China Aches

While Fujian ailed, China ached. The early twentieth century made up the latter half of what people have referred to as the “Century of Humiliation” that lasted from the first Opium War through World War II. Conflict and change marked this tumultuous epoch. Internal turmoil brought about by the Taiping Civil War, the Nian Rebellion, the Miao Rebellion, the Panthay Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the so-called Warlord Era, and the Chinese Civil War upended and ended lives while frustrating all attempts to unify and govern the country. And partially external challenges, including the Opium Wars, the Sino–French War, the Sino–Japanese War, and World War II, brought more suffering to families while slowly tearing away at Chinese sovereignty and financial solvency.

The individual and collective tragedies of this century are seared into people’s memories and history books to this day. Tobie Meyer-Fong captures the general atmosphere of fear and anxiety during the Taiping Civil War when describing hair politics: “The Qing and their militia allies massacred civilians with hair on their foreheads; the Taiping killed those with freshly shaved pates.”Footnote ¹ Peipei Qiu, Su Zhiliang, and Chen Lifei, meanwhile, capture the incredible pain and suffering of so-called comfort women who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II and faced ostracization if they were fortunate enough to return to their communities after the conflict.Footnote ² Testimonies from the Taiping Civil War in the mid-nineteenth century and World War II in the mid-twentieth remained strikingly similar though the technologies of torment had changed.

For people living through the first half of the twentieth century, an elusive salvation dangled frustratingly out of reach, and setbacks and disappointment remained the rule. Late Qing reformers attempted to bring about much-needed change through the Hundred Days of Reform spearheaded by Kang Youwei (康有爲) and the too little, too late New Policies led by the reluctant Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后), but those reforms failed. Radical writers and martyrs, like Qiu Jin (秋瑾) and Zou Rong (鄒容), along with new global revolutionary discourses like anarchism and communism that helped inspire them, produced “a general revolutionary atmosphere” in the first decades of the twentieth century that threatened to dismantle old centers of power.Footnote ³ This atmosphere produced the Wuchang uprising and the foundation of the Republic of China in 1911, and the Northern Expedition and the establishment of the Kuomintang government in Nanjing in 1927. However, as described elsewhere, these new governments failed to alleviate systemic problems across China.

Japan’s invasions of northeastern China after the Mukden Incident, Shanghai a few months later, and the rest of China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 extended and expanded the pattern of calamity in China. China’s emaciated air force and deficient antiaircraft defenses exposed most of China to Japanese bombers throughout the war.Footnote ⁴ And Japanese bombers did not hold back, unleashing carnage on people and infrastructure, especially in the wartime capital of Chongqing.Footnote ⁵ Air raids ended many lives, but the face-to-face pogroms and individualized violence in Nanjing in 1937 represented a whole different scale of holocaust.Footnote ⁶ This destruction demanded the attention of Chinese in the Philippines.

The same way a collapsing building might draw attention away from a superhero who was holding a bus in suspension, the broader destruction across China began to draw attention away from the Founders who had spent so much time propping up the Fujian bus. Of course, the story was more complicated than simply pivoting from Fujian to China. Many Chinese people in the Philippines felt perfectly justified supporting Hokkien and Chinese nationalisms simultaneously, but Japan’s outright invasion demanded a direct response.Footnote ⁷ Like aspiring superheroes, the Founders attempted to save people both on the bus and in the toppling building. However, especially after the war threatened to expand to the Philippines, the Founders redirected most of their attention to Chinese politics and Chinese “national salvation.” Fortunately for them, the Founders had slowly built valuable connections across China in the preceding years that would prove handy in their mission.

Sycip’s Sales Pitch

Albino Z. Sycip, who was “beloved and honored by Chinese and Filipinos alike,” also was “regarded warmly as a strong tie between the American continent and the Asian world.”Footnote ⁸ Always a man well connected, Sycip grew up on the posh Calle Jolo in Manila’s central business district where neighbors included Sergio Osmeña, a prominent politician who would serve as president, and Simplicio del Rosario, an original signatory of the 1899 Malolos Constitution of the First Philippine Republic.Footnote ⁹ Unlike Oei Tjoe and Cai Tingkai, who received little formal schooling, Sycip spent his formative years in the classroom. He studied at the Anglo-Chinese College in Fuzhou before undertaking advanced studies at the University of Michigan, where he served as a leader of the Chinese student association and editor for the Michigan Law Review.Footnote ¹⁰ With this training and connection to overlapping elite circles, Sycip, the communicator, facilitated connections and built partnerships for other Founders.

