Huei-Ying Kuo
Johns Hopkins University, Sociology, Faculty Member
- BA and MA in Sociology, National Taiwan University
Ph. D. in Sociology (World Historical Social Changes), State University of New York at Binghamtonedit
What is the overseas community of Taiwan and how does it connect with Taiwan’s diplomacy? The ad hoc organization representing migrants from Taiwan, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, evolved from the Overseas Chinese Affairs... more
What is the overseas community of Taiwan and how does it connect with Taiwan’s diplomacy? The ad hoc organization representing migrants from Taiwan, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, evolved from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. The jargon overseas Chinese is a translation of the Chinese term huaqiao (which can be literally translated as Chinese sojourners). The changing idea concerning huaqiao and Taiwan’s diplomacy constitutes the theme of this paper. It adapts the Joseph Nye’s thesis of soft power (cultural diplomacy) and Jacques deLisle’s concept of sharp power (political warfare) to interpret the two different views on the articulation between China and its migration to Taiwan and elsewhere from the seventh century onwards. The first approach is Zhang Taiyan’s yimin (post-loyalists) argument that Chinese migrants to Taiwan in the seventeenth century were loyalists to the Ming empire (1368-1644) during the Chinese dynasty transition from Ming to Qing (1644-1911). The second approach is Liang’s zhimin (colonization) concept that associates migration to Taiwan and elsewhere in the seventeenth century onwards with the expansion of the Chinese state power. These two sets of understandings became the foundation of the Kuomintang (KMT)’s overseas Chinese policies from the Nanjing decade (1927-1937) till its relocation to Taiwan in 1949 and the end of KMT’s one-party control over there in 1987. The KMT adopted Liang’s thinking that mobilizing ethnic Chinese outside China (including huaqiao and the Chinese in Taiwan) was to extend the power of the Chinese Nationalist Government. The agenda became contested with the overseas Chinese policies of the People’s Republic of China after the latter’s market reforms in 1978.
In post-democratic Taiwan, Zhang Taiyan’s type of thinking ethnic Chinese outside mainland China as preservers thus advocators of the culture lost in mainland China can inspire the development of huaqiao policies along the concept of soft power diplomacy, together with the Aboriginal people’s connection with the broader Austronesian speaking countries.
In post-democratic Taiwan, Zhang Taiyan’s type of thinking ethnic Chinese outside mainland China as preservers thus advocators of the culture lost in mainland China can inspire the development of huaqiao policies along the concept of soft power diplomacy, together with the Aboriginal people’s connection with the broader Austronesian speaking countries.
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Adapting from Tim Harper’s thesis on the diasporic public sphere, this paper compares two forms of the public sphere in Chinese diaspora communities in colonial Singapore in the 1920s. My case in point compares the working-class Hainanese... more
Adapting from Tim Harper’s thesis on the diasporic public sphere, this paper compares two forms of the public sphere in Chinese diaspora communities in colonial Singapore in the 1920s. My case in point compares the working-class Hainanese migrants’ coffee shops (Kopitiam) culture and the bourgeois elites’ (towkays’) tea receptions. The decade of the 1920s witnessed the influence of Chinese anti-imperialist thoughts from mainland China. The trend developed after establishing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the rise and fall of the united front politics between the CCP and Kuomintang (KMT). The surging communist ideology challenged the British colonial status quo and the co-ethnic solidarity between the bourgeois and working-class Chinese diaspora communities. While the Chinese tea receptions would start with some political rituals showing reverence to China politics, the participants, mostly business elites (towkays), were against the communist movements. Coffeeshops were sites for the circulation of communist pamphlets and places where colonial police hunted for activists. Therefore, the different cultural presentations between a tea reception and a coffee shop are beyond the different tastes in beverage, but divergent strategies to build up a group identity concerning the views of China and livelihoods in a colony.
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Existing studies on the “buy Chinese” products movement (guohuo yundong) during the Nanjing decade (1928-1937) have emphasized the rise of common nationalist ground among the Chinese bourgeoisie in the coastal civilization. This paper,... more
Existing studies on the “buy Chinese” products movement (guohuo yundong) during the Nanjing decade (1928-1937) have emphasized the rise of common nationalist ground among the Chinese bourgeoisie in the coastal civilization. This paper, however, points out the movements' internal tension. Based on the Chinese Nationalist Government archives, I contextualize the tension against the backdrop of the political friction between the Nanjing government and the Guangdong provincial government between 1928 and 1936, as well as the relocation of Shanghai capitalists to Hong Kong between 1937 and 1940.
