Considered one of the most dynamic political figures of the twentieth century and China's dynamic statesman, Eugene Chen was born of Negro-Chinese parentage in Trinidad, British West Indies.

    Attending Law school in England, he returned to Trinidad where he practiced, but because of minor disputes with the island government, he decided to cast his lot with the Chinese and left for Peking. In Peking he changed his family name of Akam to Chen and became legal advisor to the Ministry of Communication in 1912.

    He founded the Peking Gazette two years later. A natural born fighter he knew but one tactic, a vigorous and bold attack. He selected as his chief target, the strongest foe possible: the North China Daily News, chief spokesman of British Imperialist interest in the Far East, the defender of capital and prestige and power the British had built up in the region. At that time Chinese commerce was centered in Shanghai, so called international settlement, but this commerce was chiefly for Britain's advantage and to some extent that of Japan, then an ally of Britain. Financial power was centered in British Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. As a result of his onslaughts, Chen was arrested in 1915 and thrown into a narrow cell with five lice-covered assassins. However, because he was still a British subject and because extra-territoriality still existed in China, he asserted that he was illegally held and released because of this, in 1917.

    Undaunted he now entered the enemy's stronghold, Shanghai, where he joined Dr. Sun Yat Sen, founder of Nationalist China and became Sun Yat Sen's personal advisor and private secretary, a position he held until the latter's death in 1925. He also founded the Shanghai Gazette, in which he renewed his attacks on British interests and was again thrown into prison but was later freed.

    In 1919 Chen was a delegate to the Versailles Conference where he formulated China's demands in clear, unmistakable terms. He demanded among other things the abolition of concession territories insisting that all such be placed under a mixed Chinese and foreign administration, the Chinese predominant. This demand later paved the way for Chinese victory over the extra-territorial power formerly held by the white governments.