Tan Cheng Lock

Tan Cheng Lock was a Malaysian Peranakan businessman and a key public figure who devoted his life to fighting for the rights and the social welfare of the Chinese community in Malaya. He was also the founder and the first president of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), which advocated his cause for the Malayan Chinese population. He was born on 5 April 1883 in Malacca, Straits Settlements, into a wealthy Straits Chinese family with shipping and plantation interests. He was the third son of Tan Keong Ann and Lee Seck Bin, and a fifth generation Peranakan - Hokkien Chinese Malaysian. He attended Malacca High School and Raffles Institution in Singapore, where he won the Tan Teck Guan Scholarship. He was unable to proceed to England to study law due to his financial situation, so he decided to teach at Raffles Institution from 1902 to 1908. He later returned to Malacca to work as an assistant manager of the Bukit Kajang Rubber Estates Ltd., a company which belonged to his maternal cousin, Lee Chim Tuan. He invested in rubber and banking, and became a successful businessman. He also acquired great familiarity with the classical European philosophers and in later life frequently used his knowledge to enliven his political discourse. He first entered public life through the Straits Chinese British Association during World War I and in 1923 was appointed to the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements, emerging there as the most outspoken of local Chinese leaders. He campaigned against the “pro-Malay” policy of the time, and argued for a united (and eventually self-governing) Malayan society in which all ethnic groups, immigrant as well as indigenous, would have equal rights. In 1933 he became the first Asian member of the Straits Settlements Executive Council, in part, perhaps, because of his support of the government’s ban on the Kuomintang the previous year and his strongly expressed view that Malayan Chinese should be loyal only to Malaya. During the Japanese occupation, which he spent in India, Tan Cheng Lock formed an Overseas Chinese Association designed to exert some influence on British post-war planning, though it seems probable that it was less concerned with political matters than with economic reparations. The Malayan Union scheme, with which the British returned to Malaya, proposed a unitary state with a common citizenship. The plan was similar to that sought by Tan Cheng Lock, and its rejection by the Malays drew him more directly into political activity for its support, sometimes with such strange bedfellows as the left-wing coalition known as the All-Malaya Council for Joint Action. When the outbreak of the Communist Emergency in mid-1948 interrupted all legitimate political activity, Tan Cheng Lock was among a small number of politically safe figures who from late 1948 took part in the British-sponsored Communities Liaison Committee, designed to lessen communal discord and work toward national unity. He founded the MCA on 27 February 1949, alongside Tun Leong Yew Koh and Colonel Lee Hau Shik, and became its first president. He led the MCA to join the Alliance Party, a coalition of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC), which won the first Malayan general election in 1955. He was appointed as a minister without portfolio in the first Malayan cabinet, headed by Tunku Abdul Rahman. He was also involved in the negotiations for the independence of Malaya from the British, and the formation of Malaysia with Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. He was conferred the title of Tun by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in 1959, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960. He passed away following a heart attack on 8 December 1960 in Malacca, leaving behind a great legacy and a strong family. His son, Tan Siew Sin, the former Finance Minister of Malaysia, took over as the president of MCA after his death. He was the first non-royal to be accorded a state funeral. He was buried at the Bukit China Cemetery in Malacca City.