Dee C. Chuan

Dee Ching Chuan (August 13, 1888 – October 27, 1940) was a prominent Chinese Filipino businessman, philanthropist, and activist known as the Philippine "Lumber King" during the American colonial rule. He was the youngest president of the Philippine Chinese General Chamber of Commerce from 1919 to 1924 (later renamed as the Filipino Chinese General Chamber of Commerce Inc. or FCGCCI) and founded China Banking Corporation (China Bank) in 1920. He also founded Chinese language newspapers Chinese Commercial News and The Fookien Times.

Family and early life

Dee Ching Chuan was born on August 13, 1888, in Shizhen Village, Jinjiang in the Chinese province of Fujian. His name literally meant "Plum-Pure-Spring." He was the eldest son of Dee Chao Yi (baptized Calixto Dyyco when he converted to Catholicism) and Chen Shuangniang. The young Dee went to a primary school in Shizhen village from 1896 to 1899. Then in 1900 to 1901, he attended the Tongwen College on Kó͘-lōng-sū, an island near Amoy, which was run by British consulate officials, to learn English. In 1901, at the age of thirteen, Dee C. Chuan traveled to Manila to live with his father, helping in the family business, Chengmei Lumber (founded in the 1870s at Calle Arranque, Santa Cruz, Manila), and going to a local public school.

In 1903, his father sent him to St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong

Philanthropist and activist tycoon

In the twenty years since the founding of China Bank, Dee C. Chuan had been a very busy man. Dee also used his considerable resources and contacts to help mainland China. First, Dee focused on his home village of Shizhen. He donated the Chengmei School For Boys and the Yude School For Girls. He not only put up the buildings but also bought a fishpond whose earnings would pay for school operations. He also built a new bridge and other infrastructure in Shizhen. From 1926 to 1928, when Chiang Kai-Shek was building up the KMT Nationalist Army to reunite the country, Dee C. Chuan paid out of his own pocket for the steamship tickets for many young Chinese in Manila who wanted to join Chiang and fight. In 1931, he began to contribute heavily to the Chiang government as Japan started to encroach upon its northern territory, including Manchuria. In 1933, Dee accepted an appointment from Chiang as one of the five commissioners governing Fujian province from 1933 to 1934. In Fujian, Dee organized a police force, built the foundation of a badly needed railroad—the Zhanglong railway, and helped improve the harbor in Xiamen. When full-scale war between China and Japan broke out in 1937, Dee and his good friends, Albino and Alfonso SyCip and Yu Khe Thai, organized the Philippine Chinese Resist-The-Enemy Foundation. They helped raise P10 million from the local Chinese community and sent it to aid the KMT. These men also led a vigorous effort to boycott Japanese goods in the Philippines, which hurt Japanese interests in the country substantially. Dee also conceptualized and helped set up the Nanyang General Relief Association, which was a Southeast Asian organization of overseas Chinese bent on combatting Japanese aggression. The Japanese have a long memory. When they conquered the Philippines in 1941, the Kempeitai (Military Police of the Imperial Japanese Army) would come looking for the men who organized the boycott. But Dee C. Chuan would not be around to face their retribution.

native name	李清泉
native name lang	zh
birth name	Dee Ching Chuan (Hokkien POJ: Lí Chheng-choân) (Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Qīngquán)
birth date	August 13, 1888
birth place	Tsìnkang, Fukien, Qing China
death place	Monrovia, California, U.S.
death date	October 27, 1940
restingplace	Manila Chinese Cemetery, Manila, Philippines
education	St. Joseph's College
occupation	Businessman, philanthropist

Family and early life

Becoming the "Lumber King"

Founding of China Bank

Philanthropist and activist tycoon

Death

References