Returning to the Philippines after his stint in Michigan, doctorate in law and ample confidence in hand, he gained fame as a hotshot lawyer who argued high-profile cases for the Chinese community in the Philippines, such as the challenge to the Bookkeeping Act that we learned about in Chapter 2. Eventually, he swapped vocations, trading his life as a lawyer for a considerably more comfortable existence as a businessperson. Simultaneously relying upon and enhancing his broad network of acquaintances, he entered into and excelled in the import–export business. Although business prerogatives frequently took him away from the Philippines, he carefully attended to his connections back in the archipelago through golf matches at the Wack Wack Golf Club and his memberships to the Rotary Club and Cosmos Club.Footnote ¹¹ Through World War II and the years of recovery afterward, he served as the president of the China Banking Corporation, steering the institution through uncertainty.Footnote ¹²

Sycip used the connections at his disposal to build bridges. In 1923, Kiang Kang-hu (Jiang Kanghu 江亢虎), whom we encountered briefly in Chapter 4, got into a heated argument with Dee C. Chuan and Carlos Palanca Tan Guin Lay during his trip to the Philippines. After complaining that Dee and Tan Guin Lay could not speak (Mandarin) Chinese, Kiang wrote, “The two gentlemen know nothing of courtesy, [they] look down upon people with the haughty aspect of a capitalist.”Footnote ¹³ In this tense moment, the communicator, Albino Sycip, stepped in to mediate. Although Kiang still ended up broadcasting his gripes about Dee and Tan Guin Lay in the book he published upon his return to China, he admitted that Sycip had helped smooth things over. Nonetheless, Kiang rendered a familiar verdict on the Founders when he strongly chastised them for charging a sum, which thereby created a barrier for the non-wealthy to join the Education Association.Footnote ¹⁴

When Sycip married Helen Vonglin Bau (Bao Fenglin 鮑鳳林), whom he had met in a chance encounter on a steamship coming back from the United States, he became part of a prominent Shanghai family that owned the Commercial Press, among other businesses. Bau and their children stayed in Shanghai with Bau’s family for long periods for health reasons, and Sycip frequently joined them on business trips.Footnote ¹⁵ Likely leveraging the connections of his in-laws, Sycip received an honorary PhD from St. John’s Academy in Shanghai, cementing his position as a “dominant player” in the city.Footnote ¹⁶ As historian Parks Coble notes, “In a city the size of Shanghai, the dominant players in every sector often interacted with one another in settings such as the Chinese Ratepayers Association, the alumni association of the prestigious St. John’s Academy, chambers of commerce, and so forth.”Footnote ¹⁷

Because of his connections, Sycip often served as the recruiter or interlocutor for Chinese interests in the Philippines and Philippine interests in China. In 1914, shortly after his return from the United States, Sycip traveled to Shanghai to recruit merchants to showcase their products at the Manila Carnival the following year.Footnote ¹⁸ In the city, Sycip met several members of the Chinese National Products Preservation Society who showed him sample textile products from local factories.Footnote ¹⁹ Applying subtle nationalist-infused shaming, Sycip delivered his pitch, noting that comparable textile producers from England, Germany, France, and Japan dominated the Manila tradeshow. Sycip then discussed the details of the exposition with his Shanghai acquaintances for three full hours before retiring. In recruiting trips like these, Sycip and his colleagues laid the foundations for future partnerships between prominent Chinese in the Philippines and members of China’s business and political elite.

