Samuel Chinque or Sam Chen (; 22 November 190827 November 2004) was a British Chinese writer, publisher, social and political activist, and prominent trade unionist in the United Kingdom.
In 1947, Chinque co-founded the London branch of the Xinhua News Agency, which became the first branch of the official state run newspaper of the People's Republic of China, outside of the country. The agency's headquarters in London's Soho area occupied one of the first Chinese organisations in what was later to become London's Chinatown. After arriving in the United Kingdom as a seafarer at Liverpool Docks in 1929, he become a labour leader and supporter of the radical movement. He was known at the time as Sam Chen, leader of Liverpool Chinese seafarers. He later became the principal activist in the Save China campaign during the Japanese occupation of China (19371945) and a prominent ally to both the UK and China. He is regarded as a key figure in the British Trade Union Movement and in the emergence of a British East and South East Asian Activist Movement.
Early life and settlement in the United Kingdom
Chinque was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 22 November 1908, where his parents owned stores. In 1916, when he was 8 years old, Chinque's mother died prompting Chinque and his father to leave Jamaica and move to China. In 1926, at the age of 18, Chinque became a merchant seaman, a job which involved hard manual labour and low pay.
This work soon brought him to the United Kingdom, where he eventually settled in the port city of Liverpool in 1929, the oldest Chinatown in Europe. His birth in colonial British Jamaica and his parents' Chinese nationality meant that he was entitled to both British and Chinese citizenship. There, he became the official representative of the Chinese Seamen's Union in the United Kingdom. Along with his co-workers, he began organising and campaigning for better pay and working conditions, a struggle which soon lead him to discover socialism.
Union activism
As a representative of the Chinese Seamen's Union in the 1930s, Chinque worked in collaboration with the local British Seamen's Union. He is credited for helping to win the rights of equality of pay between Chinese sailors and their British colleagues working in Liverpool docks at the time, paving the way for British and Chinese seamen across ports in the United Kingdom to gain the rights for a fair wage and better working conditions.
Records which are currently held in the London Metropolitan Archives and the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick have revealed that sailors in Liverpool were often paid 30% less if they were of Chinese appearance, whilst their white, European colleagues were not only paid higher wages, but they also benefited from a War Bonus for working in dangerous zones, if they were British.
In 1942, Chinese sailors working in the Liverpool Docks took part in a strike demanding higher pay and bonuses for working in dangerous zones, and won. Chinque helped to establish the Chinese Seamen Union in Liverpool, which was able to represent the Chinese Seamen beyond the British Seamen and Fire Brigade Union, who had previously sought to protect their own interests by pressurising shipping companies into not hiring Chinese workers. Many of these workers had migrated from Shanghai, and found their pay and working conditions in their new home, were dramatically different to that of their white colleagues. However, once World War II ended in 1945, workers offering cheaper labour from Europe and America meant that many lost they jobs unless the Chinese sailors' cut back their wages to pre-strike levels.
In 1950, his activism lead to Xinhua official sponsorship of the first May Day demonstrations in London, a celebration of working class movements and struggle.
Political activism
1930's and World War II
In 1935, Chinque joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.