I will do a thread 🧵 on the origin of the phrase "Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" and why Imperialist bootlickers have hate it ever since.
According to “China Called Me”, autobiography by Percy Chen, his father Eugene Chen, the Foreign Minister of China invented the phrase in 1927 as a negotiation tactic w British to take back British Concessions in Wuhan.
Eugene Chen's dad, a 1-legged Taiping rebel escaped Qing suppression of Taiping Rebellion to the Caribbean as an coolie turned shopkeeper. Mom raised Eugene in the grocery shop on Trinidad aft Dad's death. Eugene became a lawyer, married Agatha Ganteaume, daughter of a slave.
Living in Trinidad as a lawyer and raising 5 Afro-Chinese children (pic below in Moscow) , Eugene Chen heard the news of 1911 Chinese Revolution and decided to return to his ancestral land to help w reconstruction
Eugene Chen became friend w Sun Yatsen and eventually the Foreign Minister in Sun's Canton gov. Eugene Chen behind Sun Yatsen and his Soviet advisors in 1923 Guangzhou.
Eugene would be the 1st and only Chinese Foreign Minister who doesn't speak Chinese.
Soviet borkered CPC/KMT alliance, created Whampao military academy 2 train a KMT army. Whampao military academy Commandant Chiang Kai-shek (front) and its political director Zhou Enlai (left) in 1924.
In 1927 KMT army launched Northern Expedition agst British/US backed warlords
KMT army took Wuhan in 1927 and declared it new capital of China. Eugene Chen w Soviet advisor Mikhail Borodin, T.V. Soong and Wang Jingwei in Wuhan.
Eugene Chen started to negotiate w British and other Imperialist Powers on return of Wuhan foreign concessions to Chinese control
After 2nd Opium War, Imperialist powers forced China to set aside Concession in Treaty Ports. Hankou (Wuan)'s waterfront carved up by various foreign Concessions governed by foreign govs. Eugene Chen demanded their return to China.
Soviet renounced Russian treaty port concession, British however refused to give up their concession. Eugene Chen started negotiation. Have been a barrister in Trinidad, Eugene knew all the Brit legal arguments. Brit did a tax audit on his Trinidad property 2 try to blackmail him
Whenever British side tried 2 use legal argument 2 retain their Concession, Eugene Chen would respond w "that would not stand bc it hurts the feeling of Chinese people". Eugene Chen told his son Percy bc British had no comeback for that.
In the end, China got Concessions back.
After KMT purged and massacred Communists in 1927, Eugene Chen escaped to Moscow w Madame Sun Yat-sen. Chiang Kai-shek's KMT faction spread a rumor that they eloped. Chen's children also went to Moscow. His son Percy Chen served briefly in the Red Army.
Eugene Chen was captured by Japanese Imperial Army in Hong Kong in 1941 and died in captivity in Shanghai 1944. He is buried in Beijing's Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery as Comrade Eugene Chen
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.