Years later, Sycip returned to China to recruit once more for the Manila Carnival, but this time around he was no longer a young and unproven lawyer. In 1928, after he had already made his mark on the world through his leading role in defeating the Bookkeeping Law, successful import–export company, marriage into a prominent Shanghainese family, membership in elite international organizations like the Rotary Club, and position as a director of the China Banking Corporation, he returned to recruit. By this time, he was a Founder. As a result, Sycip traveled directly to Nanjing to meet with the Kuomintang Minister of Finance, H. H. Kung (Kong Xiangxi 孔祥熙), who confided that Sycip had had a “positive influence” on him.Footnote ²⁰ Kung agreed to sponsor the Chinese trade trip to the Manila Carnival.

In a report to the Executive Yuan after the trip, H. H. Kung described how a lot of merchants had taken part in the Far Eastern Exposition of the Manila Carnival.Footnote ²¹ While Kung did not personally attend the exposition, he attached a comment from his representative who highlighted the warm atmosphere and pleasant welcome everyone had received at several business banquets. In the report, economic issues quickly faded to the background as Kung’s representative slipped into politics, promising a government of the Three People’s Principles that could both learn from and teach people in the Philippines.Footnote ²² Just as investment and relationships had led the Founders into politics in Fujian, trade and connections led them into politics in Nanjing.

Like Oei Tjoe and Dee C. Chuan, Albino Sycip stumbled upon a government position, but, also like Oei Tjoe and Dee C. Chuan, he passed on the opportunity. In 1928, soon after the formation of the Nanjing government, K. P. Chen (Chen Guangfu 陈光甫), Sycip’s banking colleague from Shanghai, wrote to inform Sycip that H. H. Kung had selected him to serve as the vice-minister of the Board of Industry and Commerce. Chen wrote, “I wired Mr. Kung recommending you for the post because you are the only man, whom I know of having the necessary qualification to do this important work for the country.”Footnote ²³ Sycip must have considered the opportunity, but in the end he informed his colleague, “I cannot entertain such an offer because my ability is not equal to the job.”Footnote ²⁴ Sycip’s careful fostering of relationships in the United States, the Philippines, and China had begun to bear fruit. An invitation to work directly for the central government in China had dropped at his feet.

Supporting China and shaping its future had long occupied the minds of wealthy Chinese in the Philippines. Before the establishment of the Republic, on the heels of the Boxer Rebellion, organizers in Manila had founded a branch of the Protect the Emperor Society.Footnote ²⁵ In 1911, under the guidance of local Kuomintang leader Tee Han Kee (Zheng Hanqi 鄭漢淇), a physician whom Albino Sycip would later vouch for in a 1928 correspondence with his Shanghai banking colleagues, Chinese in the Philippines opened a local office of Sun Yatsen’s revolutionary organization, the Tongmenghui. The local branch ended up raising over ₱300,000 for the revolutionary cause.Footnote ²⁶

Just like the Nineteenth Route Army, the Kuomintang proactively dispatched allies and advocates to Southeast Asia to rally support for their agenda and raise money. In 1915, for instance, Kuomintang leader Sun Yatsen dispatched Hu Hanmin (胡漢民) to Europe, and on his way there, he stopped by Singapore and Manila.Footnote ²⁷ At a banquet in the Philippines, Hu delivered a speech disparaging Beiyang leader Yuan Shikai and praising the Kuomintang. He noted for readers back in China that Filipinos in the audience expressed their “enthusiastic approval” to his speech. Although it sounds far-fetched, according to Hu, one spectator could not help but stand up and deliver their own impromptu speech expressing ardent support for China’s revolution.Footnote ²⁸

With the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy and the reinvigoration of the Kuomintang in 1924, the Founders and many of their colleagues recommitted to the nationalist organization and its leaders. This, of course, happened just as the Founders began to experiment with provincial politics. Over fifty different Chinese organizations in the Philippines signed on to a letter expressing support for the Kuomintang in 1925. With that support came some suggestions, however, as the letter’s authors wrote, “Chinese citizens should work hard to eliminate domestic compliance with imperialism and the scourge of warlord politicians to plan a reformed China.”Footnote ²⁹ The Founders had a long list of priorities, and they saw in the Kuomintang a potential avenue to achieve some of their goals.

