As Empires Fell: The Life and Times of Lee Hau-Shik, the First Finance Minister of Malaya

To understand how independence was gained for a politically complex country such as Malaysia, and how its structure took form requires familiarity with the key players involved. More importantly, only by locating these actors within the changing socio-political context in which they specifically lived does their influence both before and after the birth of the country become clear.

Having written potent biographies about Malaysian and Singapore leaders such as Ismail Abdul Rahman, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia who died in 1973, Goh Keng Swee, the economic architect and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Singapore, and Lim Kit Siang, the unwavering opposition leader of Malaysia, Ooi Kee Beng now tells the story of Lee Hau-Shik, based on the latter’s extensive private papers housed at ISEAS Library, Singapore.

Born in Hong Kong to a highly prominent family at a time when the Qing Dynasty was falling, Hau-Shik received degrees in Law and Economics in Cambridge and became a successful tin miner in British Malaya and an influential member of Kuala Lumpur’s colonial society. After the Second World War, his influence in elite circles in China, Britain and Malaya allowed him to play a key role in the gaining of independence for Malaysia. He was one of the founders of the Malayan Chinese Association, and served as the country’s first Minister of Finance.

“Ooi Kee Beng’s new book on H.S. Lee provides a remarkable picture of an “unlikely politician” who made major contributions to the formation of the early Malayan state. It adds another dimension of study to the formidable task of nation building in a multi-communal society and is an excellent follow-up to his widely praised study of Tun Ismail as the 'reluctant politician'.” — Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore

• Ooi Kee Beng, Author

  Ooi Kee Beng is executive director of Penang Institute.