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Lee Tze Chung

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Hong Kong journalist In this Chinese name, the family name is Lee.

Lee Tze Chung
李子誦 Edit this on Wikidata
Born李頌 Edit this on Wikidata
21 May 1911 Edit this on Wikidata
Died11 May 2012 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 100)
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Fung Yiu King Hospital Edit this on Wikidata
OccupationJournalist Edit this on Wikidata
Lee Tze Chung
Traditional Chinese李子誦
Simplified Chinese李子诵
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinLǐ Zǐsòng
Wade–GilesLi Tzŭ-song
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationLèih Jí-chuhng
JyutpingLei5 Zi2-zung6
IPA

Lee Tze Chung (Chinese: 李子誦; 21 May 1911 – 11 May 2012) was a Hong Kong journalist. He was the president of pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po from 1952 to his dismissal in 1989, when he criticised the Chinese government for imposing martial law in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Early life

Lee Chung was born on 21 May 1911 in Shunde, Guangdong province, China. He had only attended sishu, a form of private school in imperial China.

Early journalistic career

Lee began his career in journalism at age 16 as a proofreader for The Seventy-two Guilds Commercial Daily News in Guangzhou and later the editor of Greater China News.

In 1931, Lee was arrested for sympathising with student protesters against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria after the Mukden Incident. After being released from prison, Lee founded and became the editor-in-chief of Livelihood News. He then became the editorial director of Superior News in Hong Kong and Integrity News in Guangzhou, which he became the editor-in-chief of during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was also the editorial director of Daguang News, a newspaper in Guangzhouwan during wartime.

After the Chinese Civil War resumed following the end of World War II, Lee began advocating for cooperation between Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party with his newspapers. As the editor-in-chief of Jianguo Ribao, Lee was arrested by Kuomintang military police on 2 June 1947 as part of a mass arrest of journalists in Guangzhou when students protested against the civil war across China. He was released 12 days later.

Lee later founded and became the editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Weekly News while holding editor positions at The Chinese Business News and monthly magazine Freedom. In 1949, he became the editor-in-chief of United News in Guangzhou, a newspaper controlled by the Communist Party's United Front department for South China.

He became the vice-president of All-China Journalists Association's Guangzhou branch in 1950.

Editor-in-chief of Wen Wei Po: 1951–1989

In 1951, Lee became the president and editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong edition of Wen Wei Po. During his 39-year tenure, the newspaper began to assign foreign correspondents and establish subsidiaries to increase income.

In the 1950s, Li Jishen, a leftist Kuomintang member who co-founded Wen Wei Po, gave Lee a share in the newspaper valued at HK$7,000 at the time and a fourth to a fifth of the ownership in the newspaper at founding. Lee later transferred his stake to the state.

In 1952, the Hong Kong government charged Lee on suspicion of publishing seditious articles after Wen Wei Po republished an editorial from People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, that criticised Hong Kong authorities after a demonstration that resulted in the death of a protester. Mass demonstrations broke out after the city government allegedly denied entry to a delegation sent by Guangzhou authorities to console victims in the Tung Tau Tsuen fire in November 1951. Two other pro-Beijing newspapers, Ta Kung Pao and New Evening Post, also republished the article. Lee attended court with eight other owners, publishers, editors and printers of the newspapers, who were released on bail for HK$10,000 each.

Only Ta Kung Pao and its two senior staff members were convicted before Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai publicly demanded Hong Kong to withdraw the lawsuit. Prosecutors dropped the case after the British government instructed Hong Kong to rescind the court sentence against Ta Kung Pao.

On 21 May 1989, Lee and Wen Wei Po editor-in-chief Kam Yiu Yu wrote a four-character editorial that read "deep grief and bitter hatred" after the People's Liberation Army enforced martial law during the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. According to Lau Yui-siu, a Beijing correspondent for Wen Wei Po, Lee said all truths about the protests could be reported and he would bear the consequences. The night before the military crackdown on protesters on 4 June, Lee wrote an opinion piece calling for Chinese leaders to "rein in the horse at the brink of the cliff" but was disappointed that it was too late to prevent the Communist Party from "massacring the masses" and its "brutal crackdown on the people".

A month after the crackdown, Lee fired Wen Wei Po's deputy director Chen Bojian, who attempted to realign the newspaper's position with that of Chinese government and criticised Lee for his position against the Chinese central government. On 15 July, Xinhua News Agency's Hong Kong bureau, China's de facto embassy in Hong Kong that also manages Wen Wei Po, intervened. Zhang Junsheng, the vice-director of Xinhua's Hong Kong bureau, announced in an editorial meeting at 2:00 am that Xinhua had accepted Lee's resignation he tendered in 1985, which was refused at the time. About 30 Wen Wei Po journalists have resigned in support of Lee.

Media scholar Paul Lee said Hong Kong newspapers, including Wen Wei Po, had transcended the position of political parties and acted in favor of the "highest national interest" before and after the crackdown.