The Kuomintang, for its part, continued its outreach abroad after the success of the Northern Expedition, sending Hu Hanmin on yet another trip to the Philippines in 1929. This time around, Hu met with local congress members and appealed for more support.Footnote ³⁰ However, after having spent several years of organizing the Save the Hometown Association, which focused almost exclusively on Fujian, and after repeatedly having their hopes dashed with Chinese national politics, Chinese in the Philippines appeared to have lowered their expectations regarding what could be achieved on the national level. Nonetheless, they made efforts to ensure they stood on the right side of Chinese nationalism.

While Sycip and other Founders supported nationalist-inspired protests and boycotts, like those that accompanied the 1925 May Thirtieth movement in China, they tempered that support when money was on the line. Tugging all the right nationalistic heartstrings by recognizing how his “compatriots hated the cruelty and pain of imperialism,” Sycip, as the head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, sent a letter to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce requesting that protestors refrain from boycotting the mixologist Tan Guin Lay’s La Tondeña Distillers.Footnote ³¹ Sycip and other Founders feared that their status as wealthy Chinese outside the so-called mainland might link them to imperialist forces during Chinese nationalistic upheavals. After having fumbled through a legal obstacle course put up by the Philippine government with the Bookkeeping Act, the Founders did not want to dive through even more hoops imposed by China.

It was tricky to balance Chinese, Philippine, hometown, and personal and professional goals, but Albino Sycip, the communicator, channeled his unique superpowers to glide across the balancing beam. He also helped his Founder colleagues do the same. When his colleague, Guillermo Cu Unjieng, shared a desire to invest in real estate in Hankou, for instance, Sycip sent a letter over to K. P. Chen in Shanghai asking for advice.Footnote ³² Sycip later sent a follow-up to another Shanghai banking colleague asking if he could secure low-rate loans for both Dee C. Chuan and Cu Unjieng.Footnote ³³ In the next section, we will follow Sycip’s colleague, Cu Unjieng, as he balanced personal and national imperatives.

Compadre Cu Unjieng, Camaraderie, and Capital

Guillermo Cu Unjieng, the compadre, or co-parent, rocketed from poverty to incredible wealth before falling back through the stratosphere burdened by debt. He first migrated to Manila as a teenager in 1882 where he worked as a cook, cleaner, dyer, and clerk before saving enough to start his own business.Footnote ³⁴ He got his start in the import–export industry before branching into insurance, real estate, and banking.Footnote ³⁵ However, when the Great Depression hit, Cu Unjieng found himself overburdened with poorly timed debt. The Shanghai Hong Kong Bank of China filed a lawsuit against him for defrauding the bank, and the case made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.Footnote ³⁶ For a time, however, Cu Unjieng was one of the wealthiest and most influential residents of Manila.

Like many of his Philippine colleagues, Cu Unjieng donated to his hometown and supported Chinese nationalist causes. In 1911, after hearing news of the Wuchang uprising, for instance, Cu Unjieng donated ₱5,000 to the revolutionary army.Footnote ³⁷ Cu Unjieng also watched out for his own, extending a system of compadrazgo, or co-parenthood, to the Founders. Joshua Kueh describes how this system of “fictive kinship” created “networks of mutual obligation and aid within their own community.”Footnote ³⁸ In 1904, along with twenty-four other prominent members of the community, Cu Unjieng founded the Manila Chinese Commercial Council – a precursor to the Chamber of Commerce. He served as the first president, and he held the position four more times from 1904 to 1920.Footnote ³⁹ From this spot, Cu Unjieng nurtured his foundlings and grew his wealth.

By the 1920s and 1930s, however, the tables had turned, the compadre having transformed from a powerful agenda setter to a man who relied on his “children” to maintain his waning stature and influence. This was the backdrop to Sycip’s introduction of Guillermo Cu Unjieng to his Shanghai colleagues in the previous section. Sycip had also vouched for Cu Unjieng a year earlier when he first introduced him to K. P. Chen.Footnote ⁴⁰ Then, in 1928, after Cu Unjieng had become a “valued client of this bank,” Cu Unjieng sent his son and wife to honeymoon in Shanghai, and the Shanghai bankers played host.Footnote ⁴¹ The relationships grew more multifaceted as personal, professional, and national goals expanded along with the fictive family.

