6 From “Sino-Centricity” to “Autonomous Narrative” in Southeast Asian Chinese Studies in China: A Sporadic Review

Abstract

INTRODUCTION More than two decades ago, a delegation of Australian historians and social scientists led by Professor Wang Gungwu visited universities, centres, and institutes in the People's Republic of China (PRC) to find out more about the state of Southeast Asian Studies in the country. The curiosity was generated by the fact that while academics knew much about the state of Southeast Asian Studies in North America, Europe and Japan, they were less cognizant as to the state of the art in China. Many of the important observations made by these scholars were that Southeast Asian Studies scholarship in China has had the unfortunate experience of neglect and discontinuities in the 1960s and 1970s; and that PRC scholars doing Southeast Asian Studies were predominantly concerned with the problems of Chinese overseas and “the Chinese influence in Southeast Asia”. One member of the delegation, David Marr, made a salient observation that there seemed to be a lack of seriousness in Chinese Southeast Asian Studies scholarship in researching “the autonomous histories of Southeast Asian kingdoms”. His mere suggestion that PRC scholars needed to pay some attention to the subject raised the ire of the host and propelled him into a long, argumentative defence. In the last twenty-five years, Southeast Asian Studies in China has experienced a sea-change. Since the early 1980s, Southeast Asian Studies in the country developed much more rapidly after the open-door economic reform policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Institutes and centres on Southeast Asian Studies have been better financed by governments, staffed with young and energetic scholars trained in the various humanities and social sciences, and have produced many fine and pioneering works. A review of the state of literature in 1987 revealed various positive developments in this regard. By early 2000, Southeast Asian Studies in China has gradually matured into a more coherent academic discipline supported by the state. Much has been achieved and much remained to be done, however. Liao Shaolian, in his recent review of the state of Southeast Asian Studies scholarship in the PRC, listed four problems that need to be solved for the field to go forward. There were: 1. lack of training and knowledge for some researchers; 2. duplication of research; 3. lack of research materials, and 4. limited academic exchanges.