Jimei Alumni, no. 4, 2002, p. 29.
154. Ibid., p. 78.
155. Ibid., p. 79.
156. Ibid., p. 86.
157. Ibid,, p. 82.
158. Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng ch’uang-pan Chi-mei-hsüeh-hsiao
ch’i-shih chou-nien chi-nien-k’an, Amoy, Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng ch’uang-
pan Chi-mei hsüeh-hsiao ch’i-shih chou-nien chi-nien-k’an pien-wei-hui, 1983,
p. 126.
159. No published figure has been obtained on the actual cost of erecting the
whole Ao Garden complex, but one figure given to me on 30 October 1984 by a
director of the Chi Mei Schools Board, Ch’en Shao-pin, was over C$600,000.
160. Nan Shih, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng ti wan-nien’, International
Times, November 1968, p. 4.
161. Ibid., p. 3.
162. Information kindly provided by Chuang Ming-li on 7 November 1984 in
Amoy. Chuang was one of his closest personal friends in China.
164. Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, op. cit., p. 186.
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9
Conclusion
As a young immigrant from Chi Mei to Singapore, Tan Kah-kee rose from
an unknown character in 1890 to a folk hero and legend by the time he
died in Peking in 1961. In his life and times, Tan Kah-kee presented vari-
ous images to his contemporaries. He presented himself as a self-made
man, a public figure, a dominating and feared father, an ambitious entre-
preneur and industrialist, a philanthropist rarely matched by his peers, a
revered patriarch to his friends, clansmen, employees and graduates of his
educational institutions in Singapore and in China, and a formidable and
somewhat controversial political character, honoured by Mao Tse-tung
but condemned by the Kuomintang high command. In post-war Singapore
and Malaya, Kuomintang members labelled him their ‘Public Enemy No. 1’,
accusing him of abusing his power as chairman of the SCRFU in the
‘cable crisis’ of 1946. The British naturally disapproved of his moral sup-
port for Mao Tse-tung at a time when they were suppressing the Malayan
communist insurgency. They referred to him as Mao’s ‘Fellow Traveller’.
Tan Kah-kee was by no means perfect as either a private citizen or a public
man, but even his contemporaries, friends and foes alike, found it hard to
fault him.
Despite the fact that he was a man with few faults, Tan Kah-kee was a
complex character to analyse historically and psychologically. He was
both ordinary and simple and yet extraordinary and complex. He was
conservative in taste and fashion and yet reformist and revolutionary in
spirit and in political thinking. He was filial to his own parents but willed
not a single penny to his family after his death. He was certainly not a
model Confucian family man for he had decided early in his career that
‘a needle cannot be sharp at both ends’, meaning that once he had
decided to devote all his time and financial resources to public life, he
found it impossible to do the same in his private and family life. He was
360
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CONCLUSION 361
both the ‘T’ung An spirit’ personified, fearless of consequences when

attacking Wang Ching-wei and Chiang Kai-shek and yet quite capable of
bending like bamboo before the British colonial wind when circum-
stances demanded it. Mean and ruthless when he threatened to cut off the
finances supporting his brother recuperating in Japan in 1926, he was
consistently generous in his financial support for his Chi Mei Schools
and Amoy University. Although sufficiently exposed to the new culture
from the time of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, he was heavy-
handed and interfered in the marriage of his fifth son during the 1930s.
While he condemned waste of human resources, such as lavish weddings
and funerals, he spent a fortune in the 1950s on a costly Ao Garden pro-
ject in Chi Mei as his resting place. He was concerned with the political
and constitutional development in post-war Singapore and Malaya and
yet appears to have lacked sufficient vision to see Singapore and Malaya
as capable of achieving independence from the British. A China-oriented
hua-ch’iao nationalist at heart, Tan Kah-kee had more than a soft spot for
Singapore and Malaya where he had planted his cultural, economic,
social, familial and institutional roots during the greater part of his life.
What made it possible for Tan Kah-kee to play a dominant role in com-
munity and political affairs and to have left behind a more powerful his-
torical impression on South-East Asia and China than most of his
hua-ch’iao contemporaries? One begins with looking at his personal
attributes and leadership qualities, many of which could be regarded as
Confucian precepts. Chief among these were ch’in (hard work) chien
(frugality), k’o-chi (discipline) lien (honesty and integrity), and chung
(loyalty), ch’eng (sincerity) and i (perseverance); the last two being the
motto of his Chi Mei Schools. However, Tan Kah-kee was less concerned
about such key Confucian precepts as hsiao (filial piety). The practice of
the Confucian moral conduct made him into an austere puritan — no time
or taste for sports, no gambling, smoking or alcohol, no Western-style
social dancing, and little or no social entertainment. Whatever wealth he
accumulated was invested in charity, education and politics. By doing this,
Tan Kah-kee fulfilled the ideal of larger Chinese virtue in t’ien-hsia hsing-
wang p’i-fu yu-tse (fortune or misfortune of the world rests on the shoul-
ders of each of us). But he extended this, being an admirer of one
prominent Sung Prime Minister, Fan Chung-yen. Tan Kah-kee practised
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362 TAN KAH-KEE
what Fan had preached, ‘worry before the world does and be happy after
the world is’. Added to these attributes were Tan Kah-kee’s initiative and
drive when undertaking a project, his analytical mind and organizational
power, and his uncanny ability to inspire others to work with him or for
him. These qualities helped him become a formidable business, commu-
nity and political leader.
Tan Kah-kee’s economic success between 1904 and 1934 is partially
attributable to the personal qualities mentioned above. However, good tim-
ing, bold moves and luck also played a significant part. Starting in 1904 as
a modest pineapple canner and rice trader, Tan Kah-kee branched out into
rubber planting in 1906, shipping during the First World War and finally
in the 1920s into rubber manufacturing as an early Singapore’s industrial-
ist, who consistently provided employment for over 10,000 people daily.
Tan Kah-kee became a millionaire in 1911 and a multi-millionaire during
the First World War, a status he fought hard to maintain until the collapse
of his business empire in 1934. However, the demise of his business
empire freed him from further philanthropy. Moreover, some of his former
employees and clansmen had by then emerged to succeed him in their own
right as business tycoons, rubber magnates, financiers, bankers and
industrialists.
With considerable wealth at his disposal, Tan Kah-kee further consoli-
dated his social status as a pang and community leader in Singapore and
Malaya by fulfilling three major responsibilities. These included sacrifice
of his time by providing leadership for wider pang and community inter-
ests, providing funds to charity for victims of war or natural disasters and
the promotion of education in Singapore and Fukien. All these public
works entailed considerable sacrifice of his time, his finances and his
manpower resources. Tan Kah-kee fulfilled these tasks admirably setting
an example for his fellow countrymen to follow, and encouraging his fel-
low capitalists in South-East Asia to be more public-minded by saying
that ‘money is like fertilizer, to be useful it has to be spread around’.
Apart from wealth and a pre-eminent social status, Tan Kah-kee’s
social and political works were made easier by his control of two key
institutions in Singapore which served as his power base. The assumption
of the leadership of the Ee Ho Hean Club, a millionaire’s social club, in
1923, allowed him a more secure power base from which to draw
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CONCLUSION 363
manpower, intellectual and financial resources for community action.

Equally important for him was his capture, in 1929, of leadership of the
Hokkien Huay Kuan, the top pang organization of the Hokkien commu-
nity in Singapore. With solid support from the Hokkien pang, Tan Kah-
kee was assured of considerable popular support for his social and
political campaigns during the 1930s and 1940s. Tan Kah-kee wisely
decided not to be involved in party politics by being a member of either
the Kuomintang or the Malayan Communist Party, and maintained his
status as a non-partisan community leader. This non-partisan status stood
him in good stead. The British were more willing to allow him to enjoy
‘legitimized’ leadership and power during the 1930s when contending
elites within the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya, the forces
of the Right, the Kuomintang, and the Left, the Malayan Communist Party
and its various front organizations, fought for political control.
Tan Kah-kee achieved the political breakthrough from community to
political leader in 1928 when he launched the Shantung Relief Fund cam-
paign in response to the Tsinan Incident which arose out of military
clashes between the Japanese army and Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern
Expedition forces. From then on, except for a period of four years between
May 1932 and June 1936, Tan Kah-kee’s political leadership was recog-
nized by the British. The British found it useful to tolerate his political
leadership and influence in the post-war years until the Malayan
Emergency in June 1948, after which, in their attempts to suppress the
Malayan communist insurgency and Asian communism, the British turned
implacably hostile towards Tan Kah-kee’s Maoist political stand. In the
1930s, the Kuomintang government in China also legitimized his political
leadership by supporting his chairmanship of the SCRFU. This pan-
South-East Asian organization had its headquarters in Singapore but there
were over two hundred branches throughout South-East Asia. Tan Kah-
kee reached the zenith of his political power and influence in December
1941 when the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, invited him to lead the
Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council to assist the government in the
civil defence of Singapore against impending Japanese invasion. This sort
of British recognition accorded to an immigrant Chinese was an unprec-
edented act in the history of modern Singapore.
Between 1940 and 1945, two episodes occurred which had important
political implications for the Chinese in South-East Asia in general and
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364 TAN KAH-KEE
for Tan Kah-kee in particular. The first was his lengthy tour of China in
1940 as a member of the China comfort mission. This tour allowed him to
better assess China’s condition in the Sino-Japanese War and to evaluate
the state of the Mandate of Heaven in terms of the intense rivalry between
the nationalists and the communists. His Chungking experiences and
Yenan sojourn prompted him to predict the rise of Mao Tse-tung as
China’s saviour and dragon king. Tan Kah-kee’s unexpected turn of
political allegiance away from Chiang Kai-shek split the hua-ch’iao com-
munities in South-East Asia into the pro-Chiang Kai-shek Right and the
pro-Mao Tse-tung Left in post-war years. His Yenan visit in 1940 set the
tone of his political campaigns in the post-war era and paved the way for
his eventual exit from Singapore in 1950 to participate in the socialist
reconstruction in a resurging China. A second episode, the downfall of
Singapore and his subsequent retreat to East Java, had the effects of hard-
ening his attitude towards the British colonial rule and toughening his
moral fibre and fortitude, which in turn were to help him sustain his politi-
cal conviction and to continue campaigns for Mao Tse-tung in the face of
considerable duress from the British authorities in Singapore and Malaya.
The Malayan Emergency and communist victory in China made it diffi-
cult for him to exert his political influence in Malaya and his final exit
from Singapore should be seen in the context of changing political milieu
in both China and South-East Asia during the early part of the 1950s.
Paradoxically, it was these changing political and historical circumstances
which hastened the end of the hua-ch’iao era on the one hand and the rise
of South-East Asian identities among the hua-ch’iao on the other.
Being a many-faceted man with wide-ranging interests in public life,
Tan Kah-kee’s achievements were extensive and multifarious and his
influence far-reaching.
His social achievements lay in his attempts to reform the structure of
the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya during the 1920s and
1930s. His reorganization of the Hokkien Huay Kuan in 1929 is a case in
point. He succeeded in making the top pang institution more democratic
in content and more answerable to the Hokkien community it represented.
Although he failed to reform the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce, he was the first Chinese in Singapore to champion the revi-
sion of the Chamber’s outmoded constitution based on pang representa-
tion. Tan Kah-kee proposed election to leadership positions on merit
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CONCLUSION 365
regardless of pang alignments of candidates. His other attempts to reform