Capital and power folded together into a vortex of possibility as the Founders and their colleagues in China strengthened the bonds of their relationship by championing a common cause – the Chinese nation. Dee C. Chuan, in an interview published in a Manila newspaper soon after the Northern Expedition, broadcast his praise for the new Kuomintang government and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek, whom Dee described as “an able general and highly efficient and excellent administrator” whose “honesty is unquestioned.”Footnote ⁴² Sycip and Dee also used their positions to squash rumors circulating in the Philippines that Chiang Kai-shek had been severely injured during the fighting.Footnote ⁴³

In addition to building business relationships with colleagues in China and making public and private declarations of support for the new Kuomintang government, the Founders also attended to relationships on a more personal level. Dee C. Chuan and Alfonso Sycip, Albino’s older brother and fellow Founder, contributed to a memorial fund for a prominent Shanghai banker who had recently passed.Footnote ⁴⁴ Albino also wrote to his Shanghai colleagues, “You and K. P. are my big brothers and so I feel that I have the privilege of expecting you to look after my interests as well as my duty in any matter that may come to your attention.”Footnote ⁴⁵ The Founders, perhaps planning for an uncertain future in troubled times, shored up their relationships across China.

Cu Unjieng acted as the compadre of Dee C. Chuan, Albino Sycip, Carlos Palanca Tan Guin Lay, and others. Meanwhile, the Founders adopted new “brothers” in the Shanghai bankers who, in turn, developed close if not complicated relationships with those in power in nearby Nanjing.Footnote ⁴⁶ In other words, these ultra-privileged capitalists and politicians became part of a convoluted and clamorous extended fictive family. Within this family, Sycip and Dee enjoyed an especially close relationship with the aforementioned Shanghai bankers, K. P. Chen and T. P. Yang (Yang Dunfu 楊敦甫), which would come in handy later when coordinating a meeting between leaders of the Philippines and China.Footnote ⁴⁷ These close personal relationships helped build the necessary rapport needed to address complicated political issues, but they would have been far less effective without parallel relationships in the Philippines.

The Founders’ fictive kinship networks extended throughout the archipelago. While Cu Unjieng, Sycip, and Dee funneled money into projects in Fujian, Shanghai, and elsewhere in China, they also crafted an image as model Philippine citizens and indispensable members of the proverbial Philippine family. They so effectively embodied this image that even a Chinese author who wrote about them noted, “Chinese overseas from Fujian, except when sending money to their hometowns, kept their investments in Philippine businesses.”Footnote ⁴⁸ Strategic investments and carefully calibrated friendships brought the Founders influential Filipino “family members.” Some of Dee C. Chuan’s children, for instance, had as godparents “distinguished Filipinos like Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Finally, in addition to fostering fictive kinships, the Founders and their wealthy colleagues in the Philippines employed a strategy that scholar Aihwa Ong calls “flexible citizenship,” which entailed “acquiring a range of symbolic capitals that … facilitate their positioning, economic negotiation, and cultural acceptance in different geographical sites.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Scholars like Richard T. Chu have extended Ong’s argument to the Philippines, exploring how Chinese people there used flexible “border-crossing” practices and held “shifting and multiple loyalties.”Footnote ⁵¹ With citizenship laws still fluid in the Philippines, Albino and Alfonso Sycip (Figure 6.1), who were born in the Philippines in the late Spanish colonial period, used their Philippine citizenship to their advantage, while others from the Chinese community maintained their Chinese citizenship and sent their kids to China to keep a foot in both worlds.Footnote ⁵²

Figure 6.1

Unchong Sycip, Alfonso Z. Sycip, Albino Z. Sycip, and Felisa S. Godinez. From John SyCip family collection provided by efforts of Addie S. Cukingnan and Leslie C. Samaniego.

