Chinese Worlds, no. 29. London; New York: Routledge, 2011. xi, 229 pp. (Figures, B&W photos.) US$130.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-61670-6.
Although several articles and books written in Chinese on the returned Overseas Chinese (guiguo huaqiao) are now available, this important book is a very substantial one to examine China’s policies towards returned Overseas Chinese and the links between ethnic Chinese overseas and their homeland (qiaoxiang). Exactly forty years ago, Stephen Fitzgerald published his excellent study on China’s changing policies towards Overseas Chinese from 1949 to 1970, and Glen Peterson’s book could thus be seen as an updated and comprehensive study on the returned Overseas Chinese with a novel perspective “to create a narrative that attempts to understand the past on its own terms, through the eyes of the historical actors themselves” (25).
Consisting of seven chapters, this book provides readers with an in-depth analysis of the role played by the returned Overseas Chinese in the economic development of PRC with a focus on the 1950s and early 1960s, and the ties between Chinese emigrants and their ancestral homeland. Chapter 1, “Introduction,” briefly explains how the author was attracted by this topic three decades ago when he visited China for the first time. A number of issues are raised for discussion, such as the relationship between socialist China and the Overseas Chinese, Chinese emigration in historical perspective, the emergence of qiaoxiang society in south China, how “Overseas Chinese affairs” gradually became an arena for Chinese state activity, and the links between the Chinese Communist Party and Overseas Chinese before 1949 and in the early days of the PRC. The author points out that the focus of his book is on how Overseas Chinese were envisioned to fit into China’s domestic development. He argues that the PRC’s approach to the “Overseas Chinese question” since 1949 has centred above all on an economic calculus, and the Beijing authorities believed that Overseas Chinese have an important, strategic role to play in China’s modernization (7). Indeed, his observations and comments are insightful and distinctive.
Chapter 2, “Transnational Families under Siege,” probes into three tiers of state intervention into the lives of Overseas Chinese families, including written communications among family members, marriage and divorce, and the acquisition and maintenance of family property, in particular ownership of land and houses. Unlike other studies, this book for the first time examines the so-called “Letter-writing Campaign” in the early 1950s. Confronted with a hostile international environment and aware of the extensive links enjoyed by the former Nationalist government, the new PRC government launched a massive state-supervised letter-writing campaign in the hopes of reuniting families torn apart by World War II, as well as using this campaign as a vehicle to promote friendly relations with and a positive image of the PRC amongst both Chinese overseas and their host countries. By 1957, 500,000 letters had been sent to overseas relatives from families in Guangdong alone (31).
In order to attract and garner the support from Chinese overseas in different countries, the new PRC government worked out and adopted a series of special policies towards returned Overseas Chinese and their family members, or qiaojuan. Chapter 3, “Youdai : The Making of a Special Category,” discusses these policies, such as allowing Overseas Chinese to change their class status from landlords and rich peasants to ordinary peasants, restoring the ownership of their houses, and providing them with access to rare consumer commodities. Chapter 4, “Open for Business: The Quest for Investment and Remittances,” further explores how the new PRC government tried to attract investment and remittances from Chinese overseas. What is particularly interesting here is a case study on the unique role played by the returned Overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia in helping China to establish its rubber plantation economy on the Hainan Island in the 1950s when the US was imposing a trade embargo on China.
Chapter 5, “Patriots, Refugees, Tycoons and Students ‘Returning’ to China in the 1950s,” examines the return migration wave of Chinese migrants. It is estimated that perhaps as many as 600,000 ethnic Chinese migrated to the PRC between 1949 and 1961. They came to China from all over the world but most of them came from Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Malaysia. A large number of Overseas Chinese state farms came into being to settle them, and by 1966 there were a total of 51 state farms spread across six southern provinces (116). Chapter 6, “Socialist Transformation and the End of Youdai,” illustrates how the state policies towards returned Overseas Chinese and their family dependants suddenly changed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. And when the Great Leap Forward Movement began in 1958, almost all the returned Overseas Chinese found the situation they faced was more precarious and they became the focus of political attacks overnight. Chapter 7, “Cultural Revolution and Beyond,” describes the tragic experiences of these returned Overseas Chinese in China from 1966 to 1976, persecuted simply because they had “foreign connections.” Many were denounced as “enemies of the people” and as “foreign spies,” or even as a “Fifth Column” for the spread of capitalism in China (167). The book ends with a brief account of the new era and changes that have taken place since 1978, and how the Chinese authorities again glorified the enduring ties of Overseas Chinese to their homeland.
Unlike previous studies in English, the author made extensive use of a huge number of Chinese sources, such as official publications, internal CCP documents, major newspaper reports and local periodicals, academic investigation reports, as well as Chinese-language press reports overseas, enabling him to produce a well-written book with many new sources and novel perspectives. It would be good, however, if the manuscript could have been double checked by a native Chinese scholar before typesetting as more than 40 mistakes in the Chinese pinyin spelling and Chinese characters could be spotted in the book, particularly in the bibliography.
James K. Chin
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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