the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya during the 1930s
marked him out as a profound social reformer.
His educational endeavours were impressive, sustained by his mission-
ary zeal and his vision of the beneficial results of education in both
Singapore and Fukien province. Under his leadership five primary and
secondary Chinese schools in Singapore were founded, chief among them
was the Singapore Chinese High School. Tan Kah-kee also supported
English education, donating $30,000 to the Anglo-Chinese School in 1919
and $10,000 to the Raffles College in 1929. However, his role in the edu-
cational transformation of Fukien province was epoch-making. It put both
Chi Mei and Amoy on the Chinese map as the cultural and educational
centres of South China from the 1920s onwards. Many thousands of stu-
dents from both the Chi Mei Schools and Amoy University had graduated
to play various roles in the modernization of China.
His record in the economic field was nothing short of outstanding
despite his business collapse in 1934. Few employers in South-East Asia
today can match Tan Kah-kee’s employment figures. He stood out as one
of Singapore’s earliest rubber planters, traders, millers and, above all,
industrialists. Lack of local government protection, stiff pricing competi-
tion in a dwindling market and world economic depression were largely
responsible for closing down his bold ventures. The fact that the Hokkien
pang today in both Singapore and Malaysia continues to enjoy a lion’s
share of the rubber industry and trade is attributable to Tan Kah-kee, the
Nanyang capitalist–industrialist.
However, it was in the political arena that Tan Kah-kee accomplished
most in fame and esteem. His leadership role in the Shantung Relief Fund
Committee (1928–9), SCRFC (1937–41), and SCRFU (1938–49) stamped
him out as a hua-ch’iao nationalist. Nevertheless, it would be incorrect to
suggest that Tan Kah-kee was entirely China-oriented. His assumption of the
SCMC leadership in December 1941 illustrated that he was prepared to
defend Singapore, his adopted land, which was under attack by the Japanese.
In the post-war years, Tan Kah-kee was more Asian-oriented politically, for
he offered moral support to both the Indian and Indonesian nationalist
movements and took the view that the privileged position of the Malays in
Malaya should be recognized and accepted when framing the Federation of
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366 TAN KAH-KEE
Malaya constitution in 1947. Tan Kah-kee was not aware that his active
attachment to China’s political and social welfare constituted a divided
political loyalty under British rule. It did not cause him emotional and
psychological qualms; there was no contradiction in his terms as Singapore
and South-East Asian society had also benefited from his endeavours.
For a Chinese immigrant to South-East Asia to make good is not
unique, but what is unique in Tan Kah-kee’s case is his enormous contri-
bution to employment and economic development in Singapore and
Malaya. It won him the tag of ‘Henry Ford of Malaya’. He was the only
Chinese in history to have single-handedly founded a private university
and financially maintained it for sixteen years. He was the only hua-
ch’iao of his generation to have led the Chinese in South-East Asia in a
concerted political and charitable effort to help China resist the Japanese
conquest. Moreover, he was the only hua-ch’iao leader to have played
both Singapore and China politics and affairs at close quarters, rubbing
shoulders with British governors, Chinese commanders, Chiang Kai-shek
and Mao Tse-tung. Furthermore, Tan Kah-kee was the only hua-ch’iao in
his times to have combined his pang, community and political power and
influence for the advancement of community, regional and national goals.
Arguably the most austere, selfless and public-minded hua-ch’iao Tan
Kah-kee was again unique in leaving behind some giant footprints in
Southeast Asia and China; some were visible and profound, others were
lasting and enduring.
Among his legacies was his handpicking of Lee Kong-chian (1893–1967)
and Tan Lark-sye (1897–1972) as his successors to carry on good commu-
nity works. Tan Kah-kee had built up multi-layer, inter-locking and adhesive
relationships with his successors through years of shared business struggle
and successes and shared passion for educational promotion. Their tested
relationships were further cemented by patron-client bonds, kinship net-
works or clan and family ties.
Both his successors had survived the onslaught of the Great Depression
to reach their financial zenith during the rubber boom arising from the
Korean War (1950–53). It is not surprising that both donated large sums
of money for the repairing and rebuilding of the Chi Mei Schools and
Amoy University and became founders of Nanyang University in
Singapore in 1956.
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CONCLUSION 367
In the post-World War II era, both Lee Kong-chian and Tan Lark-sye
were prominent community leaders in their own right since they had been
elected as Presidents of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
Their presidencies coincided with the decolonization process of the colo-
nial rule which turned them into Singapore-oriented leaders. Both cam-
paigned relentlessly for the registration of immigrant Chinese to become
Singapore citizens, eligible for voting in the forthcoming elections
towards a self-governing Singapore.
On the sphere of influence, Lee Kong-Chian had an edge over either Tan
Kah-kee or Tan Lark-sye in that he was able to break into the English-
educated sector of the community for enhanced business networks or
political influence. As a well-established community leader with English-
speaking skills, he was able to make friends with government officials,
such as Sir Malcolm McDonald and Malayan politicians, including Tan
Cheng-lock, President of the Malayan Chinese Association, and Tunku
Abdul Rahman. Again, Lee Kong-chian’s genius move in 1952 to found
the Lee Foundation with seemingly inexhaustible funds for charity, educa-
tion and research earned the respect of the people in Singapore and beyond.
Needless to say, Tan Kah-kee did choose his sucessors wisely as shown
in the above deliberations. His successors had proved to be loyal, influen-
tial, powerful and worthy.
In education, Tan Kah-kee’s achievements have been well documented
but his legacies here need some analysis. First, his Chin-chia hsing-hsüeh
endeavours have inspired generations of fellow countrymen to make their
own contributions to education. Second, his utterances and practice of the
1920s that education and technology could be used for national salvation
and nation-building still ring true today as many Asian countries are doing
just that. Third, it was estimated in 1994 that three major educational
institutions of Tan Kah-kee had churned out some 170,000 graduates, eg.,
Amoy University (50,000), Chi Mei Schools (100,000) and the Singapore
Chinese High School (20,000).1 These 170,000 well-educated alumni
made their individual or collective contributions to societies they lived in
and made impact locally, nationally and internationally over time.
In social arena, Tan Kah-kee’s legacy in Singapore was reformism. In
the interwar years, Tan Kah-kee made two attempts to reform Chinese
society by first reorganizing the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan (HHK) in
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368 TAN KAH-KEE
1929. Under his leadership, he turned the moribund instituion into a vibrant
and potent association by making some decisive moves. These included
drafting a new constitution, registering new membership, minuting meeting
proceedings as official records and departmentalizing the HHK structure
into committees. Besides, the HHK leadership was keeping a tight rein on
budget balances, making sure the accounts were open and transparent. This
then was followed by his zeal to reform the Singapore Chinese Chamber of
Commerce (SCCC) by suggesting that the Chamber should adopt a new
constitution with more democratic rules. These included the abolition of
the practice that each pang members elected its office bearers for the
Chamber and that the Chamber’s President was rotated between the
Hokkien Pang and non-Hokkien pangs. In short, Tan Kah-kee wanted
members to elect their best candidates into the office without parochial
pang restriction. Failing that, he was audacious to suggest the Chamber
should be turned into a Chinese Association to accommodate teachers and
workers. However, his proposals in 1929 and 1939 were turned down by
the British authorities, thus ending in abject failure. Despite Tan Kah-kee’s
disappointment and anguish, Tan Kah-kee’s reformism is still very much
alive. It has served as a wake-up call that Chinese institutions in Southeast
Asia need to reform themselves from time to time in order to better serve
the interests of their members or communities.
In the economic realm, Tan Kah-kee’s legacy lay in his entrepreneurship
which embodied the taking of calculated risks. Between 1906 and 1925,
he took three major risks and succeeded. There were, his 1906 entering
into rubber planting industry, his 1915 dabbling with the shipping industry
and his 1920 decision to establish the rubber manufactory at the Sumbawa
Road complex. However, his post-1925 decision to expand into many new
lines of industries, such as buscuits, candy, raincoats, felt hats, bricks,
soap, leather and metal castings etc., proved costly and damaging to the
foundation of his business empire. While many of his contemporaries
lamented the passing of his business empire and learnt a lesson, or two,
some embraced his undaunting spirit of entrepreneurship for success.
In China politics or Singapore colonial politics, Tan Kah-kee devoted
much of his time to it. He led many campaigns and battles, as a friend of
Sun Yat-sen, father of the Chinese Republic, a staunch supporter of Chiang
Kai-shek prior to 1940, a defender of Singapore before its fall in February
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
CONCLUSION 369
1942 and a self-claimed non-partisan leader in charge of national salvation

movement in Southeast Asia generally and in Singapore in particular. In
the post-World War II era, Mao Tse-tung praised him as a Chinese patriot,
China’s national pride. However, he was condemned as a “communist
sympathizer” and a “traitor” by the KMT. Despite all the political contro-
versies, Tan Kah-kee did leave behind a plausible leadership pattern in
non-partisanship. This non-partisan leadership suited Tan Kah-kee and the
British colonial authorities under extraordinary historical circumstances
when the Kuomintang right and the Malayan Communist left were deemed
to be more threatening to the colonial rule. The pattern of non-partisan
political leadership may still be valid in today’s Southeast Asian societies,
but its usefulness and effectiveness has remained a moot point.
Finally, one important legacy of Tan Kah-kee, “the Spirit of Tan Kah-
kee,” only surfaced after his death in Peking in 1961. It has become fash-
ionable after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–75) when China
embarked on the promotion of the so-called Four Modernization Programs
(Agriculture, Industry, Defence and Science and Technology). It then
dawned on researchers and supporters of Tan Kah-kee in China that Tan
Kah-kee’s Singapore experiences in educational promotion, industrializa-
tion and entrepreneurship might serve as guidance for China’s own mod-
ernization programs. It was found that Tan Kah-kee had been greatly
influenced by a set of traditional Confucian ethical and moral values,
serving as coherent guides and principles for human behaviour, human
endeavours and human obligations to the society and the state. More
importantly, Tan Kah-kee put these Confucian precepts into practice and
made them work. Tan Kah-kee was a practising Confucianist in modern
garb. In other words, Tan Kah-kee followed the Confucian ways closely
by being chin (diligence) and Chien (frugal) to establish himself and then
move on to practise cheng (honesty and integrity) and i (perseverance)
toward himself and in dealing business with others. Here the precept
cheng was more than just be honest with oneself and others it also implied
the will of one’s convictions, without fear or favour. I meant a continuous
practice of self-strengthening, including self-reflection and self-educa-
tion, and never be ashamed of failure. Finally, when one was financial, one
must be public-minded and charitable to help the less fortunate ones as a
fulfilment of one’s social responsibility to the society and the state. On the
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
370 TAN KAH-KEE
attitude to the nation, Tan Kah-kee was unequivocal about being chung
(loyal) to the state or nation. In any case, one was expected to make con-
tributions to the state wherever one could as a good citizen. As a Confucian
gentleman, he was expected to do what he believed in, never named a deer
for a horse. He was also expected to do what was right according to his
own conscience. He was to have the will of his own convictions. “The
Spirit of Tan Kah-kee” has been consciously promoted in Fukien prov-
ince, the homeland of Tan Kah-kee, as a work ethics, an ethos and a moral
and spiritual force to overcome problems and to get things moving and
done. Since “the Spirit of Tan Kah-kee” has yet to run its course, its
impacts have yet to be properly assessed.
For half a century, Tan Kah-kee lived in Singapore to deepen his roots and
make contributions which benefited Singapore generally and its Chinese
community in particular. He was an early industrialist and entrepreneur in
Singapore and was one of its biggest employers. He was also a noted social
reformer, a pioneer in modern Chinese education and a public-mined
philanthropist, Besides, he sided with the British during the First and Second
World Wars and defended Singapore as Chairman of the Singapore Chinese
Mobilization Council in 1941 in the face of Japanese onslaught. In China
politics, he stood at the forefront, leading the Chinese in Southeast Asia to
raise funds for China reliefs during the era of national salvation (1937–42).
However, Tan Kah-kee remained a hua-ch’iao through and through and
by his deeds he created a hua-ch’iao legend in their wake. Tan Kah-kee
committed himself to becoming a hua-ch’iao in 1912 at the fall of the
Manchu regime in China. While the regime change uplifted his spirit and
morale, it strengthened his resolve to help build an independent, democra-
tized and modernized Chinese nation whenever and wherever he could. His
nation-building endeavours began in 1913 with the founding of a Chi Mei
Primary School for his village children. As fortunes were made during the
First World War through shipping, he established a number of secondary
and teachers’ training schools. He went further in 1921 by founding the
Amoy University and personally financed it until 1937 when the Kuomintang
government took it over. His vision of emptying his family tills for educa-
tion was his hope to churn out talented graduates to help build a new China.
Not to be outdone by his educational zeal, Tan Kah-kee was equally
committed to lend a helping hand when China’s national survival was at
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
CONCLUSION 371
stake. His non-partisan leadership was in full blooms when Tan Kah-kee
led the Chinese in Southeast Asia to raise funds for China relief and for
strenghtening China’s war footing from 1938.
During the hectic years of the national salvation movement in
Singapore, a chance visit to Yenan in 1940 thrilled him to bits, because he
had found a saviour of the Chinese people and the future dragon king. In
1949, Tan Kah-kee landed in Peking as Mao Tse–tung’s guest. While
there, he was co-opted into the membership of the People’s Political
Consultative Conference and appointed to some government positions.
Thus, the die had been cast with little choice but to return to China to ful-
fil his dream stretching back to 1912 when the Manchu regime ended.
In 1981, a Professor of History of Amoy University referred more nar-
rowly to Tan Kah-kee as “an outstanding representative of the national
bourgeosie after Dr. Sun Yat”,2 in the context of the hua-ch’iao and mod-
ern Chinese history. More broadly, Tan Kah-kee deserves to be remem-
bered as an Asian legend in terms of his post-war agitations and
articulations in support of Indonesian and Indian independence move-
ments and in terms of the scope and depth of his influences outside China.
1. Newsletter of Tan Kah Kee International Society, no 7, March 1995, p. 63.

2. Ch’en Pi-sheng, ‘Shih-lun Ch’en Chia-keng’, in Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang
Kuo-chen, Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, Foochow, Fukien jen-min ch’u-pan-she,
1981, p. 207.
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Glossary
Ai Tong School 愛同學校 Ch’an Chim-mui 陳占梅

Aik Ho & Co. 益和 Chan Gek-khim 曾玉琴
All-China Returned Overseas Chan Kang-swi 曾江水
Chinese Association Chan, S.J. 陳祀仁
中國全國歸國華僑聯合會 Chan Seng-poh 曾成保
Amoy (Hsia-men; Xiamen) 廈門 Chang Chih-chung 張治中
Amoy University 廈門大學 Chang Ch’u-k’un 張楚琨
Analects of Confucius 論語 Chang Fa-k’uei 張發奎
Ang Kai-pang 洪開榜 Chang Hsüeh-Liang 張學良
Ang Keng-aw 洪鏡湖 Ch’ang-lung wo-hu 藏龍臥虎
Ang Poh-sit 洪寶植 Chang Pang-ch’ang 張邦昌
Ang Shun-yi 洪舜瑜 Chee Seng 志誠
Anhwei Army 淮軍 Ch’en Chia-keng (Tan Kah-kee)
Ao Garden 鰲園陳嘉庚
Asia Insurance Co. Ltd. Ch’en Ch’iung-ming 陳烱明
亞洲保險有限公司 Ch’en Chong-khong 陳忠贛
Aw Boon-haw 胡文虎 Ch’en Kung-po 陳公博
Aw Boon-par 胡文豹 Ch’en Li-fu 陳立夫
Aw Long-man 胡浪漫 Ch’en Ming-shu 陳銘樞
Aw Siow-yam 胡少炎 Ch’en Pi-sheng 陳碧笙
Ch’en Po-ta 陳伯達
Babas 峇峇 Ch’en Pu-lei 陳布雷
Batu (Java) 峇株 Ch’en Tu-hsiu 陳獨秀
Bin Chin House 晚晴園 Ch’en Yi, General 陳毅
Boxer Rebellion 義和團事變 Ch’en Yi, Governor 陳儀
Boxer Protocol 辛丑和約 Ch’en Yi Affair 陳儀事件
Burma Road 滇緬公路 Ch’eng 誠
Cheng Ann 振安
‘cable crisis’ 電報風波 Cheng Ch’eng-kung 鄭成功
‘cable motion’ 電報動議 Cheng Hoon Teng temple 青雲亭廟
373
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
374 TAN KAH-KEE
Cheng Te-k’un 鄭德坤 China Democratic League

