Phoa Tjoen Hoat

Phoa Tjoen Hoat (; 1883 – 31 October 1931), who also published under the name Th. H. Phoa Sr., was a Chinese Indonesian, Malay language journalist, translator and newspaper editor active in the Dutch East Indies in the early twentieth century.

Biography Phoa Tjoen Hoat was born in Buitenzorg, Dutch East Indies in 1883. His father was the Kapitan Cina (Dutch-appointed representative of the Chinese community) in Buitzenzorg and his brother Phoa Tjoen Hoay also became a journalist. He became involved in journalists' organizations, and in 1906 became secretary of a Malay Journalist's Union founded by F. D. J. Pangemanann and a mix of European, Indo and Chinese editors.

He also became an editor at Warna Warta in Semarang in around 1907; he seem to have relocated to that city from Batavia at around that time. Early in his tenure there he was called to court over a Persdelict (press offense) charge for having printed something considered slanderous of Oei Moh Sing, a local Chinese notable.

In around 1907, he also launched a magazine Insulinde published in Semarang which appeared three times per month. However, it was not successful and folded in early 1908. After that, he launched yet another paper in Semarang called (Early morning)

Phoa's ideas were fairly conservative; he supported Sun Yat-sen and published materials opposing the Sarekat Islam, the mass anti-colonial movement in Java. He printed materials condemning the Qing dynasty in Dutch newspapers at around this time and lamenting the situation of overseas Chinese citizens who were subjects of such a despotic regime. In 1908, he also petitioned the government to grant him legal status as a European rather than as a "Foreign Oriental", the normal status of Indies Chinese.

In 1914, he was promoted to editor-in-chief Warna Warta. After that he relocated to Bandung, although the circumstances are unclear, and entered municipal politics there.

He seems to have retired from writing and public activities around 1923, the year he resigned his municipal post in Bandung and apparently published his last book. His obituaries wrote about a long illness towards the end of his life.

Selected publications (1906-7, serialized in Darmo Kondo, translated works of Sun Yat Sen) (1909) (1912, serialized in Warna Warta, a novel criticizing the Sarekat Islam.) (1912, appeared serialized in Sin Po) (1918, printed in Semarang by Hap Sing Kong Sie) (translation of a French novel, appeared serialized partly in Warna Warta and partly in Tjhoen Tjhioe.) (1923, printed in Cilacap by Hok Hoo)