Kwee Kek Beng

Kwee Kek Beng (Chinese: 郭克明, 1900–1975) was a Chinese Indonesian journalist and writer, best known for being editor-in-chief of the popular Malay language newspaper Sin Po from 1925 to 1947.

Kwee was born in Batavia, Dutch East Indies on November 16, 1900. He received a Dutch language education at the Hollandsch Chineesche School in Batavia.^[1] Around 1915-17 he attended the Openbare Muloschool (MULO) in Batavia^[2][3] and then a teacher training institute (Kweekschool).^[1] In 1922 he started working as a schoolteacher in Bogor, not far from Batavia.^[4]

While still working as a teacher in 1922, Kwee contributed writings to the Dutch-language Java Bode.^[5] Impressed by his writings, Na Tjin Hoe, an editor at Sin Po invited Kwee to work at the short-lived Bin Seng, a spinoff newspaper of Sin Po focusing on local news.^[4][6] Even this junior position at the newspaper gave him almost double the salary he had been making as a teacher.^[7] He soon transferred to the editorial board of Sin Po itself.^[4] When former editor-in-chief Tjoe Bou San died in 1925, Kwee Kek Beng was promoted to the position.^[1] That same year, he became vice-chairman of a union for Indies journalists, the Journalistenbond Asia, along with editors of Hindia Baroe, Perniagaan, Bintang Hindia, and other papers.^[8]

In 1929 he travelled outside of the Indies for the first time in his life, touring the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, following a few years later with his first trip to China in 1933.^[1] Like his predecessors, he was also a strong Chinese nationalist.^[1] But, as with many other Indies Chinese intellectuals during the late 1920s and early 1930s, he also became increasingly sympathetic to the rising Indonesian nationalist movement. He was a close personal friend of a number of nationalist leaders including Sukarno, Sartono, and WR Soepratman.^[5] During the 1930s he served as an assistant at Soeloeh Indonesia Moeda (Indonesian: Voice of young Indonesia), the magazine of the Partai Nasional Indonesia.^[4] He also used his position at Sin Po to publish 5000 leaflets containing the score of the nationalist song Indonesia Raya, which were distributed with the paper in November 1928.^[5]

Shortly before the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Kwee sent his relatives to hide out in Sukabumi.^[5] He himself planned to stay in Batavia under the assumed name Thio Boen Hiok, but soon found it too dangerous and fled to Bandung, where he spent most of the war.^[5][1] Shortly after his departure his house in Batavia was discovered and looted by the Kenpeitai.^[5]

After the war ended Sin Po resumed publication and Kwee returned to his position. In 1947 he got into a dispute with publisher Ang Jan Goan, and resigned as editor-in-chief in 1947.^[1]

After Indonesian independence, he became a vocal critic of Indonesia's treatment of its Chinese minority.^[4] For example, he was co-writer of the Memorandum Commissie Chung Hwa Hui in 1947 which documented abuses against the Chinese population by the Indonesian republican forces.^[1] Nonetheless, in 1950 Kwee became an Indonesian citizen.^[4] He spent most of the 1950s as a freelance writer, publishing prolifically, especially about China. He founded a monthly journal Java Critic in 1948, contribute to the monthly Reporter during the 1950s and was editor of the annual journal Sin Tjhoen during 1956–60.^[5][1]

He died in Jakarta on May 31, 1975.^[4]

His wife was named Tee Lim Nio.^[5] They had four children, two girls and two sons. Their first son Kwee Hin Goan, born in 1932, became a well-known architect in Indonesia during the 1950s-1965 and in the Netherlands from 1966 to 1992.^[9] Their second son Kwee Hin Houw, born in 1938, became a journalist and lived in Germany from the 1960s until his death in 2016.

• Beknopt Overzicht der Chineesche Geschiedenis (A brief overview of Chinese history) (in Dutch, Batavia, 1925)
• Li Tai Po, Een Kleine Studie Over China’s Grootsten Dichter (in Dutch, Batavia, 1927);
• Doea Poeloe Lima Tahon Sebagi Wartawan, 1922-1947 (Twenty-five years as a journalist) (in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1948)
• Ke Tiongkok Baru (To a new China)(in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1952)
• Seikitar Stalin (Around Stalin) (in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1953)
• Pendekar-Pendekar R.R.T (Who's who in New China) (in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1953)
• Bevrijd China (Freed China) (1954)
• Djamblang Kotjok (in Indonesian, 1954)
• Kung Fu Tze, artinja, pengaruhnja, penghidupannja peladjarannja (in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1955)
• 50.000 kilometer dalam 100 hari (50,000 kilometres in 100 days) (in Indonesian, Jakarta, 1965)

• Kwee Kek Beng holdings at WorldCat