Chew Hean-swee 周獻瑞中國民主同盟
Chew Lian-seng 周蓮生 China Press 中國報
Chew Wah Lim Club Chinan University 暨南大學
醉花林俱樂部 Chinese Advisory Board
Chi Kung Tang 致公黨華人參事局
Ch’i-hsien-chuan Street 七賢莊 Chinese Association 中華公會
Chia Eng-say 謝榮西 Chinese Commercial Bank Ltd.
Chia Thian-hock 謝天福華商銀行
Chialing Guest House Chinese Communist Party
嘉陵招待所中國共產黨
Chialing Mansion 嘉陵賓館 Chinese Foreign Relations
Ch’iang-chien ch’iao-i 強奸僑意 Association 國民外交協會
Chiang Ching-kuo 蔣經國 Chinese Merchants General Chamber
Chiang Hsi-pu 蔣驥甫 of Commerce
Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石南洋華僑總商會
Chiang Ting-wen 蔣鼎文 Chinese National Emancipation
Chiang Ying-pu 蔣英甫 Vanguard Corps
chien 儉中華民族解放先鋒隊
ch’ien-fang ch’ih-chin, 前方吃緊 Chinese National Fund
hou-fang chin-ch’ih 後方緊吃中華國民捐
Ch’ien-lung, Emperor 乾隆皇帝 Chinese Protection Association
Ch’ien-tzu-wen 千字文保僑會
Ch’ih-k’u 吃苦 Chinese Protectorates
Chi Mei 集美華人護衛司署
Chi Mei Liberation Monument Chinese Revolutionary Party
集美解放紀念碑中華革命黨
Chi Mei Schools 集美學校 Chinese Secretariat 華民政務司署
ch’in 勤 Ch’iu Wang Jit Pao 救亡日報
chin-chia hsing-hsüeh 傾家興學 Chng Phee-nam 莊丕南
Chin Ho & Co. 振和公司 Chng Phee-t’ang 莊丕唐
Chin Kee-sun 曾紀宸 Chong Fook Girls School
Ch’in K’uai 秦檜崇福女校
Ch’in Pang-hsien alias Po Ku Chong Joo 昌裕
秦邦憲 Chou En-lai 周恩來
Chin Seng Hong Co. 振成豐公司 Chou Han-mei 周寒梅
chin-shih 進士 Chow Chong-lin 周宗麟
Ch’in Shih Huang-ti 秦始皇帝 Chu Chia-hua 朱家驊
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
GLOSSARY 375
Chu Shao-liang 朱紹良 Feng Yü-hsiang 馮玉祥

Chu Teh 朱德 ‘feudal tomb garden’ 封建墓園
Chua Han-leong 蔡漢亮 Five-anti campaign 五反運動
Chua Kah-cheong 蔡嘉種 Foo Chew-keat 胡秋傑
Chua Mien-kuay 蔡綿溪 Foochow 福州
Chua Poh-chuan 蔡寶泉 Fu Mun-chew 胡文釗
Chua Toh-wah 蔡多華 Fu Tso-yi 傅作義
Chuang Hsin-tsai 莊心在
Chuang Hui-chuan 莊惠泉 Goh Keh-khiam 吳克儉
Chuang Ming-li 莊明理 Goh Loo Club 吾盧俱樂部
Chu-ko Liang 諸葛亮 Goh Shiok-neo 吳惜娘
chung 忠 Gob Soon-thong 吳順通
Chung Shing Jit Pau 中興日報 Golden Summit 金佛頂
Chungking 重慶 Great Learning 大學
Chung T’iao Shan 中條山 Guan Ann 源安
Comfort Mission to China
中國慰勞團 han-chien 漢奸
Committee System 委員制 Hau Say-huan 侯西反
Common Program 共同綱領 He Ch’i-pin 霍去病
Council System 總理制 Heng Bee 恆美
Cultural Revolution Hiap Ann 協安
文化大革命 Hiap Long Guan & Co.
協隆源公司
Doctrine of the Mean 中庸 Hinghuas 興化人
Dual Nationality Treaty Ho Hong Bank Ltd. 和豐銀行
雙重國籍問題條約 Ho Hong Steamship Co, Ltd.
和豐船務公司
Ee Ho Hean Club 怡和軒俱樂部 Ho Pao-jin, Dr 何葆仁
Eighth Route Army 八路軍 Ho See-koon 何思觀
‘Elder Brother’ 大哥 Ho Yen-pen 何衍品
erh-hsiao-chu 二校主 Ho Ying-ch’in 何應欽
Eu Tong-sen 余東璇 Hock Ann 復安
Hoi Thin Club 海天俱樂部
Fan Chung-yen 范仲淹 Hokchias 福清人
Fang 房 Hokkien Protection Fund
Fang Huai-nan 方懷南福建保安捐
‘February 15 Incident’ hsiao 孝
二、一五事件 Hsiao Chin-kuang 肖勁光

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
376 TAN KAH-KEE
Hsiao-tao Hui 小刀會 K’ang Yu-wei 康有爲

hsien-chih hsien-chüeh 先知先覺 Kao Ling-pai 高凌百
Hsi-hsing-man-chi 西行漫記 Kao Tzu-li 高自立
Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi Khek-nan-p’o 克難坡
新中國觀感集 Kheng Seng 慶成
Hsiung Shang-fu 熊尚父 Khiam Aik 謙益
Hsiung Shih-hui 熊式輝 Khiam Hong 謙豐
Hsüeh Yueh 薛岳 Khiam Thye 謙泰
Hsüeh Yung-shu 薛永黍 Khoo Cheng-tiong 邱正忠
Hu Han-min 胡漢民 Khoo Kok-wah 邱國瓦
Hu Shih, Dr 胡適 Khoo, V. K., Dr Wellington
Hu Shih-yüan 胡時淵顧維鈞
Hu Tsai-kuen, Dr 胡戴坤 Kim Sheng Bee 金勝美
Hu Tsung-nan 胡宗南 k’o-chi 克己
Hu Yu-chih 胡愈之 Ko Teck-kin 高德根
hua-ch’iao 華僑 Koh Kiat-seng 許潔成
hua-ch’iao ch’i-chih min-tsu kuang- Koh San-hin 許山興
hui 華僑旗幟民族光輝 Koo Chung-eng 顧俊英
Hua-ch’iao Museum 華僑博物館 k’ou-shih hsin-fei 口是心非
Hua Ch’ing palace 華清池 ‘Kreta Ayer Incident’ 牛車水事件
Huang Hsü-ch’u 黃旭初 Ku Chieh-kang 顧頡剛
Huang Shan 黃山 Ku Chu-t’ung 顧祝同
Huang Shao-hsiung 黃紹雄 Ku Hung-ming 辜鴻銘
Huang Ti 黃帝 Ku-sh’e district 固始縣
Huang Wen-fong 黃文豐 Kua-min hsiao-tsang 掛名校長
Huang Yen-p’ei 黃炎培 Kua-yang-t’ou mai-kou-ju
hui-kuan 會館掛羊頭賣狗肉
“Hundred Flower” campaign Kuan Ti Temple 關帝廟
百花齊放 Kuan Yü 關羽
Hung Hsiu-ch’üan 洪秀全 Kung, H. H. 孔祥熙
Kung-shih School 公時學校
i 毅 Kuomintang 國民黨
imperium in imperio 主權內之主權 Kuo Min Yit Poh 國民日報
Ito 藤田 Kwangtung Association
廣東會館
Jit Choon 日春 Kwangtung Protection Fund
Jit Sin 日新廣東保安捐
Joo Guan Co. 裕源公司 Kwek K’ai-sheng 郭開陞

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
GLOSSARY 377
Kwek Koh-chieh 郭可濟 Liau Chia-heng 廖正興

Kwong Wah Yit Poh 光華日報 Liau Thian-seh 廖天賜
lien 廉
Lain Wen-hua 粘文華 Lien Ying-chow 連瀛洲
Lao Ho K’ou 老河口 Lim Boh-seng 林謀盛
Lat Pau 叻報 Lim Bok-kee 林戊己
Lau Aik-kee 劉毓奇 Lim Boon-keng 林文慶
Lau Boh-tan 劉牡丹 Lim Cheong-ping 林昌平
Lau Geok-swee 劉玉水 Lim Chong-kuo 林忠國
Lee Cheng-chuan 李清泉 Lim Chong-pang 林忠邦
Lee Cheng-yen 李清淵 Lim Chwee-chian 林推遷
Lee Chin-tian 李振殿 Lim Chwee-gim 林翠錦
Lee Choon-eng 李春榮 Lim Ho-phua 林和坂
Lee Choon-seng 李俊承 Lim Kai-ching 林開臻
Lee Choon-guan 李俊源 Lim Kang-sek 林江石
Lee Eng-khoon 李榮坤 Lim Keng-lian 林慶年
Lee Giok-eng alias George Lee Lim Kian-pang 林建邦
李玉榮 Lim Kim-tian 林金殿
Lee Hau-shik alias Col. Sir Lim K’o-seng, Dr Robert 林可勝
Hau-shik Lee 李孝式 Lim Lian-tean 林連登
Lee Kong-chian 李光前 Lim Nee-soon 林義順
Lee Kuan-yew 李光耀 Lim Pang-gan 林邦彥
Lee Rubber Co. Ltd. Lim Peng-siang 林秉祥
南益樹膠有限公司 Lim Sen 林森
Lee Teng-hui 李登輝 Lira Shu-siam 林樹森
Lee Tian-yew 李天游 Lim Sih-ban 林師萬
Lee Tiat-ming 李鐵民 Lim Teck-foo 林德溥
Lee Wee-nam 李偉南 Lin Tse-hsü 林則徐
Leong Sin-nam 梁燊南 Lin Tsu-han 林祖涵
Lew Hong-sek 劉鴻石 Lin Yutang 林語堂
Li Han-hun 李漢魂 Liong Sau-san 梁少山
Li Hung-chang 李鴻章 Liu Chien-hsu 劉建緒
Li Leung-kie 李亮琪 Liu Pei 劉備
Li Shan 驪山 Liu Shao-ch’i 劉少奇
Li Ta-chao 李大釗 Liu Teng-theng 劉登鼎
Li Tsung-jen 李宗仁 Lo Kuan-chung 羅貫中
Li Wen-hsüeh 李文雪 Loh Poon-lip, Dr 羅本立
Liao Ch’eng-chih 廖承志 Loyang 洛陽

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
378 TAN KAH-KEE
Lu Hsün 魯迅 Nanyang Chinese Education

Lum Mun-tin 林文田 Association 南洋教育總會
Lungmen Caves 龍門石窟 Nanyang Chinese Normal College
南洋師範學校
Ma Pu-fang 馬步芳 Nanyang Communist Party
Malang, Java 瑪琅南洋共產黨
Malayan Chinese Association Nanyang Girls School
馬華公會南洋女子學校
Malayan Chinese Fund for the Nanyang Hokkien General
Purchase of Aeroplanes for Chiang Association 南洋閩僑總會
Kai-shek’s Birthday Nanyang Research Institute
馬華購機壽蔣總會南洋研究所
Malayan Communist Party Nanyang Siang Pau 南洋商報
馬來亞共產黨 nei-yu wai-huan 內憂外患
Malayan Emergency New China Daily 新華日報
馬來亞緊急狀態 New Democratic Youth Corps
Malayan Singapore Committee for 新民主青年團
Premier Chiang’s Birthday New Life Movement 新生活運動
Aeroplane Fund 星馬購機壽蔣 Ng Aik-huan 黃奕歡
委員會 Ng Ban-soo 黃曼士
Mao Tse-tung 毛澤東 Ng Kie-chek 黃奇策
‘Marco Polo Bridge Incident’ Ng Sing-phang 吳勝鵬
蘆溝橋事變 Ng Tan-kwee 黃丹季
May Fourth Movement 五四運動 Ng Tiong-kiat 黃重吉
men-wai-han 門外漢 Ng Yeh-lu 黃耶魯
Mencius 孟子 Nineteenth Route Army
Min Kuo Jih Pao 民國日報十九路軍
mou-pe yü-hu 謀皮於虎 nonyas 娘惹
Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi Oei Aik-yen 黃奕寅

南僑正論集 Oei Tiong-ham 黃仲涵
Nan Ch’iao Girls High School Oh Thiam-hock, Dr 胡添福
南僑女子中學 Omei Mountains 峨嵋山
Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu 南僑回憶錄 Ong Chuan-seng 王泉笙
Nan Chiau Jit Pao 南僑日報 Ong Guan-bock 王源木
Nan-hsüan ssu-shu 南軒私塾 Ong Keng-seng 王景成
Nan T’ien 南天酒樓 Ong Kiat-soo 王吉士
Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Co. Ong Sean-say 王聲世
南洋兄弟煙草公司 Ong, T.W. 王長輝

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
GLOSSARY 379
Oon Khye-hong 溫開封 San K’u T’ang 三顧堂

Oversea-Chinese Bank Ltd. San-kuo yen-i 三國演義
華僑銀行 San Min Chu I Youth Corps
Oversea-Chinese Banking 三民主義青年團
Corporation 華僑銀行有限公司 San-tzu-ching 三字經
Overseas Chinese Affairs See Boo-ih 薛武院
Commission 華僑事務委員會 See Hoot-kah 薛佛記
Overseas Chinese Affairs See Tiong-wah 薛中華
Committee 僑務委員會 Seow Poh-leng 蕭保齡
Overseas Chinese Anti-Enemy Shantung Relief Fund Committee
Backing-Up Society 華僑抗敵後山東籌賑會
援會 Shao Li-tze 邵力子
Ow Bin-tong 區冕堂 Shao Tsung-han 邵宗漢
sheng-chou-lu-ch’en 神州陸沈
Pai-chia-hsing 百家姓 Shih Ching-t’ang 石敬瑭
Pai Ch’ung-hsi 白崇禧 Shou Chia-chun 壽家駿
Pan Kuo-chu alias P’an Shou 潘受 Shu Han 蜀漢
P’an Yiu-chung 潘柔仲 shu-jan wo-min 素染惡名
‘P’an Yiu-chung Affair’ 潘柔仲事件 Si Hong-peng 施方平
pang 幫 ‘Sian Incident’ 西安事件
P’ei Feng School 培風學校 Siaw Chee-lai 蕭志來
People’s Liberation Army Sim Chu-kim 沈子琴
人民解放軍 Sing Cheng 信誠
People’s National Congress Sin Chew Jit Poh 星洲日報
人民代表大會 Sin Chew Reading Room
People’s Political Consultative 星洲書報社
Conference 人民政治協商會議 Sin Li Chuan 新利川
People’s Political Council Sing Kai Mow 新開茂
國民參政會 Sin Kuo Ming Press 新國民日報
Ping Chin-choa 聘岑照 Singapore Branch Lodge of the Kang
Po Chiak Keng Temple 保赤宮廟 Ho Tang of the Republic of China
Po Ku alias Ch’in Pang-hsien 博古中華共和黨駐新嘉坡支部兼交通
Poh Teng-kok 傅定國事務所
pu-ch’ih hsia-wen 不恥下問 Singapore Children Protection
Association Maintenance Fund
Quek Eng-lin 郭應麟籌助新加坡嬰兒保育會
Quek Shin 郭新 Singapore China Relief Fund
Quemoy 金門 Committee 星華籌賑會

