New Migrants and the Revival of Overseas Chinese Nationalism

Abstract

Emerging at the turn of the twentieth century, overseas Chinese nationalism played an important part in the evolution of the overseas Chinese community and modern history of China. It is generally held that overseas Chinese nationalism had died out and had become ‘a historical phenomenon’ by the 1950s, when the China-centered allegiance of the overseas Chinese was replaced by a local-oriented identity. The fundamental change of the Chinese diasporic communities over the last two decades, however, has put this conventional wisdom into contestation. This essay is concerned with the emergence of the xin yinmin (new migrants) and corresponding manifestations of a reviving overseas Chinese nationalism since 1980. It is divided into two main parts. The first is empirical, examining the rise and characteristics of the new migrants, who are composed of four main types: students-turned-migrants, emigrating professionals, chain migrants, and illegal immigrants. The second section is conceptual and comparative, looking at the manifestations and limitations of the reviving overseas Chinese nationalism and placing them in a historical perspective. It also considers the embedded tensions between nationalism and transnationalism and the strategies employed by both the Chinese state and new migrants in tackling these tensions. I argue that there are complex reasons behind the re-emergence of overseas Chinese nationalism. From overseas, it is a by-product of the formation of sizeable new migrant communities, particularly in the West. As the first-generation immigrants who have extensive links with the homeland, they remain culturally, and often, politically, attached to China (as a nation-state and/or site of transnational imaginary) and are concerned greatly with Chinese matters. Through such intermediaries as Chinese-language newspapers, websites and TV programs, they form a borderless and imagined greater China that is bound by both the ideas of sovereignty and transnational culture. From the mainland, a series of policies relating to the Chinese overseas facilitate the connections between China and its population overseas, thus providing a potential ground for the revival of overseas Chinese nationalism. I argue that the key agendas of this reviving overseas Chinese nationalism are China's economic prosperity, cultural regeneration, and national unification. This nationalism, furthermore, is characterized by its reactive nature and embedded contradictions with the simultaneous process of transnationalism, which in turn reduces the centrality and intensity of nationalism. As a result, it is unlikely to constitute a unified ideology or a movement with centralized leadership such as that in the 1930s.