Ch'en Shu-jen 陳樹人 Ch'en Shu-jen (1883 - 4 October 1948), anti- Manchu revolutionary, served Sun Yat-sen and his cause as director of party affairs in Canada and the United States (1916-22). In 1923 he became director of the general affairs department of the Kuomintang. He held various posts in the Kwangtung provincial government until 1927. From 1932 to 1948 he was head of the Kuomintang's overseas Chinese affairs commission.
A native of P'anyü, Kwangtung, Ch'en Shujen came from an affluent literary family. He received a classical education and showed promise as a poet, essayist, and artist. He was a favorite pupil of Chu Lien (1828-1904), one of the most famous Cantonese artists at the end of the Ch'ing dynasty. Ch'en later married Chü's daughter, Jo-ming.
After the Boxer Uprising of 1900 Ch'en began to move in revolutionary circles. He was politically inarticulate, but supported the anti- Manchu cause. During 1903-4 he worked with Cheng Kuan-kung (see Cheng T'ien-hsi) on his revolutionary newspaper, the Kwangtung jih-pao "{Kwangtung daily news], published in Hong Kong. In 1906 he was invited to join the staff of another anti-Manchu newspaper, the Tungfang jih-pao [eastern daily news], published in Hong Kong by Liu Ssu-fu (q.v.) and Hsieh Ying-po. He was induced to join the T'ungmeng-hui in 1905 through his friendship with Feng Tzu-yu (q.v.), but apparently he had no personal contact with Sun Yat-sen.
Although already an accomplished painter in the Chinese style, Ch'en Shu-jen went to Japan before 1911 to study art. He made a brief trip to China after the Wuchang revolt in 1911, but soon returned to Japan with his family. He remained in Japan until 1916, studying at Rikkyo University, an American missionary institution in Tokyo, and teaching at a Chinese school in Yokohama. Feng Tzu-yu, with whom Ch'en had formed a lasting friendship, was then in the United States to raise funds for Sun Yat-sen's cause and was the editor of Min-kuo tsa-chih [republican magazine] in San Francisco, the official party organ for the overseas Chinese communities of North America. Because of Feng's many activities, he invited Ch'en Shu-jen to edit the journal from Tokyo in 1915. Ch'en did so in 1915-16; his editorials were written under the name Hsia-wai-che.
Throughout the decade between the organization of the Chung-hua ko-ming-tang in 1914 and Sun Yat-sen's establishment of a territorial base in Kwangtung in 1923, Sun placed considerable emphasis on the development of party affairs in overseas Chinese communities, notably in North America. In 1916, on the recommendation of Feng Tzu-yu, Sun appointed Ch'en Shu-jen director of party affairs in Canada. For six years Ch'en was active in party work among the overseas Chinese of Canada and the United States, raising funds and conducting propaganda and public relations work for Sun Yat-sen's cause. In 1917 he became editor of the Hsin min-kuo pao [new republican journal] of Victoria, British Columbia.
Ch'en returned to China in 1922 and was appointed to a nine-member committee in Shanghai charged with drafting a plan for the reorganization of Sun Yat-sen's party. Among the other committee members were Ch'en Tuhsiu, Ting Wei-fen and Mao Tzu-ch'uan. Ch'en Shu-jen's official party post at Shanghai was that of deputy director of the general affairs department. In the January 1923 reshuffle he was promoted to director of the department. After the party was reorganized in January 1924 and collaboration with the Chinese Communist party began, other men became dominant, and Ch'en was relegated to a subordinate role in party affairs. At Canton in 1924 he became friendly with Wang Ching-wei (q.v.), and the two remained close friends until Wang's political break with the party in 1939. Between 1923 and 1927 Ch'en Shu-jen served in the Kwangtung provincial government at Canton, four times as commissioner of civil affairs and twice as acting provincial governor. He also served as chief secretary of the National Government. Ch'en favorably impressed contemporaries with his clean and honest administration at Canton. Ch'en Shu-jen's career in Canton ended when the Communists seized control in December 1927 and launched the brief and abortive Canton Commune. From 1928 to 1931 his friendship with Wang Ching-wei and his association with Wang's faction of the Kuomintang made Ch'en persona non grata to the Nanking government under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1930 Ch'en attended the so-called enlarged conference of the Kuomintang held at Peiping when Wang Ching-wei joined the military coalition of Feng Yü-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan (qq.v.) in open defiance of Nanking. In December 1931 Ch'en was elected an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, and in 1932 he was named head of the party's overseas Chinese affairs commission, a post he retained until his death. As a Cantonese, Ch'en Shu-jen generally was associated during the early 1930's with the southwest group in the Kuomintang and was identified with such leaders as Hu Han-min and Ch'en Chi-t'ang. When Wang Ching-wei left Chungking and broke with Chiang Kai-shek in 1939, Ch'en Shu-jen was among the small number of Wang's personal associates who refused to support him and who remained with the wartime government at Chungking. Ch'en's post as head of the party's overseas commission gave him some prestige but no real power.
While a nominal official of the Kuomintang, Ch'en composed many patriotic poems at Chungking during the war years. The poems were later published privately as a collection entitled Chuan-ai chi [dedicated love] or Chanch'en chi [dust of war]. Ch'en's poems sang praise for the gallant Chinese soldiers fighting the Japanese invaders and expressed his nostalgia for the areas of China then under Japanese occupation. Some Chinese literati saw a lingering affection for Wang Ching-wei in the verses. Presumably as a reward for his loyalty to Chungking, Ch'en was elected to membership on the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang at its Sixth National Congress in 1 945. He returned to Nanking with the National Government in 1945. Ch'en, by temperament apolitical, withdrew from politics in the postwar period and devoted much of his time to painting. He planned to retire to a studio in a scenic spot near Canton, but he died suddenly in October 1948.
During the 1920's at Canton it had been fashionable for Kuomintang officials to send their sons to the Soviet Union for higher education. Thus, Ch'en's son, Ch'en Fu, had studied at Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. He was arrested and executed as a Communist after his return to Canton.