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380 TAN KAH-KEE
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Straits Chinese China Relief Fund

Commerce 新加坡中華總商會 Committee of Singapore
Singapore Chinese Committee for the 新加坡海峽華人籌賑會
Salvation of China and Rescue of Straits Confucian Association
General Chiang 石叻孔教會
新加坡華僑救國援蔣會 Sun Ch’üan 孫權
Singapore Chinese Federation for Sun Yat-sen 孫中山
Peace and Democracy in China Sun Yat-sen, Madam
新加坡華人促進祖國和平民主孫中山夫人
聯合會 Sun Yat-sen Memorial Service
Singapore Chinese High School 孫中山追悼會
新加坡華僑中學 Syonan 昭南
Singapore Chinese Journalists’
Association 星華記者公會 Ta-chan yu nan-ch’iao
Singapore Chinese Mobilization 大戰與南僑
Council 新加坡華僑動員總會 Tack Ann 德安
Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ Tai Tong Canning Company
Association 新加坡華僑樹膠公會大同罐頭製造廠
Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Tan Ah-bah alias Tan Kuang-liang
Association 星華教師公會 and Tan T’ien-fu 陳亞峇
Singapore General Labour Union Tan Ah-hui 陳亞輝
新加坡各業職工會 Tan Ah-moi 陳亞妹
Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Tan Ai-eng 陳愛英
新加坡福建會館 Tan Al-lay 陳愛禮
Singapore Rubber Millers’ Tan Ban-ann 陳萬安
Association 新加坡樹膠廠商公會 Tan Beng-tin 陳明津
Small Sword Society 小刀會 Tan Boon-khak 陳文確
Sng Choon-yee 孫崇瑜 Tan Boon-swee 陳文瑞
Soh Ghee-soon 蘇義順 Tan Chay-bing 陳濟民
Soo Tong-ing 蘇棠影 Tan Chay-yan 陳齊賢
Soon Ann 順安 Tan Ch’ang-ch’eng 陳長城
Soon Ch’u She 孫厝社 Tan Ch’ang-hsiu 陳長修
Soon Peng-yam 孫炳炎 Tan Ch’ang-ling 陳長齡
Southseas China Relief Fund Tan Cheng-lock alias Sir
Union 南僑籌賑總會 Cheng-lock Tan 陳禎祿
Spirit of Tan Kah-kee Tan Cheng-siong 陳禎祥
陳嘉庚精神 Tan Chien-chi 陳簪聚
Straits Chinese British Tan Chiew-cha 陳秋槎
Association 海峽華人公會 Tan Chin-hian 陳振賢

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
GLOSSARY 381
Tan Chin-tuan 陳振傳 Tan Sau-chi 陳肇基

Tan Ching-kiat 陳清吉 Tan Sheng-heng 陳盛衡
Tan Chor-nam 陳楚楠 Tan Shih-king 陳時欽
Tan Chwee-pang 陳水蚌 Tan Shih-yu 陳士友
Tan Ean-khiam 陳延謙 Tan Siak-ch’ing 陳錫清
Tan Eng-ghee 陳永義 Tan Siak-kew 陳錫九
Tan Eng-guan 陳永遠 Tan Siang-ching 陳先進
Tan Eng-kan 陳纓斟 Tan Sin-pan 陳新盤
Tan Eng-tiong 陳纓忠 Tan Soo-kiok 陳賜曲
Tan Guan-aik 陳元翼 Tan Teck-hai 陳澤海
Tan Guan-chay 陳元濟 Tan Teow-kee 陳肇基
Tan Guan-khai 陳元凱 Tan T’ien-chi 陳天乞
Tan Hi-soo 陳煦士 Tan T’ien-fu, alias Tan Ah-bah and
Tan Hing-kow 陳肯構 Tan Kuang-liang 陳天福
Tan Jiak-kim 陳若錦 Tan T’ien-lu 陳天祿
Tan Kah-kee (Ch’en Chia-keng) Tan Tock-seng 陳篤生
陳嘉庚 Tan Wei-chi 陳諱基
Tan Kee-peck 陳杞柏 Tan Yeok-seong 陳育崧
Tan Keng-hean 陳敬賢 Tanaka Memorial 田中奏折
Tan Keong-choon 陳共存 T’ang Hsüan-tsung 唐玄宗
Tan Khuat-siong 陳厥祥 T’ang Po-t’ao 湯伯濤
Tan Kim-ching 陳金鐘 Tang Siong-phua 湯祥藩
Tan Kim-seng 陳金聲 Tao Nan School 道南學校
Tan Kok-chieh 陳國節 tao-hsing nieh-shih 倒行逆施
Tan Kok-kheng 陳國慶 Ta-p’u spirit 大埔精神
Tan Kok-whye 陳國懷 Tay Koh-yat 鄭古悅
Tan Kuang-liang, alias Tan Ah-bah Tay Lian-teck 鄭連德
and Tan T’ien-fu 陳光亮 Tay Sek-tin 鄭聘廷
Tan Kwee-chian 陳貴濺 Teng Ts’ui-ying 鄧萃英
Tan Lai-choo 陳麗珠 Teng Ying-ch’ao 鄧穎超
Tan Lai-ho 陳麗好 Teo Eng-hock 張永福
Tan Lark-sye 陳六使 Teo Kai-chuan 張開川
Tan, Mary 陳瑪莉 Teo Leong-tuan 張兩端
Tan Meng-keng 陳孟庚 Teo Po-ke 張寶果
Tan Poh-tee 陳保治 Teo Sian-keng 張善慶
Tan Pok-ai 陳博愛 Teo Soon-sian 張順善
Tan Pok-chay 陳博濟 Teochew (Poit Ip) Huay Kuan
Tan Sam-toh 陳三多潮州八邑會館

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382 TAN KAH-KEE
Thean Hock Keong Hokkien Huay tzu-lu wei-ma 指鹿爲馬

Kuan 天福宮福建會館 Twenty One Demands
Thean Hock Keong Temple 二十一條
天福宮廟
Thong Bee 通美 Union Times 總匯新報
Thoughts of Mao Tse-tung Wang Cheng-t’ing 王正廷
毛澤東思想 Wang Ching-wei 汪精衛
Three People’s Principles Wang Ming, alias Ch’en Shao-yu
三民主義王明
Three-thirds System 三三制 Wee Cho-hsian 黃卓善
T’iao-ho-fa 調和法 Wei Ch’ing 衛青
t’ien-hsia hsing-wang p’e-fu yu-tse Wei Li-huang 魏立煌
天下興亡匹夫有責 wen-yen 文言
Tiong Nam Co. Rubber Mill Wo Lung Kang 臥龍崗
中南公司樹膠廠 Wong Nai-siong 黃乃裳
Tjhung Sie-gan 莊西言 Wong Yen-chee 王炎之
Tong Chai Medical Institution Wong Yik-tong, Dato 黃益堂
同濟醫院 Wooi Woo-yan 黃有淵
Treaty of Shimonoseki Wu, Emperor 漢武帝
馬關條約 Wu Chin-sheng 吳晉陞
Towkay kia 頭家仔 Wu I Mountains 武夷山
Ts’ai Kung-shih 蔡公時 Wu Lien-teh 伍連德
Ts’ai Kung-shih, Madam Wu P’ei-fu 吳佩孚
蔡公時夫人 Wu San-kuei 吳三桂
Ts’ai T’ing-k’ai 蔡廷楷 Wu T’ieh-ch’eng 吳鐵城
Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei 蔡元培 Wu Yu-chang 吳玉章
Ts’ao Ts’ao 曹操
Tseng-chia-yen 曾家巖 Yang Cheng School 養正學校
‘Tsinan Incident’ 濟南慘案 Yang-chia-ting 楊家嶺
T’ung An 同安 Yang Kuei-fei 楊貴妃
T’ung An Association 同安會館 Yang Sheng-hwa 楊惺華
T’ung An Education Association Yap Geok-twee 葉玉堆
同安教育會 Yap Kheok-neo 葉却娘
T’ung An spirit 同安精神 Yap Pheng-geck, Dr 葉平玉
Tung Meng Hui (United League) Yap Tua-pow 葉大炮
同盟會 Yeh Chien-ying 葉劍英
Tung Pi-wu 董必武 Yeh T’ing 葉挺
Tung Teh Reading Room Yeh Yüan 葉淵
同德書報社 Yen Hsi-shan 閻錫山

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
GLOSSARY 383
Yenan 延安 Yong Yik-lin 楊溢璘

Yenan spirit 延安精神 Yü Han-mou 余漢謀
Yeo Chan-boon 楊纘文 Yu Ta-fu 郁達夫
Yeo Khay-thye 楊開泰 Yüan Shih-k’ai 袁世凱
Yeo Lark-sye 楊六使 yüan-yuan liu-ch’ang 淵源流長
Yeo Tiong-swee 楊長水 Yung An 永安
Yin Suat-chuan 殷雪村 Yung Ch’un district 永春

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
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JMBRAS, Vol. 45, Pt. 2, 1972.
________, Social Engineering in Singapore, Singapore, Singapore University
Press, 1978.
Wong, C. S., A Gallery of Chinese Kapitans, Singapore, Ministry of Culture,
1963.
Wong Lin Ken, The Malayan Tin Industry to 1914, Tucson, The University of
Arizona Press, 1965.
________, ‘Singapore: Its Growth as an Entrepot Port, 1819–1914’, JSEAS, Vol.
11, No. 1, March 1978.
Wright, A., and Cartwright, H. A., eds., Twentieth Century Impressions of British
Malaya: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources, London,
Lloyd’s Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908.
Wu Tieh-ch’eng, ‘Contributions from Overseas Chinese during the War’, China
Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4, Autumn 1940.
Wu Tien-wei, The Sian Incident: A Pivotal Point in Modern Chinese History, Ann
Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1976.
Yap Pheng Geck, Scholar, Banker, Gentleman Soldier, Singapore, Times Books
International, 1982.
Yen Ching-hwang, ‘Ch’ing’s Sale of Honours and the Chinese Leadership
in Singapore and Malaya, 1877–1912’, JSEAS, Vol. 1, No. 2, September
1970.
________, ‘The Confucian Revival Movement in Singapore and Malaya, 1899–
1911’, “JSEAS”, Vol. 7, No. 1, March 1976.
________, The Overseas Chinese and the 1911 Revolution, Kuala Lumpur,
Oxford University Press, 1976.
________, ‘Overseas Chinese Nationalism in Singapore and Malaya, 1877–
1912’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1982.
________, Coolies and Mandarins: China’s Protection of Overseas Chinese dur-
ing the Late Ch’ing Period (1851–1911), Singapore, Singapore University
Press, 1985.
Yeo Kim Wah, Political Development in Singapore, 194S–1955, Singapore,
Singapore University Press, 1973.
________, ‘The Communist Challenge in the Maiayan Labour Scene, September
1936–March 1937’, JMBRAS, Vol. 49, Pt. 2, 1976.
________, The Politics of Decentralization, Colonial Controversy in Malaya,
1920–1929, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1982.

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Yong, C, F., ‘A Preliminary Study of Chinese Leadership in Singapore, 1900–

1941’, JSEAH, Vol. 9, No. 2, September 1968.
________, ‘Patterns and Traditions of Loyalty in the Chinese Community in
Singapore, 1900–1941’, The New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 4, No. 1,
April 1970.
________, ‘Emergence of Chinese Community Leaders in Singapore, 1890–
1941’, JSSS, Vol. 30, Pts 1 & 2, December 1975.
________, ‘Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Singapore dur-
ing the 1930s’, JSEAS, Vol. 8, No. 2, September 1977.
________, ‘Pang, Pang Organization and Leadership in the Chinese Community
of Singapore during the 1930s’, JSSS, Vol. 32, Pts 1 & 2, 1977.
________, ed., ‘Special Issue — Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia’, JSEAS, Vol.
12, No, 1, March 1981.
________, ‘Rivalry between the New and Old Chinese Chambers of Commerce
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________, ‘Some Thoughts on the Creation of a Singaporean Identity among the
Chinese: The Pre-PAP Phase, 1945–1949’, Review of Southeast Asian Studies,
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________, ‘British Attitudes toward the Chinese Community Leaders in
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________, and McKenna, R. B., ‘The Kuomintang Movement in Malaya and
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II Chinese-Language Sources
A Records and Papers on the Tan Family and Clan
Ch’en Chia-keng (posthumously), connotated by Ch’en Yi-ming (陳毅明),

‘I-chiu ssu-ssu-nien tsai In-ni Batu’ (一九四四年在印尼峇株 ), Ch’uanchou
Wen-shih (泉州文史), No. 5, October 1981, pp. 89–97.
Tan Kah-kee himself had also published three books and three booklets in his
own lifetime, the most substantial ones being: Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu (南僑回憶

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
394 TAN KAH-KEE
錄), Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi (陳嘉庚言論集) and Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-

kan-chi (新中國觀感集).
Tan Keng-hean’s Correspondence (陳敬賢通訊) (unpublished), dating from 17
December 1923 to 1 June 1927, runs into some 600 pages in six volumes.
Tan Khuat-siong (陳厥祥), ed., Chi Mei Chih (集美誌), reprint, Hong Kong,
Chiyu Banking Corporation Ltd., 1963.
Yong, C.F., ed., Tan Kah Kee in pre-war Singapore: Selected Documents and
Analysis (戰前的陳嘉庚言論史料與分析), Singapore, South Seas Society, 1980.
B Published Documents
Ch’en Chia-keng hsien-sheng chi-nien-ts’e (陳嘉庚先生紀念冊), Peking, AIl-

China Returned Overseas Chinese Association, 1962.
Ch’en Chin-hsien hsien-sheng chi-nien-k’an (陳敬賢先生紀念冊), Amoy, 1936
(publisher unknown).
Chung-hua-min~kuo k’ai-kuo wu-shih-nien wen-hsien (中華民國開國五十年文
獻), Vol. 1, Ko-ming yuan-liu yü ko-min yün-tung (革命源流與革命運動), No.
11, Taipei, Chung-yang tang-shih-hui, 1963.
Ee Ho Hean Club Constitution (怡和軒俱樂部章程), Singapore, Ee Ho Hean
Ctub, 1924.
Fukien shih-li Chi-mei-hsüeh-hsiao hsiao-chu Ch’en ch’uang-pan Hsia-men-ta-
hsüeh yen-chiang-tz’u (福建私立集美學校校主陳倡辦廈門大學演講詞),
Amoy, Tan Kah-kee, 1919.
Hou Hsi-fan ai-ssu-lu (侯西反哀思錄), Singapore, Singapore Nanyang Publishing
Co., 1947.
Hsia-ta T’e-k’an (廈大特刊), Amoy, Amoy University, 1948.
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hsin-lu ho-k’an (新嘉坡中華商務總會丙午丁未兩年徵信錄合刊), Singapore,
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, 1908.
Hsin-chia-p’o Nanyang hua-ch’iao-chung-hsüeh-hsiao chen-hsin-lu ho-p’ien (新
加坡南洋華僑中學校徵信錄合編), Singapore, Singapore Chinese High
School, 1921.
Hsin-chia-p’o shu-chiao-kung-hui nien-chien (新嘉坡樹膠公會年鑑), Singapore,
Rubber Trade Association of Singapore, 1957.
Hsing-chou shih-nien (星洲十年), Singapore, Sin Chew Jit Poh Press, 1940.
Lin Po-ai (林博愛), et al., Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan (南洋名人集傳), Penang,
Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan pien-chi-ch’u, 1924.
_______, Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan (南洋名人集傳), Vol. 2, No. 1, Penang,
Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan pien-chi-ch’u, 1924.