After Wen Wei Po

By September 1989, Lee had plans to launch another publication. He approached Jimmy Lai, the founder of the Giordano fashion chain, for financial support, but talks broke down after they disagreed on the editorial policy.

Lee and former deputy Ching Cheong launched Contemporary, a weekly magazine focusing on China, a few months later. Contemporary included news, analysis, and opinion pieces on China and Hong Kong. The first issue sold 50,000 copies and operated out of an office in Causeway Bay.

At 78, Lee continued to write a weekly commentary and biography and spent three afternoons in the office every week.

However, the magazine launched with little advertising. Ching said that was because advertisers saw Contemporary as a publication confronting Xinhua. The magazine later became a monthly publication. It stopped publishing in 1995 because of financial losses of HK$100,000 per month, according to Ching.

Political career

Lee's portrait in a book published by CPPCC to commemorate its first meeting

Lee had been active in politics since the founding of the People's Republic of China. He was an alternate member in the delegation representing the Kuomintang Democratic Promotion Association in the first meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held on 21 September 1949 in Beiping. The KMT Democratic Promotion Association was later merged into the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang.

Lee was a central committee member of the KMT Revolutionary Committee from 1983 to 1992. He was also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from Hong Kong.

In 1985, he opposed China issuing the Hong Kong Dollar after the city's sovereignty is transferred to China in 1997 to become a special administrative region. He said using the Renminbi in Hong Kong after 1997 would reduce corruption.

After criticising the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Lee took leave from a CPPCC meeting in July 1989 and stopped attending CPPCC sessions and committee meetings.

Personal life

Lee was married to Law Siu Lan, a teacher. At 71, Law died of a chronic illness on 30 March 1981 at Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital and her body was cremated at Cape Collinson Crematorium.

Death

Lee died on 11 May 2012 at the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Fung Yiu King Hospital from multiple organ failure. Xinhua News Agency reported his death in a short article consisting of 35 Chinese characters. Lee had been hospitalised since the end of 2011.

Beijing supporters and officials of the Chinese government organised a public memorial at Hong Kong Funeral Home, which was attended by Li Gang, the deputy director of the Hong Kong Liaison Office, and former members of the National People's Congress from Hong Kong. His body was cremated at Cape Collinson Crematorium.