The nationalist government's economic policies provide special protections to Chinese industrial capitalists around the Shanghai area but not those in Guangdong. Hong Kong became a gateway for Guangdong manufacturers to expand overseas, especially the huaqiao (overseas Chinese) markets in Singapore. Nanjing's policies to promote the "buy Chinese" products movement in Singapore thus added tension between Shanghai and Hong Kong capital. The incorporation of Hong Kong in the government's identification of Chinese national goods only came after the influx of Shanghai's capital to the British city. In other words, the Shanghainization of the "buy Chinese" products movements shows the asymmetrical relationship between Nanjing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong area in the Chinese coastal civilization in the 1930s.
The nationalist government's economic policies provide special protections to Chinese industrial capitalists around the Shanghai area but not those in Guangdong. Hong Kong became a gateway for Guangdong manufacturers to expand overseas, especially the huaqiao (overseas Chinese) markets in Singapore. Nanjing's policies to promote the "buy Chinese" products movement in Singapore thus added tension between Shanghai and Hong Kong capital. The incorporation of Hong Kong in the government's identification of Chinese national goods only came after the influx of Shanghai's capital to the British city. In other words, the Shanghainization of the "buy Chinese" products movements shows the asymmetrical relationship between Nanjing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong area in the Chinese coastal civilization in the 1930s.
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This article reviews Wang Gungwu, Home is Not Here (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, ) and Gregor Benton and Hong Liu’s Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820–1980 (Oakland, CA: University of California... more
This article reviews Wang Gungwu, Home is Not Here (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, ) and Gregor Benton and Hong Liu’s Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820–1980 (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, ) in terms of how they reflect and revisit recent scholarship on China and the Chinese overseas published in English. Adopting different approaches, both books feature family correspondence within Chinese migrant families. This new focus unpacks concepts between ethnicity and language, and between family and homeland in migrants’ identity-making. Beginning from these studies, the article defends “Chinese overseas” as an intellectual concept and as a framework that allows an examination and comparison of the connections between China and its migrants as well as their descendants worldwide. In conclusion, the article argues that diasporas are made up of those who have left home but who miss that home, touching on the concept of nostalgia. Passing down the sense of nostalgia through successive generations via narrating, writing, and verifying, both in Sinophone and other languages, is a way by which Chinese diasporas construct their heritage. The process of retelling, rewriting, and reworking family heritage keeps the idea of home alive, wherever it might be, and whether or not it still exists.
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The essay is prepared for the exhibition catalogue of Living with Ink: The Collection of Dr. Tan Tsze Chor at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, from 8 November 2019 to 22 March 2020, edited by the curator Conan Cheong... more
The essay is prepared for the exhibition catalogue of Living with Ink: The Collection of Dr. Tan Tsze Chor at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, from 8 November 2019 to 22 March 2020, edited by the curator Conan Cheong (https://www.acm.org.sg/whats-on/exhibitions/living-with-ink). It introduces the social networks that connected the artists, connoisseurs, collectors, and art fair organisers around the pepper tycoon Dr. Tan Tsze Chor in Singapore from the postwar era to Merdeka. The main argument is about the construction of a Chinese identity in postwar Singapore through delinking the association between Chinese culture and the state of China.
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This paper examines the background of the first English translation of the Chinese text, Chao Ju-kau's Zhu fan zhi (completed in circa 1225). One translator, W. W. Rockhill, was an American diplomat who contributed to the American Open... more
This paper examines the background of the first English translation of the Chinese text, Chao Ju-kau's Zhu fan zhi (completed in circa 1225). One translator, W. W. Rockhill, was an American diplomat who contributed to the American Open Door policy in Asia in the early twentieth century. The other translator, Friedrich Hirth, worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs before serving as a faculty at the Chinese Department of the Columbia University. Hirth and Rockhill emphasized the Arab connections, while Chinese intellectuals underscored the Chinese contribution. The paper is concluded by a warning of the nationalist claim of global history.
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This paper elaborates upon a cultural logic of overseas Chinese nationalism. Around the early twentieth century, some bourgeois members of overseas Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Seas (represented by Guo Chunyang 郭春秧and Lau Chu... more
This paper elaborates upon a cultural logic of overseas Chinese nationalism. Around the early twentieth century, some bourgeois members of overseas Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Seas (represented by Guo Chunyang 郭春秧and Lau Chu Pak劉鑄伯) mobilised Confucianism as an ethno-symbol. The latter helped the overseas Chinese bourgeoisie to counter the quest for greater secularisation and to confront the surge of anti-imperialist movements.The implications of this research include to recentre the role of overseas Chinese in China’s modern transformation; to decentre the May Fourth agendas in the under-standing of overseas Chinese nationalism; and to situate overseas Chinese nationalism in an extraterritorial space, which includes the Confucian zone created in the dialogical connections between Confucian intellectual elites (such as Zheng Xiaoxu 鄭孝胥 and Chen Huanzhang 陳煥章) and overseas Chinese bourgeois networks that converged in Hong Kong and spread to Japanese Taiwan, Dutch East Indies, British Malaya and beyond.