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Nanyang min-shih tsüan-hsiu-so, 1928.
_______, Nanyang min-jen chi-chuan (南洋名人集傳), Vol. 4, Penang, Nanyang
min-shih tsüan-hsiu-so, 1929.
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(Singapore), No. 1–10, 1956.
Nan-ch’iao cheng-lun-chi (南僑正論集), Singapore, Southseas China Relief
Fund Union, 1948.
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Nanyang Year Book 1951 (南洋年鑑), Singapore, Nanyang Siang Pau Press, 1951.
P’an Hsing-nung (潘醒農), ed., The Teo-chews in Malaya (馬來亞潮僑通鑑),
Singapore, Nan-tao ch’u-pan-she, 1950.
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(新加坡中華總商會會議紀錄，一九O六年至一九四一年).
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Su Hsiao-hsien (蘇孝先), ed, Changchou shih-shu lü-hsing t’ung hsiang-lu (漳
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Union, 1947.
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Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co., 1981.
Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 22nd Staff Consultative meeting of branches and
the rubber manufactory, 15 December 1932 (陳嘉庚有限公司本坡各分行及總
行各廠第廿二次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd., 1932.
Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 23rd Staff Consultative meeting of branches
and the rubber manufactory, 15 January 1933 (新嘉坡陳嘉庚有限公司本坡
各分行及總行各廠第廿三次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co.
Ltd., 1933.
Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 25th Staff Consultative meeting of branches and
the rubber manufactory, 15 March 1933 (新嘉坡陳嘉庚有限公司本坡各分行及
總行各廠第廿五次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd., 1933.
Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 26th Staff Consultative meeting of branches
and the rubber manufactory, 15 April 1933 (新嘉坡陳嘉庚有限公司本坡各
分行及總行各廠第廿六次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee & Co.
Ltd., 1933.

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Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 32nd Staff Consultative meeting of branches
and the rubber manufactory, 15 October 1933 (新嘉坡陳嘉庚有限公司本坡
各分行及總行各廠第三十二次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee &
Co. Ltd., 1933.
Tan Kah Kee & Co. Ltd. Minutes of 33rd Staff Consultative meeting of branches
and the rubber manufactory, 15 November 1933 (新嘉坡陳嘉庚有限公司本
坡各分行及總行各廠第三十三次聯席會議記錄), Singapore, Tan Kah Kee &
Co. Ltd., 1933.
Teo Eng-hock (張永福), Nanyang yü Ch’uang-li min-kuo (南洋與創立民國),
Shanghai, Chung-hua shu-chu, 1933.
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濟醫院一百周年紀念特刊), Singapore, Tong Chai Medical Institution, 1967.
Who’s Who in the Far Eastern Archipelago (遠東人物誌), Vol. 2, Penang, Yuan-
tung min shih tsüan-hsiu-so, 1934.
C Contemporary Sources: Chinese Newspapers
Chung Shing Jit Pao (中興日報), 1947–50

Kuo Min Yit Poh (國民日報), 1914–19
Kwong Wah Yit Poh (光華日報), 1947–9
Lat Pau (叻報), 1887–1932
Min Kuo Jih Pao (民國日報), 1930–4
Nam Kew Poo (南僑日報), 1911–14
Nan Chiau Jit Pao (南僑日報), 1946–50
Nanyang Siang Pau (南洋商報), 1923–56
Sin Chew Jit Poh (星洲日報), 1929–41; 1953–6
Sin Kuo Min Press (新國民日報), 1919–29
Sing Po (Chinese Daily News, 星報), 1890–9
The China Press (中國報), 1946–7
The Union Times (南洋總匯新報), 1909–14
The Union Times (南洋總匯新報), 1915–31
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D Books and Published Papers
Chang Ch’u-k’un (張楚琨), ‘Ch’en Chia-keng yü “Nan Chiau Jit Pao”’

(陳嘉庚與南僑日報), Wen-shih tzu-liao hsüan-chi (文史資料選輯), No. 78,
1982.

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________, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng yü Fukien pao-an-chien’ (陳嘉庚與福建保安捐),
SCJP, 25 June 1980.
________, ‘Ch’en Chia-keng yü ch’uang-pan hua-chung erh-san shih’ (陳嘉庚與
創辦華中二三事), SCJP, 7 July 1980.
________, ‘Lim Chwee-chian’ (林推遷), SCJP, 10 August 1980.
________, ed., Tan Kah Kee in pre-War Singapore: Seleted Documents and
Analysis (戰前的陳嘉庚言論史料與分析), Singapore, South Seas Society,
1980.
________, ‘Chan-ch’ien ti Ch’en Chia-keng yü Tao-nan hsüeh hsiao (戰前的陳
嘉庚與道南學校), SCJP, 28 June 1982.
________, ‘Chan-ch’ien ti Ch’en Chia-keng yü hsin-hua Kuo-min-tang’
(戰前的陳嘉庚與星華國民黨), SCJP, 20 December 1982.
________, ‘Chui-lan-t’ing shih-ch’i ti Ee Ho Hean chi-lo-pu’ (翠蘭亭時期的怡
和軒俱樂部), Lianhe Zaobao (聯合早報), 28 March 1983.
________, ‘Shih-chiu shih-chi hsin-hua min-pang pang-ling chih i — Ch’en Chi-
p’o’ (十九世紀星華閩幫幫領之一——陳杞柏), Lianhe Zaobao, 13 June
1983.
________, ‘Huang i-huan hsien-sheng’ (黃奕歡先生), Lianhe Zaobao,
2 November 1985, 4 November 1985.
________, ‘Ch’en Chin-hsien hsien-sheng chuan-lueh (1889–1936)’ (陳敬賢先
生傳略, 1889–1936), SCJP, 20 January 1986.

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
Index
Ai Tong School, 106, 137, 329 Anti-Manchu nationalism, 16–7

Aid-to-Britain campaign, 286 Anti-opium campaign, 134
Aik Ho (Rubber) Co., 72, 116, 161 Ao Garden, 1, 351–2, 359n
Akashi, Yoji, xxiii Atlantic Charter, 286, 314
All China Returned Overseas Chinese Auden, W.H., 278
Association (ACROCA), 344 August 13 Incident, 206
Americans Quit China campaign, Aw Boon-haw, 64, 113; leadership
324 contest with T., 186–92, 194, 197,
Amoy, 15–7, 19, 52, 68, 349 310–1
Amoy University, 13, 96–102, 344, Aw Boon-par, 113
349–51, 366–7; financing of, 54, Aw Long-man, 310
56, 63, 68, 70, 98–111, 115, 116, Ayer Itam Para Rubber Plantation, 46
120, 172, 182, 296, 299, 353, 361,
365–7, 371; rebuilding projects, Batavia, 296, 299
349–50; student unrest, 101–4; Batavia China Relief Fund, 218
T’s visit, 274–5; takeover by Battle of Palembang (1947), 313
Nanking government, 69, 99, 194, Bell trademark, 64
370 Biographical Dictionary of
Amoy University Maintenance Fund, Republican China, xxiii
111 Blade, A.E.G., 339
An Ch’i district, 15; map 14 Boorman, Howard L., xxiii
Anderson, Sir John, 100 Boxer Protocol, 3
Anglo-Chinese School, Changchou, Boxer Rebellion (1900), 3
105 Britain, British: and T., 332–7;
Anglo-Chinese School, Singapore, 340–1; colonial rule, 6, 9–12;
89, 106 dossier on T., 333–4; dual loyalty,
Anhwei Army, 344 340–1, 366; emergence of
Anti-Dutch boycott, 314 immigrant Chinese leaders, 40;
Anti-Enemy Backing-up Society fund-raising campaigns for, 285–6;
(AEBUS), 212–4, 224, 234 Political control, 7, 158, 190, 194;
401
B1493_Index.indd 401 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
402 TAN KAH-KEE
and Kuomintang, 282; withdrawal Ch’en Chia-keng hua-t’se, 353

from Singapore, 293 (see also Ch’en Chia-keng yen-lun-chi, xxi
British Malayan, campaign; T’s Ch’en Chiung-ming, 98, 157
relations with the British) Ch’en Chong-khong, 243
British intervention (1874), 8 Ch’en Kung-po, 29
British Malayan campaign, 286–7; Ch’en Li-fu, 257
role of Chinese in, 287–93; 316–7 Ch’en Min-shu, 193
Bukit Ho Swee fire, 108 Ch’en Pi-sheng, xxiii, 371
Burma, 236–7, 275–6, 278, 347 Ch’en Po-ta, 1, 250
Burma Road, 266, 275; closure of, Ch’en Pu-lei, 263
260; inspection by T., 275–6; Ch’en Shao-pin, 359n
repatriation of Chinese, 311–2; Ch’en Tu-hsiu, 101
working conditions, 275, 278 Ch’en Yi, General, 1
Ch’en Yi, Governor of Fukien, 272;
‘Cable Crisis’, 123, 321–5, 360 appointment to Executive Yuan,
‘Cable motion’ affair, 123, 223, 243 283; as governor of Taiwan, 283;
Cantonese, 10, 11, 131, 181, 211 campaign for removal, 283, 326;
‘Captain’ system, 130 execution, 284
Cartwright, H.A., 57 ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’, 143–4, 272–6;
Central People’s Government, revival of, 325–6; South-East
Peking, 339 campaigns, 277, 283
Chan Kang-swi, 109, 112–3 Cheng Ann, 22
Chan, S.J., 190 Cheng Ch’eng-kung, 16–7
Chang Chih-chung, 263 Cheng, Homer, 335
Chang Ch’u-k’un, 31, 218–9, 241, 282, Cheng Liang, xxii
293; on frontline conditions, 239 Cheng Te-k’un, 104
Chang Fa-k’uei, General, 267, 307 Chengtu, 243–4, 259
Chang Hsüeh-liang, 202–4 Chew Hean-swee, 31, 36; and T., 109,
Chang T’ai district, 15; map 14 115, 141, 160, 170–2, 185, 222;
Ch’ang T’ing, 273–4 kinship connections, 109, 115, 128n
Ch’angan, see Sian Chew Lian-seng, 36, 109
Changchou prefecture, 10, 15–6, 267 Chew Wah Lim Club, 176n
Changsha, 268 Ch’i Fa School, 106
Chee Seng, 72, 74 Chi Kung Tang, 332
Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, xxiii Chi Mei, 15–6, 18–9, 68, 90; schools,
Ch’en Chia-keng hsing-sheng 49, 96–9 (see also Chi Mei
chi-nien-t’se, xxii Schools); map, 14; T’s visits to,
Ch’en Chia-keng hsing-hsüeh chi, xxiii 272–3, 339; welfare funds, 353
B1493_Index.indd 402 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 403
Chi Mei-Amoy Causeway, 349 China Press, 327

