Part IV RELATIONS

Introductory text

Sample essay: "The Overseas Chinese Cycle"

RELATIONS

The two themes of the Part -- overseas Chinese relations with China, and overseas Chinese relations with non-Chinese -- are aimed at illuminating that most complex of questions, the identities of the overseas Chinese. For those identities are formed and transformed in a continuous dialogue with China and with the surrounding non-Chinese social and cultural systems.

The first sub-section considers China's policies towards the overseas Chinese, the politicization of overseas Chinese identification by nationalism, Hong Kong's role in the relationship between China and the overseas Chinese, and overseas Chinese remittances and investments in the home country.

The second sub-section turns to interactions with the non-Chinese world. A discussion on ethnicity is followed by one on what it means to be an overseas Chinese living in a modern and progressively globalized world. For the term 'non-Chinese' is to be taken in the broadest sense, as encompassing those processes summed up by the term 'modernity.' To give the reader some sense of how these abstract discussions relate to concrete situations, features on visual artists, writers and people working in the cinema interleave the text. Finally, we look at the ways in which overseas Chinese have worked and competed with others in the commercial expansion of their host economies...

Sample essay: Boxed item: "The Overseas Chinese Cycle"

Under the heading 'the Chinese overseas cycle,' the historian Wang Gungwu has summarized the interactions between Chinese governments and the Chinese overseas during alternating periods of national strength and weakness in the following manner:

1. Strong and prosperous Qing empire from 1680s to 1840s.
   Chinese government (CG) neglectful of, and indifferent to, the fates of the Chinese overseas;
   Chinese overseas (CO) faced great obstacles, but learned to be self-sufficient and independent, and increasingly successful in commerce.

2. The Hundred Years' weakness and poverty, 1840s to 1949 (the weak and poor Qing empire followed by a republic divided by civil wars and invaded by Japan).
   CG offered recognition of, and support to, the CO, but expected political loyalty from them, and also economic investments from the rich CO;
   CO numbers grew rapidly but the Huaqiao were responsive to China's needs and were, on the whole, caring; they continued to be economically prosperous but were also angry and ashamed at the failure of successive Chinese governments.

3. The Mao era of strength and promise unfulfilled, 1949Ð76: strong country, poor people, living under the shadow of the Cold War and the US-Soviet 'central balance.'
   CG impervious but constrained, forced by diplomatic isolation and ideology to ineffectual policies amounting to a return to neglect of, if not indifference to, the CO;
   CO faced new obstacles and relearned how to be self-sufficient and economically autonomous; became politically localized and naturalized, if not still divided by the forces of China politics.

4. The reforming People's Republic of China since 1978 has become potentially strong and prosperous relative to China's neighbours and its place in the world, but is still on the margins of Third World poverty.
   CG returns to recognition and modest support of the CO, but defensively, welcoming investments but not expecting loyalty;
   CO once again grow fast but they remain sympathetic, even caring; being better educated, they adapt to conditions abroad more easily and are divided in the ways they are attracted to the promise of Greater China but dismayed by China's political system.

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