Tse Tsan-tai

Tse Tsan-tai (Chinese: 謝纘泰 or 謝贊泰; pinyin: Xiè Zàntài; Sidney Lau: Je6 Juen2 Taai3; 16 May 1872 – 4 April 1938), courtesy name Sing-on (聖安), art-named Hong-yu (康如), was an Australian Chinese revolutionary, active during the late Qing dynasty. Tse had an interest in designing airships but none were ever constructed. His book The Chinese Republic: Secret History of the Revolution (中華民國革命秘史), published in 1924 by the South China Morning Post, of which he was co-founder, is an important source of studies on the anti-Qing revolution.

In this Chinese name, the family name is Tse (Xie).

Tse Tsan-tai
謝纘泰
Born(1872-05-16)16 May 1872
Grafton, New South Wales, Australia
Died4 April 1938(1938-04-04) (aged 65)
British Hong Kong
Occupation(s)South China Morning Post founder
government servant
EraImperial China
Known forAnti-Qing Revolutionary
Author
Writer

Early life
Portrait of Tse Tsan-tai c. 1907

Born in Grafton, New South Wales, to Tse Yat-cheong (謝日昌) who was a Chinese nationalist, Tse Tsan-tai was baptised "James See" on 1 November 1879. His family was on close terms with the family of Vivian Chow Yung, another prominent Chinese-Australian from Grafton.[1] In 1887, Tse moved to Hong Kong with his family and he was educated at The Government Central School (now the Queen's College).[2] Afterwards Tse worked as a secretary in the Public Works Department of the Government of Hong Kong for nearly 10 years.

Interest in airships

Tse claimed to have “invented” and designed the world's first steerable airship in 1894 which he named “CHINA”. After he had perfected his design, in 1899 he wrote to Hiram S. Maxim of the then recently merged Vickers & Maxim Company which had also started building airships. He provided drawings and explanations about how his design would enable airships to be steered by propellers and that the balloon, “cigar-shaped”, would be enclosed in an aluminum shell, thus “protecting it from enemy missiles”.[3]

However, Maxim was obviously not overly impressed, replying politely to Tse that he was already in possession of Tse's “secrets”. The ‘secrets’ Maxim referred to were, coincidentally, revealed that same year with the launching in Germany of Count Zeppelin’s first giant rigid airship. Zeppelin had been way ahead of Tse, having first started planning these ships as early as 1874; he even patented the detailed design details in 1895 long before Tse had even started putting down on paper his “invention”.

As an anti-Qing dynasty revolutionary
The Situation in the Far East (1899)

On 13 March 1892, Tse, together with Yeung Ku-wan and others, started the Furen Literary Society[4]: 47  in Pak Tse Lane, Sheung Wan, with the guiding principle of "Ducit Amor Patriae" (盡心愛國 in Chinese, literally "Love your country with all your heart"). The Furen Literary Society was merged into the Hong Kong Chapter of the Revive China Society in 1895, with Yeung and Sun Yat-sen as the president and secretary of the society respectively. When Yeung and Sun fled overseas after the unsuccessful First Guangzhou Uprising, Tse remained in Hong Kong.

After Yeung was assassinated by Qing agents in 1901, Tse strove for his burial in the Hong Kong Cemetery, albeit with a nameless gravestone. Determined to avenge his friend, Tse, together with his father, his brother, Hung Chuen-fook (洪全福) and triads, plotted another uprising in Canton. They called for the establishment of the State of Great Ming Heavenly Kingdom (大明順天國), a democratic state with an elected sage and talent as the president, and persuaded Yung Wing to serve as the provisional president of the state. According to the plan, with financial sponsorship from Li Ki-tong (李紀堂), they would destroy the Emperor's Temple (萬壽宮) with explosives on 28 January 1903, killing all the officials there, and then occupy the city of Canton. The plot was leaked to the Qing government by a betraying informant.

As a newspaper person, Tse wrote the first declaration of the Revive China Society, with an open letter to the Guangxu Emperor in English. He also published The Situation in the Far East (時局全圖) to warn patriots against the Western powers' ambition to partition China. In November 1903, Tse co-founded the South China Morning Post with Alfred Cunningham.[5]

Tse was also a Christian, and published a book entitled The Creation, the Garden of Eden and the Origin of the Chinese in 1914. In it, he argued that the Garden of Eden was located in modern-day Xinjiang and that many Biblical events and narratives occurred within China's vicinity.[6]

After the revolution

After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Tse was not involved in the Republic of China Government. He died on 4 April 1938 and was buried in Hong Kong.

References
  1. Fitzgerald, John (2007). Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia. UNSW Press. ISBN 978-0-86840-870-5.
  2. Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake (2006) Connected Worlds - History in Transnational Perspective
  3. The Far Eastern Review January 1908: “China & the Conquest of Air”
  4. Schiffrin, Harold Z (1968). Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution. University of California Press.
  5. South China Morning Post history
  6. "The Garden of Eden - in China?". 2 October 2012.
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