Chi Mei Finance and Economics Chinese: and Japanese atrocities, 310;
School, 351 and boycott of Japanese goods,
Chi Mei High School, 91–2, 351 184, 191, 195, 210, 212, 214; in
Chi Mei Liberation Monument, 351–2 Singapore, 9–13 (see also
Chi Mei Schools, 116, 361, 365–7; Hua-ch’iao and Straits-born
establishment of, 47, 90–5, 370; Chinese)
maintenance costs, 70; mainte- Chinese Advisory Board, 6, 121, 130
nance of, 54, 63, 68–9, 71, 97–9, Chinese Assembly Hall, 153
344, 353; rebuilding projects, Chinese Association, 147–9, 152–3,
349–5, 353 368
Chia Thian-hock, 140, 160 Chinese Civil War (1946–9), 4, 30,
Chiang Ching-kuo, 268–9 123, 326–7, 338; anti-war
Chiang Kai-shek, 3, 30, 115, 119–20, movement, 326–7; beginning of,
157, 182, 200, 202, 204, 220, 223; 320; causes, 299; foreign
affection for T., 264; and ‘Ch’en Yi interference, 319–22, 342; impact
Affair’, 272–6, 284; and Chinese on hua-ch’iao, 321–30; monument,
Civil War, 4, 318–9; and Comfort 351–2; result of, 336
Mission, 238, 240, 245, 257, Chinese Commercial Bank (CCB),
262–5, 279; campaign against, 8, 47, 73
327, 329, 332–3; defeat of, 4, 336; Chinese Communist Party, 240, 250,
early relations with T., 122–3, 276, 333, 338; military strength, 253
280; elected President, 331; (see also Kuomintang-communist
kidnapped, 202–4 conflict)
Chiang Ting-wen, 257 Chinese High School, 87–9, 95, 106,
Chiang Ying-p’u, 88 111–3, 116, 133, 172, 218–9, 365,
Chin Ho & Co., 114 367; student unrest, 95
Ch’in K’uai, 223 Chinese immigrants, see Hua-ch’iao
Ch’in Pang-hsien, 241 Chinese Merchants General Chamber
Chin-chia hsing-hsüeh, 105, 367 of Commerce (New Chamber),
Chin Seng Hong, 72, 74 146, 156
China: foreign relations, 2–4; rubber Chinese National Emancipation
industry, 64; unification of, 35, Vanguard Corps (CNEVC), 171,
182–3 (see also Chinese nationalism 172, 212–4, 224, 226–7, 238
and People’s Republic of China) Chinese nationalism: British policy
China Democratic League, 119, towards, 190, 194–7, 199, 236,
319–20, 323, 325, 328, 332, 334–5, 308, 332–3; early beginnings, 2–5;
343; banned, 328 in Malaya, 200–1; national day
B1493_Index.indd 403 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
404 TAN KAH-KEE
celebrations, 323–4; politicization Ch’uanchou prefecture, 10, 15; and

of hua-ch’iao, 205–14, 320–32 Comfort Mission, 272; economy,
(see also Singapore China Relief 16; employees from, 59
Fund Committee; Southseas China Chuang Hsin-tsai, 280
Relief Fund Union); in Singapore, Chuang Ming-li, 271, 338, 359n
164–5, 167, 182, 184–5, 199 (see Chulalongkorns, King, 136
also Japanese boycott; Singapore Chung Nan School, 106
Kuomintang) Chung Shing Jit Pau, 120, 332, 335
Chinese Protection Association, Chung Wah Girls School, 106
313–4 Chungking, 3, 236, 238, 239–43, 255
Chinese Revolution (1911), Chungking government,
see Double-tenth Revolution see Kuomintang; Chiang Kai-shek
Chinese Revolutionary Party, 157 Churchill, Sir Winston, 224, 286
Chinese Secret Societies, 7, 11–12 Clark Kerr, Sir A., 282
Chinese Secretariat, 6, 121, 138, 147, Clementi, Sir Cecil, 57, 74, 113, 157,
152, 216 199; action against T., 194–7; and
Chinese war memorial, 311 Tanaka Memorial Affair, 168–9;
Chong Fook Girls School, 87 and tariff legislation, 75
Chong Joo, 74 Clifford, Sir Hugh, 57
Chou En-lai, 1, 5, 241, 246, 248, 337; Cohen, Morris A., 281
negotiations with Kuomintang, Comfort Mission to China, 84, 236–76;
260–1; and Sian Incident, 203; and in Chungking, 238–43; end of, 265;
T., 337, 341, 349, 353 expenditure, 238–9; Kuomintang’s
Chou Han-mei, 280 obstructive tactics, 246–7 (see also
Chou, Madam, 36 Kuomintang-communist conflict);
Chu Chia-hua, 239, 263, 265 objectives, 236, 269; route and map,
Chu Shao-liang, General, 245 235; significance, 255–6, 285, 300,
Chu Teh, 246, 248–9, 253–4, 260–1, 310, 364
337, 341; on Kuomintang- Commerce and education, 118–9
communist conflict, 250–1; at T’s Common Program, 346
funeral, 1 Communism: British policy toward, 12,
Chu-ko Liang, 244, 258, 263 212–3; equality in, 250; in Malaya,
Chu-wu yü wei-sheng, xxi 200–1; impressions of T., 250–3,
Chua Han-leong, 115 256, 321; in Straits Settlements,
Chua Kah-cheong, 140 11–2; and Yenan regime, 261
Chua Mien-kuay, 136 Confucianism: attacked, 101–2; in
Chua Toh-wah, 150 Singapore, 159; and T., 26–7, 83,
Ch’uanchou P’ei-yuan 86, 94, 159, 266, 285, 360–1
High School, 105 Cultural Revolution, 353, 369
B1493_Index.indd 404 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 405
Democratic Alliance, 324–5, 326–7, Fang Huai-nan, 118, 182

332 ‘February 15 Incident’(1946), 315–6
Despatch on the Malayan campaign, Federated Malay States, 7
316–7 Federation of Malaya: constitution,
Dickinson, A.H., 287–90, 292 315
Double-tenth celebrations, 323–4, Feldwick, W.: on T’s economic
335 success, 58
Double-tenth Revolution (1911), 133, Feng Yü-hsiang, 307
146, 180, 187 First World War, 3, 50, 53, 62
Drummond, R.W.S., 76 Five-anti campaign (1952), 346
Dual Nationality Treaty (1955), 348 Foo Chew-keat, 310
Dutch, 17; in Indonesia, 312–4 Foochow prefecture, 2, 15; fall to
Japanese, 284; Japanese embargo
Eber and Chan, 64 of, 271; reservoirs, 349
Education: Chinese schools in Foochow Normal School, 91
Singapore, 86–9; English language, Four Modernization Programs, 369
89; financing of, 86–9, 95–8, Ford, Henry, 60, 70, 277
104–5; in Fukien, 90–6 (see also Fu Tso-yi, General, 245, 307
Chi Mei); and modernization of Fukien: transportation system, 271–4;
China, 89, 96, 98, 367; legislation, economic development, 348–9;
7; T’s post-war achievements, 312 educational reconstruction, 348–50;
(see also T’s education expenditure) independence movements, 180,
Education Promotion Board, Chi 199; people’s grievances, 271–4;
Mei, 94–5 railway, 348; socio-political
Ee Ho Hean Club, xxiv, 28–9, 31–2, conditions, 271–2, 279 (see also
35, 77, 139, 149–50, 161, 167–9, ‘Ch’en Yi Affair’); T’s return to,
181, 288, 306, 313, 323, 326, 336, 270–4; taxation system, 276–7
341, 362; and China politics, 129, Fukien and Kwangtung Flood Relief
167–8, 184–91, 195, 198, 208, 214; Fund, 107–8, 172
constitution of, 163–4; history of, Fukien Commercial School, 105
162–6; library, 83; membership, Fukien Transport Company, 271–2
169; social activities, 164–5; T’s
room at, 25, 344 Gambier trade, 46
Eighth Route Army, 246 Gammans, Mr. 317
Eu Tong-sen, 85, 190 Gan Eng-seng, 162
Executive Yüan, 216 Gimson, Sir, F., 339
Goh Loo Club, 310
Fairbairn, J.E., 324 Goodman, A.M., 32, 138, 167, 169,
Fan Chung-yen, 202, 361–2 190; and Japanese boycott, 184;
B1493_Index.indd 405 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
406 TAN KAH-KEE
and Tanaka Memorial Affair, 169, Ho Ying-ch’in, General, 263

194; on Shantung Relief Fund, 190 Hock Ann, 22
Goh Keh-khiam, 48 Hock Shan Plantation, 44–6
Goh Shiok-neo, 36 Hoi Thin Club, 107, 211
Goh Soon-thong, 296 Hokkien Huay Kuan, xxiv, 133, 135,
Great Depression (1930), 73–6, 111; 171, 312, 336, 363–4, 367–8;
effect on rubber industry, 62, 74; achievements, 141–3; and ‘Ch’en
impact on T., 61–2, 67, 80n; Yi Affair’, 143–4, 325; and China
protective tariffs, 74–5 politics, 143, 168, 194, 325–32;
‘Great Leap Forward’ movement, 345 management of pang schools,
Guan Ann, 22 137–8; office-bearers, 140; power
Guillemard, Lady, 108 structure, 139–42; reformation of,
Guillemard, Sir Laurence, 100, 113, 137–9, 141, 174n; struggle for
157 control of, 330
Hokkien Protection Fund, 129, 133,
Hainanese, 10, 129, 131 172, 180; organization and
Hakka, 10, 78n, 89, 125 operations, 180–1; significance to
Han Suyin, 342 T., 181
Harbour and Marine Relief Fund, 188 Hokkiens, 10–11, 129–33, 220;
Harmonizing System, economic domination by, 45,
see T’iao-ho-fa 131–2, and rubber industry, 362;
Hau Say-huan, 31–2, 69, 160, Southern, 16–7
169–72, 202, 222; on Comfort Hong Kong Chinese Chamber of
Mission, 243, 245–6, 249–51, Commerce, 337
259–60, 263–4; deported, 226–8, Hsi-hsing-man-chi, 238, 256
234; in Fukien, 271; and Hokkien Hsiao-tao hui (Small Sword Society),
Huay Kuan, 140; and T., 31, 117, 17
160, 169, 171–2, 276; tour of South- Hsin-chung-kuo kuan-kan-chi, xxii,
west China, 266; in Yenan, 249–56 342
Heng Bee, 46 Hsiung Shang-fu, 88
Herose, F. G., 67 Hsiung Shih-hui Governor, 269–70
Hiap Ann, 22 Hsu, Immanuel C.Y., 284
Ho Hong Bank Ltd (HHB), 53, 73, Hsüeh Yueh, General, 268, 307
112, 192 Hsüeh Yung-shu, 320
Ho Hong group of companies, 40 Hu Han-min, 158
Ho Hong Steamship Co. Ltd., 52, 73 Hu Shih, Dr., 101
Ho Pao-jin, Dr., 113, 139, 140–1, Hu Shih-yüan, 273
222, 225 Hu Tsai-kuen, Dr., 141
B1493_Index.indd 406 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 407
Hu Tsung-nan, General, 251 ‘January 28 Incident’, 198–9

Hu Yu-chih, 31, 320, 322–3, 356n; Japan: attacks on Shanghai, 198–9;
attempt to deport, 282, 334; boycott of Japanese goods, 184,
evacuation from Singapore (1942), 191, 195, 210, 212, 214; operations
393 (see also China Democratic in Manchuria, 197; rubber industry,
League; Nan Chiau Jit Pao) 64; Singapore under attacks, 286,
Hua-ch’iao, 9–12; and Chinese Civil 293, 295; surrender, 299; war with
War, 319–32; community structure, Britain, 286–7
11–12, 129–32; definition of, 13n; Jit Choon, 44
fund-raising for China, 5, 107–9, Jit Sin, 42–3
186–7, 216–7 (see also Hokkien Jones, Creech, 317
Protection Fund; Shantung Relief Jordan, A. B., 32, 108, 169, 207–8,
Fund; Singapore China Relief 225, 237
Fund); identity of T., 366, 370; Josey, Alex, 290
investments in China, 348;
problems of returned, 347; China’s Kamikaze, 293, 300
policy towards, 347–8 Kanchow, 268–9, 274
Hua-ch’iao museum, 350, 353 K’ang Yu-wei, 5, 178
Huang Hsü-ch’u, 267 Kao Ling-pai, 218, 220, 237, 270,
Huang Shan luncheon, 263–4, 266 281–2
Huang Shao-hsiung, 270 Kempeitai, 296
Huang Ti, Emperor, 248 Khek-nan p’o, 256
Huang Wen-fong, 269 Kheng Seng, 22, 41
Huang Yen-p’ei, 99 Khiam Aik & Co., 32, 43–4, 50, 159
Hui-i Ch’en Chia-keng, xxii, 353 Khiam Hong, 49
Hundred Flowers campaigns, 346–7 Khiam Thye, 47
Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, 5 Khoo Cheng-tiong, 21, 136
Khoo Kok-wah, 146
Imperial Economic Conference, Khoo, Wellington V. K., Dr., 294
74–5 Kian Gwan, 40
‘Impressions of the North-west’ Kiangsu Vocational School, 105
speech, 260–1 Kim Sheng Bee, 22, 41
India, 46, 48, 313 Koh San-hin, 85
Indonesia, 313–4, 347–8 Koo Chung-eng, 213
Industrialization and modernization Korean War, 345, 366
of China, 64, 369–70 ‘Kreta Ayer Incident’, 182
Ingham, R., 184, 187, 190 Ku Chieh-kang, 104
Isherwood, Christopher, 278 Ku Chu-t’ung, General, 270
B1493_Index.indd 407 8/20/2013 4:32:54 PM

b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
408 TAN KAH-KEE
Ku Hung-ming, Dr., 7, 14n Lau Geok-swee, 72, 77, 222, 293,

Kuan Yü, 257 297
Kung, H. H., 218, 240, 243 Lau Aik-kee, 212
Kung Ho Tang, 157 Lee Cheng-chuan, 217, 222
Kunming, 265–6, 274–6 Lee Cheng-yen, 162
Kuomintang: advance on Yenan, Lee Chin-tian, 128n, 141, 160, 192,
250–1; campaign against T., 157, 199, 222
268–70, 280–3, 294; collapse of Lee Choon-eng, 141, 160
regime, 336; and Comfort Mission, Lee Choon-guan, 9, 48, 85–6, 112,
246–7; and US aid, 321, 329–30; 162, 181
Kuomintang-communist conflict, Lee Choon-seng, 150, 287
240–1, 256, 260, 265, 318–9; Lee Eng-khoon, 297–8
breach of aid agreement, 252; Lee Foundation, 110, 367
campaign for national unity, 254, Lee, George, 118
261, 269; flag, 179; offensive in Lee, H. S., 222, 225
South-East Asia, 278–82; Lee Kong-chian, 143, 174n, 366–7;
hua-ch’iao stand, 259, 265; education, 89, 111, 312, 350; in
negotiations, 260 (see also Chiang business, 62, 72, 76–7; marriage,
Kai-shek; Singapore Kuomintang) 50; negotiations with Dutch, 314;
Kwang Yang School, 106 and China politics, 322; and
Kwangsi rebellion, 200 Singapore identity, 366–7; and T.,
Kwangtung rebellion, 200 36, 58, 67, 70–1, 109–11, 153, 160,
Kwangtung Association, 322 222, 322, 331, 339, 366–7
Kwangtung Flood Relief Fund, 107 Lee Kuan-yew, 39, 345
Kwangtung Protection Fund, 181 Lee Rubber & Co., 62, 68–9, 72
Kweilin, 267–8 Lee Seng-gee, 110
Kweiyang, 266–7 Lee Teng-hui, 99
Kwek K’ai-sheng, 193 Lee Tiat-ming, 237, 293, 301; on
Kwong Wah Yit Poh, 120, 274, 327 comfort mission, 243, 245–6, 249,
254, 259–60, 271, 282, 323, 340;
Labour, 11–2; employment, 65–7; and China politics, 282, 320,
strike action, 11–2, 80n; wages, 61 340–1, 356n; tour of South-west
Lain Wen-hua, 213 China, 266; in Yenan, 249–56
Lanchow, 245–6 Lee Wee-nam, 150
Lat Pau, 44, 117 Leng, H.S., Dr., vi
Lau Boh-tan, 169–72, 308, 323; evac- Lenin, V.I., 242
uation from Singapore, 293; and T., Leong Sin-nam, 222, 225
31, 169, 308 Lew Hong-Sek, 43
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 409
Li Han-hun, 268 Liu Chien-hsu, General, 270, 284

