Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. xiii, 301 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$43.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-3993-4.
Meticulously researched, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War by Taomo Zhou explores the fluid and multidimensional connections between the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia and their homeland, examining how the latter affected China’s geostrategic position in the early Cold War period (1945 to the late 1960s). Starting from the premise that state-to-state diplomacy and the everyday lives of migrants are mutually constituted, Zhou argues that migration intricately complicated the diplomatic relations between two emerging powers that were both pursuing a militantly anti-imperialist foreign policy. Drawing from a wealth of historical evidence, including thousands of temporarily de-classified Chinese government records, national archives, private collections and interviews with retired Chinese diplomats, Zhou illustrates how the ebbs and flows of diplomatic relations affected the lives of ordinary Chinese Indonesians, creating “divisions within and discriminations from without” (9). Yet, Zhou stresses that ordinary Chinese Indonesians were not without agency: they similarly influenced international relations through their everyday social and political practices, occasionally even derailing foreign policy goals.
The book comprises ten chapters. The first two chapters compare and contrast the Chinese Nationalists’ and Communists’ strategies for expanding their influence among the Chinese in Indonesia pre-1949, a time of violent political upheavals in both China and Indonesia. Chapters 3 and 4 provide detailed evidence of the battle over the hearts and minds of Chinese Indonesians in the 1950s and 1960s, looking especially at the fierce “blue versus red struggle” between Taipei and Beijing over Chinese-medium schools, civic associations, and Chinese-language media in Indonesia, which fostered long-lasting cleavages within the Chinese Indonesian population. Shifting the spotlight to the Indonesian state, Zhou shows in chapter 5 that Indonesian authorities (mis)interpreted ethnic Chinese political activism as a systematic infiltration by Beijing into Indonesian domestic politics. Chapter 6 then examines the anti-Chinese crisis of 1959–1960, during which boundaries between the domestic and the international became especially permeable. After covering the short-lived (1962–1965) strategic alliance between Beijing and Jakarta in chapter 7, the author in chapter 8 dispels the myth that Beijing sponsored the communist coup of September 30, 1965, suggesting instead that Suharto manufactured such myths to justify the anti-communist purge of 1965–1967, which soured once again the bilateral relations between Beijing and Jakarta, the topic Zhou takes up in chapter 9. Finally, the book ends with stories of the estimated 160,000 repatriated overseas Chinese migrants who came to China from Indonesia during the two-decade span covered by the book.
Zhou’s book makes important contributions to the study of diplomacy in general, and Chinese foreign policy history in particular. As Zhou convincingly argues, the tale of China and Indonesia is not “merely bilateral” (212) and cannot be boiled down to state-level interactions. Instead, by adopting a transnational approach that treats diplomacy as a “social process from the ground up” (11) and as something that ought to encompass domestic processes and individual experiences, Zhou provides an integrated and interactive framework for the study of diasporic politics and international relations. Scholars of citizenship studies and ethnic conflict will likewise appreciate how Zhou meticulously connects the larger foreign policy context, including early Cold War dynamics and Beijing/Taipei competition, with citizenship choices for Chinese Indonesians as well as instances of communal violence in Indonesia. Zhou is also careful to account for a variety of Chinese Indonesian experiences, be they from Jakarta or Kalimantan, rural or urban residents, farmers or small business owners, old or new migrants, or perakaran or totok Chinese. Despite being ascribed the same label, the “Chinese Indonesians” are not a monolithic bloc. However, it is unfortunate that the author did not seize this opportunity to explore how unique the ethnic Chinese diaspora in Indonesia is, and whether the main findings of the book apply to other Chinese minority populations in Southeast Asia, or to other ethnic diasporas around the world. For a book with “migration” displayed so prominently in the title, it is surprising that the book does not engage more with the migration literature and with the process of migration as a whole outside of chapter 10.
The role of the overseas Chinese population remains just as important—and contentious—today as it was during the early Cold War period, and the precise extent of the PRC’s control over its diaspora remains equally as obscure. While some members of the Chinese diaspora may decide to strategically position themselves as intermediaries between their host country and their homeland following China’s rapid economic growth, it is unclear whether this strategy is viable in the long term. Indeed, as the controversies surrounding the Confucius Institutes and the so-called “witch hunt” against Chinese academics in the United States (see for example, Karin Fisher, “Has the Hunt for Chinese Spies Become a Witch Hunt?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2021) demonstrate, Chinese abroad continue to have their loyalties questioned and are oftentimes perceived and treated as mere pawns of the Chinese state. As Migration in the Time of Revolution makes painfully clear, the instrumentalization of a diaspora group is not without its risks for the populations involved.
