Chapter Four. Communism, Containment And The Chinese Overseas

Abstract

After 1949, the emerging Cold War imposed global strategic importance on Southeast Asia. The communist revolution in China, and the United Nations and Chinese interventions in the Korean War brought the struggle between spreading communism and containing it into the heart of Asia. The struggle for the support of the overseas Chinese is interesting because the audience was pulled at least three ways; the goals and priorities of the United States (US) and the Republic of China (ROC) in the region were not always the same, and host governments often added their voices in opposition to both communist and containment themes. For promoting assimilation into local societies, the goals of US and the People's Republic of China (PRC) goals were far more compatible than those of the US and the ROC. American and mainland Chinese organizations realized they could not continue to address the overseas Chinese as a unified diaspora. Keywords: Chinese diaspora; Communism; overseas Chinese; People's Republic of China (PRC); Republic of China (ROC); US policy of containment