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This paper compares the diverse British and Japanese classification systems for Chinese in British colonial Singapore. The British in the nineteenth century governed the Chinese communities in Singapore through the “divide and rule”... more
This paper compares the diverse British and Japanese classification systems for Chinese in British colonial Singapore. The British in the nineteenth century governed the Chinese communities in Singapore through the “divide and rule” policy, which considered the mutually intelligence Chinese southern speech-groups as different “races.” But after Chinese nationalism turned to an anti-imperialist position in the 1920s, the British colonial census changed to view the Chinese as an integrated group. In contrast, the Japanese challenger had to deal consistently with the divergent Chinese reactions to its southward expansion. Japan thus learned to make use of the social cleavages that prevailed in the Chinese communities in the South Seas. With few exceptions, the postwar Asian studies however overlook the prewar Japanese paradigm. The continuing influence of the southern Chinese languages in maritime East and Southeast Asia nonetheless points out the limit of the pervasive assumption about a singular Chineseness.
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This paper introduces the classification of migrants from Taiwan in American census data from 1970 (the first decennial census after the Hart-Cellar Act) to 2010 (including the American Community Surveys after 2000). It starts with an... more
This paper introduces the classification of migrants from Taiwan in American census data from 1970 (the first decennial census after the Hart-Cellar Act) to 2010 (including the American Community Surveys after 2000). It starts with an inquiry about what constitutes the category of Asian Pacific Islanders, followed by a survey of the changing working definitions on race and ethnicity in American census system. The article concludes that the momentum to make Taiwanese American a visible identity should start with challenging the stereotypical view on Asian descendants. To sustain the Asian American solidarity, the alliance between Taiwanese and mainland Chinese migrants is as important as the coordination with other descendants from the broader ethnic category of Asian-Pacific Islanders.
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Editor note for the special issue, "Overseas Chinese and Global Port Cities," at Translocal Chinese: East Asian Perspectives 11.1 (March 2017). The theoretical thrust of the Special Issue is to deepen Janet Abu-Lughod's emphasis on port... more
Editor note for the special issue, "Overseas Chinese and Global Port Cities," at Translocal Chinese: East Asian Perspectives 11.1 (March 2017). The theoretical thrust of the Special Issue is to deepen Janet Abu-Lughod's emphasis on port city connections in a world-system, all selected articles deepen the study of Chinese migrant networks and trade diaspora across maritime Asia. The special issue also features Prasenjit Duara's introduction.
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This paper examines the interplay between trade and nationalism in the development of Chinese bourgeois nationalism in British Hong Kong in the interwar years (1919– 1941). It points out the contingent responses among the Chinese... more
This paper examines the interplay between trade and nationalism in the development of Chinese bourgeois nationalism in British Hong Kong in the interwar years (1919– 1941). It points out the contingent responses among the Chinese bourgeoisie to the calls of Chinese nationalism. The bourgeoisie were lukewarm to the mobilization of the Chinese anti-British strikes and boycotts in the 1920s. They however organized fund raising movements and charities to support the Chinese defense against the Japanese inroads in the 1930s. The implication of the findings is twofold: first, the operation of Chinese antiforeigner movements in Hong Kong was not " taught nationalism " dictated by nationalists in mainland China. Second, while Chinese bourgeoisie identified the Japanese expansion as a reason for the British decline, they did not attempt to interrupt the Japanese trade. The latter was crucial for the Chinese manufacturers in Hong Kong to sustain their business. The agency of Chinese in Hong Kong in the decades of high Chinese nationalism points to the importance of examining Chinese bourgeois nationalism in Hong Kong against the backdrop of the colony's place in the inter-imperialist rivalry between the demise of the British free-trade imperialism and
the rise of the Japanese East Asian New Order. (This article is in Chinese.)
the rise of the Japanese East Asian New Order. (This article is in Chinese.)