Whereas real families tied the Founders to their hometowns and provincial politics, fictive families and flexible citizenship strategies linked the Founders to China, the Philippines, and a broader world of politics. So, when an opportunity arose for the Founders to make a connection between the leaders of the Philippines and China in 1927, they, like the superheroes they imagined themselves to be, leaped into action. This high-profile and understudied meeting would not have been possible without the extensive networks cultivated by Cu Unjieng, Sycip, Oei Tjoe, and Dee over the preceding years.

Quezon’s Quest

Manuel L. Quezon, the statesman, occupies a treasured place in Philippine history. He has already appeared several times in this book, so there is no need to detail his life, but a few comments on his upbringing will help set the stage for the story that follows. He was born into a family of teachers in Baler in eastern Luzon in 1878 where he excelled in school, eventually going on to study law at the University of Santo Tomas.Footnote ⁵³ He temporarily dropped out of the program at Santo Tomas to join the revolutions against Spain and the United States, gaining a reputation as a “fearless, impulsive, quick-tempered but kind-hearted” soldier.Footnote ⁵⁴ When the war turned south and General Emilio Aguinaldo surrendered, Quezon turned in his rifle, completed his degree, and took up the law.Footnote ⁵⁵ From there, he launched a career in politics, serving first in the House of Representatives, then the Senate, then as President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

Manuel Quezon’s training as a lawyer provided him with a natural connection to the communicator, Albino Sycip. This connection would come in handy when Sycip pulled some strings to introduce Quezon to the leader of the Kuomintang and the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek. Before we get there, however, let us set up Quezon’s visit. Sycip laid the groundwork for the meeting with a preliminary visit to Shanghai in May of 1927, which took place right on the heels of the Shanghai–Nanjing offensive of the Northern Expedition. During his visit, “Sycip conferred with all the high officials of the Nationalist [government] including General Chiang Kai-shek.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Sycip’s meeting set the stage for Manuel Quezon’s visit two months later.

Manuel Quezon left for Shanghai on the Empress of Asia on July 9, 1927, to “pay his respects to General Chiang Kai Shek.”Footnote ⁵⁷ The patron, Oei Tjoe joined Quezon, and the spiritual leader, Dee C. Chuan, promised to make the trip soon after in “service of the national cause.”Footnote ⁵⁸ Before making his way to Nanjing to meet with Nationalist leaders, however, Quezon charmed Shanghai’s wealthy with a banquet speech, saying, “I believe that the cause of Nationalist China is the cause of humanity. I think that it is only through the recognition of the fundamental principles of the rights of every nation to be free and independent and on an equal footing with other nations on earth that real peace and universal prosperity throughout the world can be established.”Footnote ⁵⁹ Ever the politician, Quezon serenaded his hosts with colorful Enlightenment rhetoric.

On July 19, Quezon received a telegram from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek himself stating, “Your visit to Nanking will be most welcomed.”Footnote ⁶⁰ Quezon then proceeded to Nanjing to meet with Kuomintang leaders, like the diplomat Hu Hanmin, whom we encountered earlier, and, of course, Chiang Kai-shek.Footnote ⁶¹ What did Quezon and Chiang discuss during their meeting? Plans to combat communism? Japan and the United States? Enhancing trade relations? Unfortunately, we will never know unless someone uncovers an account of the meeting. Nonetheless, the symbolic value of their encounter cannot be understated.Footnote ⁶²

As the highest-ranking Filipino official, Quezon granted Chiang’s government a type of recognition that no other major power had yet extended. For Chiang, Quezon’s visit represented a de facto recognition of his newly established Nanjing government. For Quezon, the Nanjing trip provided an opportunity to act as an autonomous and proactive head of state who pursued his own foreign policy and agenda. Chiang’s reception of Quezon represented a de facto recognition of Philippine autonomy. For both the as-yet unsecure Kuomintang government and the colonially occupied Philippine government, the meeting served as an important political statement. And it would not have been possible without the Founders, who rallied different members of their disparate fictive family to make it happen.

