His family ran a silk-trading firm, Kam Lun Tai, which later branched into remittance and mining, with offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Lee's great-grandfather had been a senior official during the reign of Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing dynasty while his grandfather was a famous scholar and philanthropist in his hometown of Zhenlong, Xinyi in Guangdong.[who?]

He completed degrees in Economics and Law at the University of London and St John's College, Cambridge,[3] where he came to know the future King George VI.

[5] In Malaya, Lee was deeply involved in Chinese guild and clan associations and became a recognised leader of the Guangdong and Gaozhou communities.

[2][4] After World War II, Lee was appointed to committees tasked with rebuilding the Malayan economy, which had suffered during the Japanese occupation.

He drafted the party's rules and regulations together with Yong Shook Lin and Khoo Teik Ee, and was instrumental in getting Tan Cheng Lock to become chairman of the MCA steering committee and its first president.

[6] Lee played a key role in forging an ad hoc arrangement with the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) to contest in the 1952 local elections that would later evolve into the Alliance Party, predecessor to the Barisan Nasional coalition that has governed Malaysia since independence.

[1][4][9] Lee had attracted Yahya's attention with the election manifesto he penned for Selangor MCA, which declared that "the interests of the members of the other communities should also be represented" despite Kuala Lumpur's large Chinese population.

Senior MCA leaders Tan Siew Sin and Khoo Teik Ee declared during the campaign period that the party's central working committee had not approved the alliance and called on voters to support the non-racial IMP.

Yahya was accused of selling out the Malays by working with the Chinese and his division head Datin Putih Mariah resigned just days before elections in protest.

In the weeks after the Kuala Lumpur elections, Lee was in contact with UMNO president Tunku Abdul Rahman, who mooted a nationwide alliance of the two parties.

Despite some initial reluctance, Tan Cheng Lock, who had preferred to work with Onn, eventually agreed to meet Tunku together with Lee on 18 March 1952 to discuss the merger.

[10] In 1956, Lee and Tan Tong Hye were selected to represent MCA as part of an Alliance delegation that went to London to pressure Britain into granting independence to Malaya.

Glen returned to Britain for good with Vivien after falling afoul of Lee's mother, who disliked her daughter-in-law's penchant for smoking and sports cars.

However, in January 2008, while awaiting execution, he was granted clemency by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, leading to his death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment.

[6] In 1959, Lee was awarded the Seri Maharaja Mangku Negara, which carries with it the title "Tun", for his significant contributions to Malaya's independence struggle and nation-building.