Li Hung-chang, 344 Liu Shao-ch’i, 1
Li Leung-kie, 31, 171, 192, 323 Liu Teng-theng, 59, 192
Li Ta-chao, 101 Long March, 4, 238
Li Tsung-jen, General, 258–9, 307 Lord Mayor’s Air Raid Distress
Li Wen-hsüeh (Tan Kah-kee), 297 Relief Fund, 286
Liao Ch’eng-chih, 1 Loyang, 257–8
Liau Chia-heng, 85 Lu Hsün, 101, 104
Liau Thian-seh, 296–7 Lum Mun-tin, 115, 222
Liberty Bonds, 69
Lien Ying-chow, 288, 322 Ma Pu-fang, Governor, 245
Lim Boon-keng, Dr., 6, 9, 14n, 45, MacDonald, Malcolm, 110, 339
85, 163, 214; and Amoy University, McKerron, P. A. B., 311
99–102, 104, passim; in business, Malacca Rubber and Tapioca
48, 78n; and Kuomintang, 136, Company, 45
156; and T., 28, 31 Malacca Rubber Plantation Limited,
Lim Cheong-ping, 299 45
Lim Chong-kuo, 112 Malaya, 7–8, 308–9
Lim Chong-pang, 112, 215 Malayan Chinese Association, 113
Lim Chwee-chian, 29, 31, 163 Malayan Chinese Fund for the
Lim Chwee-gim, 297 Purchase of Aeroplane for Chiang
Lim Ho-puah, 162 Kai-shek’s Birthday, 200–1
Lim Keng-lian, 140–1, 207 Malayan Communist Party, 12, 308,
Lim Kim-Tian, 18, 161, 168, 192 315, 325, 334, 340, 365; British
Lim K’o-seng, Robert, 267 action against, 7, 12, 209–10, 213,
Lim Lian-tean, 138 343 (see also Malayan Emergency)
Lim Nee-soon, 9, 31, 48, 162; and and T., 198–9, 334–5
Kuomintang, 156, 183; and T., 31, Malayan Emergency, 335, 363–4;
36, 107, 109, 111–2; social status, impact on T., 334–5
85, 88, 107, 111–2, 128n, 162 Malayan Government Mission to
Lim Peng-siang, 40, 48, 52, 85, 162, Chungking, 294
165, l8l Malayan Union Scheme, 315
Lin Nan School, 105 Malays, 316, 365
Lin Sen, 243–4 Manchuria, 3, 319, 336
Lin Tse-hsu, 17 Mao Tse-tung, 5, 15, 119–20,
Lin Tsu-han, 141–2 204, 250, 254, 259, 261, 324, 346,
Linan University, 105 364, 366; relations with T., 242,
Lin Yutang, 104 307, 321, 324, 336, 340, 341, 349,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
410 TAN KAH-KEE
351, 369, 371; and Sian Incident, Nanyang Hokkien General

203; at T’s funeral, 1; T’s support Association, 144–5, 283–4
for, 13, 34, 123, 255–6, 259, 261, Nanyang Kong Shang School, 106
336 Nanyang Research Institute, 350
Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), Nanyang Siang Pau (Chinese Journal
204–7 of Commerce), 56, 58, 60, 117,
Marshall, George C., 320–1 119–20; editorial policy, 118, 182
May Fourth Movement, 3, 101, 187, Nanyang University, Singapore, 18,
361 77, 110, 142, 312, 366
Min su fei-lun chi, xxi National Salvation Corps, 184
Mobilization Order, 327–8 Nehru, Pandit, 313
Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs, New Chamber, see Chinese
216 Merchants General Chamber
Morrison, Ian, 287, 291–2 od Commerce
Moscow Treaty (1945), 319 New Democratic Youth Corps, 332
‘Mosquito fleet’, 52 New Life Movement, 238
‘Mukden Incident’, 197 New Fourth Army, 241
My House Has Two Doors, 342 Ng Aik-huan, 31–2, 166, 169–70,
171, 308, 323; and China politics,
Nagle, Rev. J.S., 89 171–2, 322; and Chinese war
Nan An district, 15, 17; map, 14 memorial, 311; and Democratic
Nan Ch’iao Girls High School, 89, Alliance, 322; evacuation from
312, 329 Singapore, 293–4; and defence of
Nan-ch’iao hui-i-lu, xxi, 8, 84, 154, Singapore, 291–2; and Nanyang
298 University, 312; and Nan Chiau Jit
Nan Chiau Jit Pao, 69, 117–20, Pao, 323
323–4, 328–9, 355n Ng Kie-chek, 299
Nan-hsüan ssu-shu, 19, 26 Ng Sing-phang, 107
Nanyang Chinese High School, Ng Tan-kwee, 297, 299
see Chinese High School Ng Tiong-kiat, 77, 222
Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Ng Yeh-lu, 290–2
Movement, 1937–1941, xxiii North Boat Quay, 21
Nanyang Chinese Normal College,
89, 106, 116 October Revolution (Russia), 242
Nanyang Chinese Education Oei Tiong-ham, 40, 85, 112
Association, 87 Oleh Oleh Party, 215
Nanyang Communist Party, 187–8 Omei Mountains, 259
Nanyang Girls School, 87 Ong Chit-chung, Dr., 255n
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 411
Ong Chuan-seng, 222, 262–3, 265–6, People’s Political Consultative

282 Conference (PPCC), 328, 342, 344,
Ong Guan-bok, 215 371; meetings, 338–9, 344–6, 348
Ong Keng-seng, 225 People’s Political Council, 123, 223,
Ong Kiat-soo, 141 241–2
Ong Kim-lien, 146 People’s Republic of China (PRC):
Oon Khye-hong, 58–9, 306 constitution of, 347; economic
Opium War, 2, 17, 21 policies, 346–7; international
Organic Law of the Central relations, 345; 347–8; policy on
Government, 338–9 hua-ch’iao, 347–8; posts held by
Ormsby-Gore, W. G. A., 65 T., 339, 344; Taiwan policy, 345
Ottawa Agreement, 74–5 Pepper trade, 46
Ottawa Tariff Conference, 76 Percival, Lieutenant-General A. E.,
Oversea Chinese Bank (OCB), 73 316–7
Oversea-Chinese Banking Percival Despatch, see Despatch on
Corporation Limited, 73, 112, 114 the Malayan campaign
Overseas Chinese Affairs Philippine China Relief Fund
Commission (OCAC), 340, 344 Committee, 217
Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee, Phillip, D., 76
122 Pineapple industry, 21, 42–4
Po Chiak Keng, 22, 161
Pai Ch’ung-hsi, 240–1, 261, 307 Po Ku, 241
Pan Kuo-chu, 219, 341; and comfort Poh Teng-kok, 58
mission, 243, 246–7; and T., 27, Political Intelligence Journal, 334
32–3, 308, 341 Poppy Day Fund, 286
Pan-Malayan Chinese unity Premier Chiang’s Birthday Aeroplane
movement, 309–10 Fund: Makayan Singapore
‘P’ an Yiu-chung Affair’, 197 Committee for, 200–1
Pandas Para Rubber Plantation, 46 Press: censorship, 7, 182;
Pang, 6, 10–12, concept of, 13n, Kuomintang-controlled, 280, 327,
129–30; defects, 130; leadership, 331, 333; Leftist, 323 (see also
132–3; population statistics, 131 Nan Chiau Jit Pao)
Paper mill, 62–3 Pressure groups, 9, 12, 23, 284
People’s Action Party (PAP), 345 Prince of Wales, 286
People’s Communes, 345–6 Public Record Office (Kew), 342
People’s Liberation Army, 328 Pulau Tekong Ai Hua School, 106
People’s National Congress (PNC), Pulau Tekong Brickworks, 64, 66,
347, 349 204
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
412 TAN KAH-KEE
Pun Shih Middle School, 105 186; origins, 184–5; significance to

Purcell, Victor, 333 T., 13, 122, 191,194–5, 198–9;
363, 365; social and political
Quek Eng-lin, 196–7, 299 impact, 147, 192–4, 195
Quemoy, 15, 17 Shao Li-tze, 307
Shih Ching-t’ang, 30, 330
Raffles College, 89, 106, 365 Shinwell, 316
(see also University of Singapore) Shou Chia-chun, 248
Raffles, Sir Stamford, 130 Si Hong-peng, 312
Red Star Over China, 238, 256 Sian Incident, 202–4, 246, 252
Repulse, 286 Sim Chu-kim, 146
Rice trade, 22, 46 Rochore Chinese Sin Cheng, 72
Temple, 23 Sin Chew Jit Poh, 120, 197
Roosevelt, President, 286 Sin Chew Reading Room, 144, 155
Rubber Industry, 45–6, 78n; effects Sin Kuo Min Press, 117, 280
of Great Depression, 74; Japanese Sin Li Chuan, 42, 44
competition, 72–3; protective Sing Kai Mow, 22
tariffs, 74–5, prices, 62, 72, 306 Singapore: attacks by the Japanese,
Rubber surtax, 168, 189, 192, 211 286, 293; British losses, 295;
Russo-Japanese War, 3 evacuation of activitists, 293; under
British rule, 6–8; wartime
San K’u T’ang, 258 conditions, 295; self-government
San Min Chu I Youth Corps, 280 achieved, 345 (see also Britain,
Sankiang, 10 British)
School Ordinances, 7 Singapore Children Protection
Second World War, 204, 224 Association Maintenance Fund,
See Boo-ih, 137, 150 108
See Hoot-kah, 135 Singapore China Relief Fund
See Tiong-wah, 85, 113, 135–7 Committee (SCRFC), 69, 113, 115,
Selangor China Democratic League, 142, 166, 205–17, 365; British
320 choice for Fund leadership, 207–8;
Seow Poh-leng, 192–4 Chinese solidarity, 215–6;
Shanghai Relief Fund, 198 contributions to, 69, 115, 160, 217;
Shantung Relief Fund, 139, 147, communist responses, 212–4;
157–8, 184; contributions to, 160, establishment of, 206–8; post-war
189–90; and Ee Ho Hean Club, tasks, 310–11; executive members,
129, 166–9, 189–90; management 209–10; regional expansion,
of, 186–7; operational structure, 216–8; registration of, 224–5
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 413
Singapore Chinese Chamber of Singapore Rubber Millers’

Commerce (SCCC), 11–2, 23, 77, Association, 73, 161
87, 111, 130–1, 133, 143–54, 172, Sino-French War (1884), 178
185, 224, 264, 285, 290, 306–7, Sino-Indian border conflict, 345
313, 332, 341, 364; and Sino-Japanese War: (1894), 2–3, 178;
Confucianism, 159; founding of, (1937), 3, 35; fund-raising
23, 130; fund-raising campaigns, campaigns, 210–11 (see also
107–8; Kuomintang influence in, Singapore China Relief Fund
150–2, 198; reform proposals, Committee); impact on hua-ch’iao,
147–52; trade mission to Peking, 205-10; outbreak of, 204–5
345; Singapore identity promoted, Small Sword Society, 17, 37n
367 Sng Choon-yee, 31–2, 33, 76, 84,
Singapore Chinese Federation for 138, 166, 169–70, 177n 200, 207;
Peace and Democracy in China, and China politics, 324; and Lee
see Democratic Alliance Kong-chian, 70; and Shantung
Singapore Chinese Journalists’ Relief Fund, 168; and SCRFC,
Association, 327 207; and SCMC, 288; and
Singapore Chinese Mobilization statement on law and order, 335;
Council (SCMC): formation, 170, support for T., 138, 169–70
287–90, 363, 365, 369; arming Snow, Edgar, 238, 256
Chinese, 290, 292, 294; Societies Ordinance and Enactments,
contribution to war effort, 291–2, 7, 159, 225
317; objectives, 289–90; Soo Tong-ing, 213
office-bearers, 291 Soon Ann, 21–2, 40–3; collapse,
Singapore Chinese Protectorate, 6, 42–3
32, 155, 157 Soon Ch’u She, 23
Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Soon Peng-yam, 18, 31, 162, 166
Association, 327, 332 South-East Asian Chinese
Singapore General Labour Union, Convention, 218–9
315, 332 South-East Asian Hokkien meetings,
Singapore Kuomintang, 100, 111, 282–4
136, 141, 146, 150, 153–4, 155–8, South-west China tour, 266–77
165, 182, 207, 210, 237, 264, 280, South-west Transportation Bureau, 266
282–3, 310, 318, 325, 360, 363, Southseas China Relief Fund Union
369 (SCRFU), 13, 115–6, 217–22, 363;
Singapore Political Report, 340 battle for leadership, 282–5,
Singapore Chinese Rubber Dealers’ contribution to war efforts, 221;
Association, 147, 159, 168, 188 and ‘cable crisis’, 321–22; and
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
414 TAN KAH-KEE
British, 224–5; formation of, Tai Tong Canning Company, 47, 50