After Quezon had safely returned to the Philippines, Dee and Sycip sent a letter to Chen thanking him for hosting Quezon and organizing the meeting. They wrote, “We know that all of the courtesies President Quezon receives in Shanghai are entirely due to your efforts.”Footnote ⁶³ For his part, Chen expressed his admiration for Quezon. Chen wrote, “I saw him [Quezon] several times during his sojourn and am impressed that he is a very enlightened and energetic leader. He assured me that he would endeavor to promote a still better feeling between our people and the Philippinos [sic].”Footnote ⁶⁴ The Chinese Consul General in the Philippines likewise praised Quezon for “strengthening of the bond of friendship.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Like a superhero politician, Manuel Quezon sliced through international quandaries with the sword of diplomacy.

For the Founders, the newly extended fictive family came with upkeep costs but tangible benefits. While most people had to rely on news reports radioed into news offices, Albino Sycip used his direct connections in Shanghai to get the most recent updates on events in China.Footnote ⁶⁶ Sycip no doubt used this information to align the financial decisions of the China Banking Corporation. After receiving an update on the Northern Expedition from K. P. Chen later in 1927, Sycip returned an inspiring message, writing “In spite of the many adverse reports I feel quite confident that those who truly fight for the cause of nationalism, democracy and humanitarianism will … win at the end.”Footnote ⁶⁷ Dee C. Chuan and Albino Sycip, rallying the Founders, put their wallets where their mouths were, organizing the sale of a staggering ¥60 million in bonds for the Nationalist cause.Footnote ⁶⁸ But it was a small price to pay for membership to this powerful fictive family.

Over the years, Albino Sycip helped orchestrate other prominent political exchanges.Footnote ⁶⁹ For instance, he introduced representatives of the Radio Corporation of the Philippines to Nationalist leaders in China to help work on technology transfers.Footnote ⁷⁰ However, no introduction topped that of Quezon. The Founders, along with their second adopted hero, Manuel L. Quezon, worked hard to achieve and ensure Chinese national unity even while, with their first adopted hero, Cai Tingkai, they struggled to achieve Hokkien national objectives. In the end, the arrival of the Second World War mobilized a powerful Chinese nationalist sentiment that tilted the scales toward China and its salvation.

Part III Conclusion, “National” Salvation

With the rise of Japanese militarism, Chinese overseas and the Kuomintang spearheaded the “National Salvation Movement,” which is an umbrella term used to describe a series of boycotts, protests, fundraisers, and other resistance measures implemented to resist Japanese military encroachments.Footnote ⁷¹ Alfonso Sycip, a Founder who led the Chamber of Commerce at the outbreak of the Second Sino–Japanese War, formed the Philippine Resist the Enemy Committee, which helped raise nearly ¥260,000 for Chinese forces by August 1937.Footnote ⁷² The Chinese Women’s Association of the Philippines, meanwhile, also raised money for war goods, including airplanes.Footnote ⁷³ In other words, the Founders and their allies continued their pattern of fundraising and financial support during the war. This does not mean that they forgot about Fujian, though.

Back in 1927, after praising General Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist cause in a well-publicized interview, the spiritual leader Dee C. Chuan confided that even though he believed in “strong central government as do all Chinese Nationalists,” he still hoped that the new regime would provide a form of “provincial autonomy like that of the United States.”Footnote ⁷⁴ In other words, Dee hoped to achieve the best of both worlds: a united Chinese government, and an autonomous and secure Fujian. As historian Liu Hong observes, “there was an increasing tendency during the first half of the twentieth century to link localistic agendas with broader nationalist issues.”Footnote ⁷⁵ Chinese and Fujianese nationalistic issues became intertwined as leading Hokkien people in diaspora began to reconcile dueling nationalisms.

Through the years, as the Founders built their wealth and created new infrastructure for investment and influence, some things remained unchanged. The Founders continued to be blinded by their privilege and stymied by the limits of their capital interventions. They attempted to augment their social and financial capital by using citizenship and fictive kinship, and they attempted to leverage that social and financial capital to influence politics. They remained faithful to both their hometowns and the broader, more amorphous Chinese geo-body, though the war demanded outsized attention to the latter. And, through it all, they remained committed to one another and confident in their diverse, if not always effective, superpowers.