References

  1. "Li Zisong zuisi hui Liu Ruishao tan jianzhi jinburuxi" 李子誦追思會 劉銳紹嘆建制今不如昔 [Memorial for Lee Tze Chung Lau Yui-Siu says establishment worse than the past]. Ming Pao (in Traditional Chinese). 25 June 2012.
  2. Yung, Yuek (1 August 2012). "Huainian "baotan renrui" Li Zisong xiansheng" 懷念「報壇人瑞」李子誦先生 [Remembering "newspaper giant" Mr Lee Tze Chung]. Ming Pao Monthly (in Traditional Chinese). Hong Kong: Ming Pao. Archived from the original on 16 May 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  3. "Li Zisong shengping jianshu" 李子誦生平簡述 [Brief introduction to the life of Lee Tze Chung]. Wen Wei Po (in Traditional Chinese). 13 June 2012. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  4. ^ Jie, Ling; Shen, Liqing (13 June 2012). "Baotan taidou Li Zisong jubin" 報壇泰斗李子誦舉殯 [Funeral held for newspaper giant Lee Tze Chung] (PDF). Wen Wei Po (in Traditional Chinese). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2012.
  5. ^ Kam, Yiu Yu (2005). Jin Yaoru: Xiangjiang wushinian yiwang 金堯如：香江五十年憶往 [Kam Yiu Yu: Remembering 50 years in Hong Kong] (2nd ed.). Hong Kong: Kam Yiu Yu Memorial Fund. ISBN 9789624050684.
  6. "Guangzhou junjing tewu huazhuang gongren baowei Zhongda bu yuansheng Dagongbao jizhe deng tongshi beiju" 廣州軍警特務化裝工人 包圍中大捕員生 大公報記者等同時被拘 [Guangzhou military police special forces disguise as workers, surround Zhongshan University, arrest staff and students, Ta Kung Pao reporter and others arrested at the same time] (PDF). Nan Chiau Jit Pao (in Traditional Chinese). Singapore. 4 June 1947. p. 2.
  7. "Yue liang baoren qianri shichu" 粵兩報人前日釋出 [Two Guangzhou newspapermen released the day before yesterday] (PDF). Nan Chiau Jit Pao (in Traditional Chinese). Singapore. 16 June 1947. p. 1.
  8. Hu, Geng; Tang, Fuman (2017). Luo, Sumin (ed.). "Xin Zhongguo chengli chuqi minzhudangpai baokan de juese zhuanhuan ji qi yingxiang: Yi Guangzhou Lianhebao wei zhongxin" 新中国成立初期民主党派报刊的角色转换及其影响——以广州《联合报》为中心 [The role transition of democratic party publications and its impact in the early days of new China: A focus on United News in Guangzhou]. History and Literature Studies on CPC (in Simplified Chinese) (1–2). Guangzhou: 26–33.
  9. "Hui xinwen gongzuozhe xiehui ge bumen fuzeren xuanchu" 穗新聞工作者協會各部門負責人選出 [Leaders of every department of the Guangzhou journalists' association elected]. Ta Kung Pao (in Traditional Chinese). 16 August 1950. p. 2.
  10. ^ "Li Zisong shishi liusi qian jueding Wenhui shelun "kai tianchang"" 李子誦逝世 六四前決定文匯社論「開天窗」 [Lee Tze Chung dies, decided before 4 June to blank out Wen Wei Po editorial]. Ming Pao (in Traditional Chinese). 12 May 2012.
  11. ^ So, Peter (13 May 2012). "The editor who stood up to Beijing". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  12. Hutcheon, Stephen J (September 1998). "Pressing Concerns: Hong Kong's Media in an Era of Transition" (PDF). Shorenstein Center Discussion Paper Series (D-32). Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  13. ^ Yan, Lu (2010). "Limits to Propaganda: Hong Kong's Leftist Media in the Cold War and Beyond". In Zheng, Yangwen; Liu, Hong; Szonyi, Michael (eds.). The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds. Leiden: Brill. pp. 95–118. ISBN 9789004175372.
  14. "Nine Chinese Appear Before Judges at Sessions". South China Morning Post. 25 March 1952. p. 3.
  15. Tiananmen zhiji caifang 天安門直擊採訪 [Live coverage at Tiananmen] (Television production) (in Cantonese). Hong Kong: Asia Television. 4 June 1989.
  16. Nip, Joyce (11 June 1989). "Paper's reversals highlight changes". Sunday Morning Post. p. 7.
  17. "Power struggle rocks Hong Kong newspaper". Kyodo News. Hong Kong. Japan Economic Newswire. 15 July 1989.
  18. ^ "Director of Chinese paper removed". UPI. 15 July 1989. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  19. Marray, Michael (17 July 1989). "Peking sacks editor of Hong Kong newspaper". Financial Times. London. p. 4.
  20. Yu, Lulu; Yeung, Chris (22 July 1989). "More Wen Wei Po staff quit in protest". South China Morning Post. p. 1.
  21. Lee, Siu Nam (2017). "Xianggang de zhongxi baoye" 香港的中西報業 [Eastern and Western newspaper industry in Hong Kong]. In Wang, Gungwu (ed.). Xianggang shi xinpian 香港史新編 [Hong Kong history: New perspectives] (in Traditional Chinese). Vol. 1 (Updated ed.). Hong Kong. p. 603. ISBN 9789620438851.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  22. Chen, Kent (25 September 1989). "Sacked director plans new paper". South China Morning Post. p. 3.
  23. ^ Chen, Kent (18 December 1989). "Out of the mouthpiece, into the fire". South China Morning Post.
  24. Hooi, Rosalie (23 February 1995). "China-watching magazine to close because of money woes". The Straits Times.
  25. "Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang huiyi diyijie quanti huiyi daibiao mingdan" 中國人民政治協商會議第一届全體會議代表名單 [Delegate list of the first full-member meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference]. People's Daily (in Traditional Chinese). Beiping. Xinhua. 22 September 1949. p. 3.
  26. "Minge Zhongyang Changwei minglu (baokuo shisan jie, lijie)" 民革中央常委名录（包括十三届，历届） [List of central committee members of the KMT Revolutionary Committee (including the 13th and past committees)]. Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (in Simplified Chinese). 12 December 2018. Archived from the original on 7 April 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  27. "Tequ huobi kejiang ziyou duihuan, xiyin waishang touzi" 特區貨幣可將自由兑換 吸引外商投資 [Special Administrative Region Currency to be fully convertible, attracts foreign investments]. Wah Kiu Yat Po (in Traditional Chinese). 2 April 1985. p. 6.
  28. Fan, Cheuk-wan (9 February 1993). "HK critic tipped to retire from key panel". South China Morning Post. Beijing. p. 7.
  29. "Wenhuibao shezhang Li Zisong furen Luo Shaolan nüshi shishi" 文匯報社長李子誦夫人羅紹蘭女士逝世 [Wife of Wen Wei Po editor-in-chief Lee Tse Chung, Law Siu Lan, dies]. Wah Kiu Yat Po (in Traditional Chinese). 4 April 1981. p. 11.
  30. "Benbao qian shezhang Li Zisong xiansheng cishi" 本報前社長李子誦先生辭世 [Former editor-in-chief of this newspaper Lee Tse Chung dies]. Wen Wei Po (in Traditional Chinese). 12 May 2012. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
  31. ^ "Xinhuashe 35 zi bao Li Zisong sixun" 新華社35字報李子誦死訊 [Xinhua News Agency reports on Lee Tze Chung's death with 35 characters]. Ming Pao (in Traditional Chinese). 13 May 2012.
  32. Tam, Johnny (13 June 2012). "Beijing loyalists salute newsman". South China Morning Post.
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