Isabelle Côté
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s
POS
migrants, overseas Chinese, diaspora, rivalry, Taiwan, anticommunism, diplomatic history
MIGRATION IN THE TIME OF REVOLUTION: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War. By Taomo Zhou. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. xiii, 301 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$43.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-3993-4.
Meticulously researched, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War by Taomo Zhou explores the fluid and multidimensional connections between the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia and their homeland, examining how the latter affected China’s geostrategic position in the early Cold War period (1945 to the late 1960s). Starting from the premise that state-to-state diplomacy and the everyday lives of migrants are mutually constituted, Zhou argues that migration intricately complicated the diplomatic relations between two emerging powers that were both pursuing a militantly anti-imperialist foreign policy. Drawing from a wealth of historical evidence, including thousands of temporarily de-classified Chinese government records, national archives, private collections and interviews with retired Chinese diplomats, Zhou illustrates how the ebbs and flows of diplomatic relations affected the lives of ordinary Chinese Indonesians, creating “divisions within and discriminations from without” (9). Yet, Zhou stresses that ordinary Chinese Indonesians were not without agency: they similarly influenced international relations through their everyday social and political practices, occasionally even derailing foreign policy goals.
The book comprises ten chapters. The first two chapters compare and contrast the Chinese Nationalists’ and Communists’ strategies for expanding their influence among the Chinese in Indonesia pre-1949, a time of violent political upheavals in both China and Indonesia. Chapters 3 and 4 provide detailed evidence of the battle over the hearts and minds of Chinese Indonesians in the 1950s and 1960s, looking especially at the fierce “blue versus red struggle” between Taipei and Beijing over Chinese-medium schools, civic associations, and Chinese-language media in Indonesia, which fostered long-lasting cleavages within the Chinese Indonesian population. Shifting the spotlight to the Indonesian state, Zhou shows in chapter 5 that Indonesian authorities (mis)interpreted ethnic Chinese political activism as a systematic infiltration by Beijing into Indonesian domestic politics. Chapter 6 then examines the anti-Chinese crisis of 1959–1960, during which boundaries between the domestic and the international became especially permeable. After covering the short-lived (1962–1965) strategic alliance between Beijing and Jakarta in chapter 7, the author in chapter 8 dispels the myth that Beijing sponsored the communist coup of September 30, 1965, suggesting instead that Suharto manufactured such myths to justify the anti-communist purge of 1965–1967, which soured once again the bilateral relations between Beijing and Jakarta, the topic Zhou takes up in chapter 9. Finally, the book ends with stories of the estimated 160,000 repatriated overseas Chinese migrants who came to China from Indonesia during the two-decade span covered by the book.
Zhou’s book makes important contributions to the study of diplomacy in general, and Chinese foreign policy history in particular. As Zhou convincingly argues, the tale of China and Indonesia is not “merely bilateral” (212) and cannot be boiled down to state-level interactions. Instead, by adopting a transnational approach that treats diplomacy as a “social process from the ground up” (11) and as something that ought to encompass domestic processes and individual experiences, Zhou provides an integrated and interactive framework for the study of diasporic politics and international relations. Scholars of citizenship studies and ethnic conflict will likewise appreciate how Zhou meticulously connects the larger foreign policy context, including early Cold War dynamics and Beijing/Taipei competition, with citizenship choices for Chinese Indonesians as well as instances of communal violence in Indonesia. Zhou is also careful to account for a variety of Chinese Indonesian experiences, be they from Jakarta or Kalimantan, rural or urban residents, farmers or small business owners, old or new migrants, or perakaran or totok Chinese. Despite being ascribed the same label, the “Chinese Indonesians” are not a monolithic bloc. However, it is unfortunate that the author did not seize this opportunity to explore how unique the ethnic Chinese diaspora in Indonesia is, and whether the main findings of the book apply to other Chinese minority populations in Southeast Asia, or to other ethnic diasporas around the world. For a book with “migration” displayed so prominently in the title, it is surprising that the book does not engage more with the migration literature and with the process of migration as a whole outside of chapter 10.
The role of the overseas Chinese population remains just as important—and contentious—today as it was during the early Cold War period, and the precise extent of the PRC’s control over its diaspora remains equally as obscure. While some members of the Chinese diaspora may decide to strategically position themselves as intermediaries between their host country and their homeland following China’s rapid economic growth, it is unclear whether this strategy is viable in the long term. Indeed, as the controversies surrounding the Confucius Institutes and the so-called “witch hunt” against Chinese academics in the United States (see for example, Karin Fisher, “Has the Hunt for Chinese Spies Become a Witch Hunt?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2021) demonstrate, Chinese abroad continue to have their loyalties questioned and are oftentimes perceived and treated as mere pawns of the Chinese state. As Migration in the Time of Revolution makes painfully clear, the instrumentalization of a diaspora group is not without its risks for the populations involved.
Isabelle Côté
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s