Routledge Series on Asian Migration, no. 2. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. xv, 232 pp. (Tables, graphs, figure, map.) US$149.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-138-06002-9.
New Chinese Migrations: Mobility, Home and Inspirations is an important and timely volume that captures recent scholarship on the Chinese diaspora, or as editors Yuk Wah Chan and Sin Kee Yoh insist, on Chinese diasporas (in the plural). Building on innovations in theories of transnationalism and studies of diaspora, New Chinese Migrations encourages scholars to approach the well-studied field of Chinese migration with a view to reconceptualizing the nature of mobility in the post-1980 period and the role of migration in transforming the scope and character of the state in the People’s Republic of China (China).
In this volume, the term “new Chinese migrations” refers to migration to, from, and beyond China over the past thirty years with specific attention to students, workers, investors, entrepreneurs, and other highly skilled migrants. In focusing on these groups, the editors and contributors contend that new migrations are born of “divergent pathways,” including ones that “converg[e] into China, and circular movements around different Chinese urban centres in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere” (2). The premise is that examining movement and settlement in diverse places, and the ways in which migrants are negotiating these novel transitions, can help us understand evolving sensibilities around Chineseness as an identity, especially as more recent migration has involved increasing numbers of Mandarin speakers. This emphasis on a new identity is reflected in the editors’ choice to use the term zhongguoren to describe their subjects of study, a term they recognize is somewhat confusing but which they define as “people who are culturally and /or historically connected to China and Chinese culture” (4).
There are two key themes that emerge from the volume’s conceptual approach and the varied contributions from scholars in sociology, ethnology, anthropology, political science, geography, and cultural studies (broadly defined). The first is the evolving nature of mobility in an era of increasingly sophisticated communication and remittance technologies. The second is the emphasis on migration or mobility as inspiration, specifically “positive inspiration for the (re)production and renewal of identity, and ongoing interrogations of one’s relationship to home, nation and space” (6).
Divided into four parts, the volume first explores global migration from the People’s Republic of China, with attention to new migrations in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, West Africa, and the Middle East. Contributors then turn their attention to the “Hong Kong-Taiwan-China migration triangle” (11) to engage with regional dynamics following significant political shifts in the region since 1997. The third section explores “ongoing migration” from Southeast Asia, with a close examination of Chinese migrants leaving Malaysia and Brunei while the conclusion, authored by editor Yuk Wah Chan, provides a historical overview of the Chinese state’s approach to the zhongguoren and how both successes and failures in the past now shape current approaches, including governance policies that extend far beyond the country’s geopolitical borders.
Within these sections, there are a range of theories and subjects covered by the contributors. Alexandra Wong and Ien Ang, for instance, insist on rethinking the Chinatown in Sydney, Australia, less as a “space of the ‘ethnic other’” than one that is “shaped by multiple interacting global and local forces,” (22) complicating the essentialism so often attached to Chinese settlement in urban spaces. In her chapter on Chinese migration to Japan, Gracia Liu-Farrer pays careful attention to the experience of first-generation migrants, inviting reflections on diasporic experiences across the generations, a point picked up by Liangni Sally Liu and Xiaoan Wu on multi-generational Chinese families in, and outside of, New Zealand. Directly related to the volume’s focus on inspiration, Katy N. Lam theorizes the notion of “Chinese dreams” (74) to explain the appeal of moving to and developing business opportunities in Africa for those who might be considered “less-privileged” in the Chinese context (81), a point elaborated in a contrapuntal manner by Way-Yip Ho in his analysis of the growing Chinese presence in Yemen and the related Yemeni presence in China.
The second part of the volume, with its focus on movement within the Taiwan-Hong Kong-China nexus, with contributions by Pei-Chia Lan, Sean H. Wang, Yuk Wah Chan, and Heidi Fung, and Linda Yin-Nor Tija, and Wing-Chung Ho, is particularly powerful for its innovative subjects of study, including student migration from Taiwan to China (and the complicated state politics involved), as well as the controversial and high-stakes practice of birth tourism, which has received considerable attention in the US media. The third section, with contributions by Kok Chung Ong, Sin Yee Koh, and Amanda R. Cheong, offers novel insights into Chinese migration beyond Southeast Asia, with attention to incentives (159) and a reconceptualization of the “sociological trope” of the “middleman minority” (191). However, it would have benefitted from an enlarged focus to consider other aspects of the new Chinese diaspora experience in Southeast Asia.
With the diversity of subjects covered, one of the volume’s most striking characteristics is the strong focus by many contributors on participant interviews to complement the empirical research and quantitative data analysis. Moreover, the volume makes an important contribution to the temporal and cultural aspect of current diaspora research. The emphasis on a dichotomy between new and old facilitates new avenues of inquiry into the intersections and connections between various communities, apart from the well-documented relations with the homeland. The interest in the “rise of China” (1) explains in part why the volume’s contributors focus almost uniquely on the movement of capital, entrepreneurs, and other elites, with little attention to the continued migration of labourers and refugees from the traditional sending areas of Fujian and Guangdong. In emphasizing the new, the volume ignores the ongoing old instead of fully elaborating the extent to which the new operates in tension or in relation to centuries of migration experiences. Nevertheless, New Chinese Migrations is a comprehensive volume that captures much of the innovative work in the field of Chinese diasporic studies while making a critical intervention in the literature on transnationalism more broadly.
Laura Madokoro
McGill University, Montreal, Canada