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A Sinophone version of Networks beyond Empires: Chinese business and nationalism in the Hong Kong–Singapore corridor,1914–1941, translated by the author in her Chinese name, 郭慧英, edited by 鄺健銘 (Kwong Kin Ming), published by the Monsoon... more
A Sinophone version of Networks beyond Empires: Chinese business and nationalism in the Hong Kong–Singapore corridor,1914–1941, translated by the author in her Chinese name, 郭慧英, edited by 鄺健銘 (Kwong Kin Ming), published by the Monsoon Books, Taiwan
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The Language of Political Incorporation is an innovative book with its topic (migration in Central and Eastern Europe in the post–Cold War years), methodology (systemic surveys and quantitative methods), and comparative perspective (both... more
The Language of Political Incorporation is an innovative book with its topic
(migration in Central and Eastern Europe in the post–Cold War years), methodology (systemic surveys and quantitative methods), and comparative
perspective (both cross‐ethnic and cross‐regional comparisons).
(migration in Central and Eastern Europe in the post–Cold War years), methodology (systemic surveys and quantitative methods), and comparative
perspective (both cross‐ethnic and cross‐regional comparisons).
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This essay reviews Chung Shu-min's (鍾淑敏) Rizhi shiqi zai Nanyang de Taiwan-ren 日治時期在南洋的臺灣人[Taiwanese in Nanyo during the Japanese Colonial Period]. By Chung Shu-min [鍾淑敏]. Taipei: Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, 2020. Xvii,... more
This essay reviews Chung Shu-min's (鍾淑敏) Rizhi shiqi zai Nanyang de Taiwan-ren 日治時期在南洋的臺灣人[Taiwanese in Nanyo during the Japanese Colonial Period]. By Chung Shu-min [鍾淑敏]. Taipei: Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, 2020. Xvii, 610 pp. ISBN：9789865432485 (cloth) (Chinese). It also examines the argument on immigration and settler colonialism from the monograph of Sidney Xu Lu, The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868–1961 (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Chung’s monograph is the first monograph that examines the history of Taiwanese migrants during the colonial era. The Taiwanese experience shows a counter example of Japanese colonial migration and settler colonialism.
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a book review of Stan Neal's publication.
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An outreach publication in traditional Chinese on the concepts of home, homeland and diaspora
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This piece is collected in the joint project organized by Dr. Wayne Soon (Vassar College) and Dr, Evan Dawley (Goucher College) for teaching about Taiwan in Anglophone colleges and universities https://taiwanprimarysources.com/ This... more
This piece is collected in the joint project organized by Dr. Wayne Soon (Vassar College) and Dr, Evan Dawley (Goucher College) for teaching about Taiwan in Anglophone colleges and universities
https://taiwanprimarysources.com/
This document can be used to supplement the teaching on Taiwan's Nanyang (South Seas) connections during the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945). The materials can be helpful for students to obtain the following sets of knowledge: 1) The strategic position of Taiwan in the Japanese empire (after Japan completed its "northern affairs" after the end of the Choson dynasty). 2) The use of ethnic Chinese heritage and business networks in the operation of the Japan-led pan-Asianism. 3) The nuanced differences between migration, economic expansion and colonialism. Background and further readings (in footnotes): 1) About the source: This text is from the series of reports published by Inoue Masaji under the name "South Seas and Taiwan" between May 12 and June 9, 1914, in Taiwan Nichi-nichi Shinpō. It is a bilingual (Japanese and Chinese) newspaper published by the Office of the Governor-General in Taiwan between May 1898 and April 1944. In the text, the Kodama Governor-General is Kodama Gentarō (児玉源太郎) (1852-1906), who served the position between February 1898 and April 1906.
https://taiwanprimarysources.com/
This document can be used to supplement the teaching on Taiwan's Nanyang (South Seas) connections during the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945). The materials can be helpful for students to obtain the following sets of knowledge: 1) The strategic position of Taiwan in the Japanese empire (after Japan completed its "northern affairs" after the end of the Choson dynasty). 2) The use of ethnic Chinese heritage and business networks in the operation of the Japan-led pan-Asianism. 3) The nuanced differences between migration, economic expansion and colonialism. Background and further readings (in footnotes): 1) About the source: This text is from the series of reports published by Inoue Masaji under the name "South Seas and Taiwan" between May 12 and June 9, 1914, in Taiwan Nichi-nichi Shinpō. It is a bilingual (Japanese and Chinese) newspaper published by the Office of the Governor-General in Taiwan between May 1898 and April 1944. In the text, the Kodama Governor-General is Kodama Gentarō (児玉源太郎) (1852-1906), who served the position between February 1898 and April 1906.