Ambivalent fatherland: The Chinese National Salvation Movement in Malaya and Java, 1937–41

China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in the diaspora communities worldwide. The Japanese invasion of China, accompanied by the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM) in Southeast Asia, provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’, as well as their relationships with the colonial states and the increasingly self-aware indigenous populations. This research problematises traditional approaches that tend to regard the NSM as primarily driven by Chinese patriotism. Juxtaposing Malaya and Java at the same historical moment, the article argues that the emergence of the NSM was more than just a natural result of the rising Chinese nationalism. Local politics and the shifting political orientations of overseas Chinese communities also profoundly shaped how the NSM played out in different colonial states.

Moving Beyond Identity: The Tibet Question Revisited

<p>This research paper explores the discursive construction of China and Tibet’s national identity, and how it interrelates with China-Tibet relations. In contrast to studies suggesting a defining and determinant role of national identity on China-Tibet relations, this research paper argues that the collective identity of Tibet and China is a hegemonic and highly contested construction, and Tibet and China, therefore, should look beyond identity and search for an alternative approach to nation/state building without succumbing to either Chinese nationalism or Tibetan nationalism. Drawing on the work of some of the critical theorists, this research paper shows that it is bound to fail to build a political community based on a collective national identity. This research paper proposes that the authorities of Tibet and China should negotiate for future institutional reform of the Tibet Question by the recognition of the contingent identities of the multitude.</p>

Moving Beyond Identity: The Tibet Question Revisited

<p>This research paper explores the discursive construction of China and Tibet’s national identity, and how it interrelates with China-Tibet relations. In contrast to studies suggesting a defining and determinant role of national identity on China-Tibet relations, this research paper argues that the collective identity of Tibet and China is a hegemonic and highly contested construction, and Tibet and China, therefore, should look beyond identity and search for an alternative approach to nation/state building without succumbing to either Chinese nationalism or Tibetan nationalism. Drawing on the work of some of the critical theorists, this research paper shows that it is bound to fail to build a political community based on a collective national identity. This research paper proposes that the authorities of Tibet and China should negotiate for future institutional reform of the Tibet Question by the recognition of the contingent identities of the multitude.</p>

Science with Boundaries: Yang Zhongjian and Vertebrate Paleontology in Republican China, 1919–1950

The rapid development of paleontology–especially vertebrate paleontology and dinosaurology–has made ‘Chinese Paleontology’ an important subfield of paleontology since the 1990s, resulting in China becoming a powerhouse of paleontological research. This chapter focuses on YANG Zhongjiang (1897–1979), often celebrated as the father of Chinese vertebrate paleontology, to examine how the field of his specialty was established and developed as a scientific discipline in his country. It traces Yang’s early academic experience from a geology major at Peking University in the early 1920s to his graduate years in Germany under the famous paleontologist Ferdinand Broili. Yang’s professional study and training was strengthened by his rich field experience after returning to China in the late 1920s. He participated not only in the joint Sino-American Central Asiatic Expedition to Mongolia in 1930, but also in the extensive excavation project of the Peking Man fossils conducted by the Cenozoic Research Laboratory. His more independent work took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when he discovered, studied, and constructed China’s first complete dinosaur fossils (the Lufengosaurus). Besides describing the making of a professional paleontologist in China in the first half of the 20th century, this chapter also illuminates questions that are intrinsic to the development of scientific disciplines at a time when the rise of Chinese nationalism intersected with scientific internationalism and imperialism. How did the academic practice of paleontology reflect unequal political realities? Is paleontology a ‘local science’? Could the endeavor for ‘local science’ empower scientists from developing nations?

Guarding the Space In-between

Based on eight in-depth interviews, this article analyses the quandary faced by liberal mainland Chinese student migrants in Hong Kong. On the one hand, the liberal pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong are deeply intertwined with the rise of localism, which is based on a dichotomy between Hong Kong and mainland China. On the other hand, a rising, development-centric nationalism in mainland China reduces Hong Kong protesters to unemancipated British colonial subjects. However, in the context of this “double marginalisation,” liberal Mainland students guard a form of liberalism that transcends both Hong Kong localism and Chinese nationalism. They debunk the stereotype of mainland Chinese students being apolitical and therefore provide an alternative definition of being Chinese. They challenge the view that mainland Chinese can only be emancipated outside mainland China to destabilise a Fukuyamian linear interpretation of history. They use four tactics to cope with double marginalisation: understanding localists, befriending expatriates, assuming professionalism, and becoming apolitical. Image © Ling Tang

Engendering Tionghoa nationalism: Female purity in male-authored Sino-Malay novels of colonial Java

The recurring trope of female purity holds an important place in the Sino-Malay literature of colonial Java from the late 1910s to the 1930s, a turbulent and transformative sociopolitical period that also saw the rise of Tionghoa (Chinese) nationalism in the Dutch Indies. Used mainly by male writers who dominated the Sino-Malay literary scene, the gendered trope features polarised femininities — the archetypal virtuous Tionghoa girl, and the Westernised modern girl who defies Confucian traditions — and reflects the male perspectives and sexism of the time. I contend, however, that the trope reveals ideological motivations that go beyond patriarchal concerns, as it is also employed to articulate and perpetuate nationalist and anti-colonial ideas and views. Using theories of gender and nation as well as anthropological concepts of purity and pollution, I examine how the female body's inscribed purity draws on embedded epistemologies of race and gender to represent Tionghoa identity and nationalism in two male-authored Sino-Malay novels, Liem Hian Bing's Valentine Chan atawa rahasia Semarang (1926) and Tan Chieng Lian's Oh…..Papa! (1929). As my readings show, female purity as a nationalist ideology validates Tionghoa masculinity as the defender and guardian of not just woman's virtue, but also of an imagined morally and culturally superior Tionghoa nation.