212–22; officials, 222; post-war Taiwan, 2, 4, 17, 345–6, 353
activities, 309–12, 331; registration Tan Ah-bah, see Tan T’ien-fu
of, 224–5 (see also Comfort Tan Ah-hui, 36
Mission to China) Tan Ah-moi, 36
‘Spirit of Tan Kah-kee’, 31, 369–70 Tan Ai-eng, 35
Straits-born Chinese, 7, 9, 10; and Tan Ai-lay, 35
China politics, 136, 155–6, 188–9, Tan Ban-ann, 174n
210; and English education, 40; Tan Beng-tin, 297
under colonial rule, 6–7 Tan Boo-liat, 134, 136, 156, 163
Straits Chinese British Association Tan Boon-khak, 59, 77, 116–7, 160–1
(SCBA), 10, 100 Tan Boon-swee, 20
Straits Chinese China Relief Fund Tan Ch’ang-ch’eng, 24
Committee of Singapore, 212, 215 Tan Ch’ang-hsiu, 24
Straits Confucian Association, 26, Tan Ch’ang-keng, 24
144, 159 Tan Ch’ang-ling, 24
Straits Settlements: economic Tan Chay-bing, 35, 59, 71, 76
conditions, 8–9, 48, 74; Tan Chay-yan, 45–6, 48, 156
immigration policy, 9; education in, Tan Cheng-lock, 113, 315, 339, 367
6–7; government, 5–7 Tan Cheng-siong, 18, 31, 181
Straits Steamship Company, 52 Tan Chien-chi, 20
Stuart, John Leighton, 322–3 Tan Chiew-cha, 185
Sukarno, President, 299, 312 Tan Chin-hian, 207, 222
Sumbawa Road Rubber Manufactory, Tan Chin-tuan, 18, 293
53–7, 59–62, 76, 117, employment Tan Chor-nam, 128n, 155–6
statistics, 65–6; patents, 57; Tan Chwee-pang, 59
staffing, 59; visits of dignitaries, 57 Tan clan: genealogy, 18–24, 35–6
Sun Yat-sen, Dr., 5, 14n, 111, 136, Tan Ean-khiam, 18, 160–1, 222
150, 165, 178–9, 219; memorial Tan Eng-ghee, 293
services for, 182 Tan Eng-guan, 141
Sun Yat-sen, Madam, 1 Tan Eng-kan, 21
Syonan, 295 Tan Eng-tiong, 21
Tan Guan-aik, 36, 116
Ta-chan yü nan-ch’iao (The Great Tan Guan-chay, 36
War and the Chinese in South-East Tan Guan-khai, 36
Asia), 311 Tan Jiak-kim, 85, 162
Ta-p’u spirit, 39, 78n TAN KAH-KEE: ancestry, 19–23;
Tack Ann, 22 appraisal of T, the legend, 353–4,
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 415
360–71; assets, 66, 85; attitudes political enemies, 64, 123, 186–7,
toward student unrest, 94–5; 194, 214, 237, 268, 278, 282, 310,
birthplace, 15–6, 19, 21, 27; 334; key power base, 137–44, 308,
Buddhism and T., 30–1; building of 362–3 (see also Ee Ho Hean Club
a business empire, 40–77, 362–8; Club, Hokkien Huay Kuan); key
changing views on Kuomintang political supporters, 31–3, 109–117,
regime, 241, 255–6, 263–4, 276, 123, 160–1, 169–72, 359n; kinship
280, 282, 285, 313, 318–9, 368, connections, 36, 109–116, 121,
childhood, 26–7, 83–4, 178; 366; naturalization, 121, 341, 345;
chin-chia hsing-hsüeh, 105, 367; non-partisan leadership, 120,
comfort mission to China (1940) 158–9, 169, 182, 207, 294, 368–70;
and significance, 236–76, 300, 310; pang leadership emerged, 133–4,
community leadership developed 141–4, 153, 172, 181; patron-client
and consolidated, 82, 120–2, 133, relations, 87, 116–24, 153, 299,
172–3, 191, 363; concepts of 366; philanthropy, 105–110, 211,
community unity, 86, 309-10; 329, 362; political leadership
Confucianism and T., 26–7, 86, 94, established and recognized, 116,
159, 266, 285, 360–1, 369 (see also 119, 121–2, 142–3, 188, 220
the Spirit of Tan Kah-kee); daily (see also Shantung Relief Fund,
life (1920s), 27–9; early education Singapore China Relief Fund);
background, 26; early influence of political men-wai-han, 84, 123,
Chinese nationalism, 178–82; 240, 263; pre-war relations with
education expenditure, 63, 70, 86, British, 121, 182, 190, 194–7,
88, 98, 101, 104–6, 365; education 200–1, 207, 223–4, 270, 285–6,
promotion, 86, 88–106, 182, 365 334; post-war relations with
(see also Chinese High School, Chi British, 311, 315, 317, 324, 326,
Mei Schools, Amoy University); 334–6, 340–3, 360, 364, 368;
employment contributions, 65–6, relations with Mao Tse-tung,
84, 362, 365; family, 24–5, 35–6; 317–8, 321, 340, 341, 369
final exit from Singapore (l950), (see Comfort Mission to China);
15, 123, 342–3, 344; final wishes role in defence of Singapore, 116,
and will, 25, 353; friendship with 170, 316, 363; rubber industry and
Sun Yat-sen, 178–9, 368; ‘Henry T., 45–6, 50; shipping enterprise,
Ford of Malaya’, 70; hostility of 48–9, 51, 362, 368; social attitudes,
Kuomintang towards T., 268–70, 30, 33–4, 98; social reformism,
278, 281–2, 285, 294, 310, 360; 141, 192, 364, 368; social status
key admirers of T., 201–2, 244, building, 85–124; Spartan lifestyle,
256, 258–9, 300, 361–2; key 25, 29–30, 238–9, 344, 361, 366;
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
416 TAN KAH-KEE
‘Spirit of Tan Kah-kee’, 369–70; Tan Lai-on, 36

sympathies for South-East Asian Tan Lark-sye, 18, 142, 366–7;
nationalism, 312–3, 315–6, 345, business career, 59, 72, 77; and
365–6, 371; Tung Meng Hui ‘cable crisis’, 322–3; as founder of
membership, 155, 237; war refugee Nanyang University, 18, 110, 312;
in Java, 295–300, 364; writings on and T., 116–7, 160–1, 165, 322–3,
T., xxii–xxiii; written works of T., 367
xxi–xxii, 84 Tan, Mary, 36
Tan Kah-kee & Co., 60–4, 67–8, 111 Tan Meng-keng, 24
Tan Kah-kee & Co. Ltd., 63, 67–73, Tan Poh-tee, 36, 306
76, 80n; collapse of, 74–76; Tan Pok-ai, 59; death, 306; family
interest repayments, 72 background, 35; and tyre
Tan Kah-kee Foundation, 354 production, 55
Tan Kee-peck, father of T., 21–4, 30, Tan Pok-chay, 35
l6l; business interests, 21–2, 40–2; Tan Sau-chi, 20
family, 24–5, 37n, naturalization, Tan Sheng-heng, 20
23; social position, 22–3 Tan Shih-king, 20
Tan Keng-hean, 24, 61; and Tan Shih-yu, 20
education, 91–2, 95, 102–3; Tan Siang-ching, 144, 146, 165, 181
children of, 35; death, 103; in Tan Sin-pan, 299
business, 50, 53–4, 61 Tan Soo-kiok, 24
Tan Keong-choon, 18, 103 Tan Teck-hai, 296
Tan Khuat-siong, 15, 30, 35, 58–9, Tan Teow-kee, 222, 243, 245
66 Tan T’ien-ch’i, 24
Tan Kim-ching, 21, 136 Tan T’ien-fu, 24
Tan Kim-seng, 136, 162 Tan T’ien-lu, 24
Tan Kok-chieh, 20 Tan Tock-seng, 136
Tan Kok-kheng, 29, 69, 311, 323; Tan Wei-chi, 20
education and career, 33–5; Tan Yeok-seong, xxii, 22, 28, 37n,
fund-raising for China rekief, 215; 102
marriage disallowed by T., 35; Tanaka Memorial Affair, 168–9,
relations with T., 29, 33–5, 204, 194–5
334, 339, 341–2 Tao Nan School, 33, 86–7, 116, 133,
Tan Kok-whye, 36 181 329
Tan Kuang-liang, 24 Tay Koh-yat, 331
Tan Kwee-chian, 293–4 Teck Ann, 22
Tan Lai-choo, 36 Teh Lay-seng, 158
Tan Lai-ho, 35, 112 Tekong Brickworks, 64, 204
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
INDEX 417
Teng Ts’ui-ying, 99 Ts’ai T’ing-kai, General, 199

Teng Ying-ch’ao, 241 Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, 99
Teo Eng-hock, 128n, 146, 156, 186 Tsinan Incident (1928), 3, 183–4, 363
Teo Kai-chuan, 225 (see also Shantung Relief Fund)
Teo Leong-tuan, 59 T’ung An Association, 161
Teo Po-ke, 25, 35 T’ung An district, 1, 15–6, 22; map,
Teo Sian-keng, 146 14; leaders in Singapore, 18;
Teo Soon-sian, l8l schools in, 95–6
Teochews, 10, 46, 78n, 129, 131, T’ung An District Primary School, 91
210–1 T’ung An Education Association, 95
Terracotta army, 248 T’ung An Spirit, 16–8, 39, 83
Thean Hock Keong, 135–6 Tung Meng Hui, 144, 333; leaders,
Thomas, Sir Shenton: anti- 100, 111, 136; legitimized, 155–6;
communism, 199–200; and and New Chamber, 146
Chinese nationalism, 199, 206–8; Tung Pi-wu, 1, 241
and Malayan campaign, 122, Tung Yan Club, 177n
286–9, 292; and T., 122, 288–92, Turnbull, C.M., 290
363 (see also Singapore Chinese Twenty One Demands, 3
Mobilization Council)
Thong Bee, 72 Union Times, 117
Three People’s Principles, 242, 261, United Action Committee, 213, 226;
266, 307, 319, 330 and deportation of Hau Say-huan,
‘Three-thirds system’, 255 226–7
Ti-ch’ai-hsüeh-shu, 86 University of Malaya (Singapore), 89
T’iao-ho-fa, 102–3 (see also Raffles College,
Tientsin Flood Relief Fund, 107, 146 University of Singapore)
‘Tiger’ trademark, 64 University of Singapore, 89, 110
Tiong Nam Co. Rubber Mill, 72 (see also Raffles College)
Tjhung Sie-gan: and China politics
218, 222, 282–3; on comfort van Mook, H.J., 314
mission, 237–8, 243; detained by Versailles Treaty, 3
Japanese, 296; reunion with T., 299 Victoria Memorial Hall rally, 326
Tong Chai Medical Institution, 23,
31, 107 Wang Chen-ping, xxiii
Treaty of Shimonoseki, 2–3 Wang Ching-wei, 30, 98, 123, 183,
Truman, Harry, 320–1, 325 221–2, 248, 330, 361 (see also
Ts’ ai Kung-shih, 192 ‘Cable Motion’ affair)
Ts’ ai Kung-shih, Madam, 167 Wang Gungwu, Professor, vi
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b1493 Tan Kah-Kee
418 TAN KAH-KEE
Wang Ming, 249–50 Yap Kheok-neo, 35

The War in Malaya, 317 Yap Pheng-geck, Dr., 114, 146
Warlordism, 4, 182 Yeh Chien-ying, 241–3, 260
Washington, George, 309, 333 Yeh T’ing, 241
Webb, G. W., 332–3 Yeh Yüan, 92–4, 99, 267–8
Wei Li-huang, General, 257, 263 Yen Hsi-shan, General, 256–7, 262,
Wo Lung Kang, 258 307
Wo-kuo hsing ti-went’i, xxi Yenan, 4, 248–56; civil service, 253;
Wong Nai-siong, 180 economic conditions, 250–1;
Wong Yen-chee, 213 education, 251; impact on T., 252,
Wong Yik-tong, Dato, 222, 225 254–5, 364, 371; lifestyle, 251,
World Biscuit Factory, 56, 64 255–6; military strength, 253;
World Book Company (Singapore), regime, 261, 266; socio-political
84 conditions, 252–3, 255–6, 261; T’s
Wright, A., 57 visit, 249–56; taxes, 251–2
Wu Chin-sheng, 156 Yenan Fourth Military Academy, 252
Wu Lien-teh, Dr., 7, 14n Yenan spirit, 261
Wu Pei-fu, 157 Yeo Khay-thye, 283
Wu San-kuei, 30, 330 Yeo Lark-sye, 48, 59, 62
Wu T’ieh-ch’eng, 239, 263, 270, Yin, Dr. C. S., 357n
278–81, 282–5, 294 Young, Sir Arthur, 100
Wu Yu-chang, 249 Yü Han-mou, 268
Yü Kang, xxiii
Yalta Agreement, 3l8 Yu Ta-fu, 293
Yang Cheng School, 106 Yuan Shih-k’ai, 3, 157
Yang Kuo-chen, xxii Yung Ch’un district, 272
Yap, Elizabeth, 116
Yap Geok-twee, 18, 31, 36, 67, 109,
114–6, 140, 293
B1493_Index.indd 418 8/20/2013 4:32:55 PM

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The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-981-4447-89-8 (pbk)

IT is a daunting task to attempt to write a biography of prominent Chinese

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Peking. I was moved by their readiness to tell me about their associations

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Mrs R. B. McKenna, R. Boak, Tan Kok-kheng and F. A. Charlton-Thomas

The Flinders University C. F. YONG

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3.1 Patent Rights Granted to Inventions Applied for by

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1 The Homeland of Tan Kah-kee: Chi Mei, T’ung An

1 Tan Kah-kee’s father, Tan Kee-peck (1842–1909)

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xvi TAN KAH-KEE

15 Tan Kah-kee at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (October 1945)

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AEBUS Anti-Enemy Backing-Up Society

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SKMP Sin Kuo Min Press

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xxii TAN KAH-KEE

Tan Kah-kee started his tyre manufacturing industry in Singapore. Hsin-

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Ch’en Pi-sheng and Yang Kuo-chen, Ch’en Chia-keng chuan, or Biography

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xxiv TAN KAH-KEE

Having surveyed the literature and commented on the quality of its

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1. Pang Wing Seng, ‘The “Double-Seventh” Incident 1937: Singapore Chinese

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ON 12 August 1961, there passed away in Peking an extraordinary man at

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Chinese traders suffered miserably because the Japanese dominated the

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Japan to rule over much of traditional China. All in all, humiliating

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explain why some of the brightest Straits-born scholars and professionals