Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894–1972. By Eric C. Han (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2014) 266 pp. $ 39.95

Abstract

This book illustrates the complex issues surrounding the identity formation of Chinese immigrants in Yokohama, Japan, from the end of the nineteenth century to 1972. Through a solid examination of such multinational sources as archives; newspapers; and personal collections in Japanese, Chinese, and English, it provides a path-breaking study of Chinese communities in modern Japan. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of the intertwined past of China and Japan, which cannot be fully grasped in any nation-based narrative.The five chapters of the book follow a chronological order. Chapter 1 examines the history of Chinese immigrants in Japan from the premodern era to the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. A declining view of Chinese immigrants in the archipelago mirrored a discursive shift of Japanese ethnicity from a cultural unit to a modern nation, and consequently the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Meiji Japan and the Qing Empire.Chapter 2 shows how the Chinese community in Yokohama became a central ground for competition between the two schools of Chinese nationalism—the reformers represented by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao and the revolutionists led by Sun Yatsen. It provides an intriguing story of Chinese identity formation in Japan that aptly synthesizes both the political transformations in China and the Japanese domestic debate about mixed residence.Chapter 3 argues that Chinese immigrants became more integrated into the Chinese nation during the era between the establishment of the Republic of China and the Manchurian Incident, when both China’s and Japan’s borders of national identity were strengthened. Chapter 4 discusses how the Japanese imperial state utilized Chinese immigrants in Japan to promote its Pan-Asianist ideology, calling for the collaboration of Chinese diasporic communities around the world. Chapter 5 reveals how the Yokohama Chinese were divided by their ties to either the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) or the Republic of China (Taiwan) between 1945 and 1972. These opposing Huaqiao identities eventually declined with the further integration of Chinese immigrants into Japanese society as ethnic minorities.This monograph is the most important scholarly work in recent years to examine the issues of race and citizenship in the Japanese Empire from the perspective of Chinese immigrants. Joining current studies that highlight the role of multi-ethnic racial discourse in sustaining Japanese colonial rule, Han shows the unexpected tolerance of the Japanese imperial state toward Chinese immigrants in the archipelago, citizens of an enemy nation during the Asia-Pacific War. However, different from existing literature that focuses on the racial inclusion of colonial subjects, such as Koreans and Okinawans, Han’s book argues that the Japanese did not try to assimilate the Chinese immigrants. Instead, they actively encouraged Chinese to retain an independent ethnic and cultural identity, utilizing them to mobilize other Chinese around the world to collaborate with the Japanese Empire under the premise of Pan-Asianism. The book thus adds one more important layer to our understanding of the complexity of racial discourse in the Japanese Empire.Focusing on Chinese communities in Yokohama also enables Han to explore the local dimension in the formation of Chinese identity in Japan. Chinese immigrants in Yokohama, as the study argues, embraced the identity of the city’s residents, on the one hand to challenge Japan’s official refusal to recognize them as Japanese nationals and on the other hand to avoid being exploited by the imperial state to promote Sino-Japanese amity during the war. With rich and fascinating stories, this book shows how Chinese residents in Yokohama negotiated their sense(s) of belonging between the local, the national, and the transnational during moments of peace and war.Although it is a comprehensive study, the book leaves at least one important question unanswered. How was the experience of Chinese women similar to and different from that of their male counterparts in Yokohama? Gender, as an important facet of migrant identity formation, demands further analysis. Nonetheless, Rise of a Japanese Chinatown is a valuable reference for historians of both China and Japan in the twentieth century as well as for scholars interested in the relationship between diaspora and nationalism in general.