Department of History

The movement of people leaving and returning to China from the second half of the19th century to the present is of such a phenomenal magnitude and complexity that Wang Gungwu has devoted a lifetime of his scholarship to tracking and explaining the various cycles of Chinese migration and settlement. Through this effort, he has not only contributed to China studies in general but has also pioneered and become the doyen of a new sub-field in the study of Chinese communities located outside of China and scattered all over the world. This has been a long and rewarding engagement for him, but not one without its moments of difficulties, especially at the conceptual level. Centering on Wang’s pool of scholarly writings and reminiscences, this article discusses his vigorous examination of the accuracy and appropriateness of various terms of analysis, such as “Nanyang Chinese,” “Overseas Chinese,” “Huaqiao,” “Greater China,” “Chinese Diaspora,” and “Chinese Overseas.” This discussion on terminology will also be used to reflect on Wang’s position on larger issues such as the danger of emotive responses to inappropriate labelling, the role of scholars in facilitating a better understanding of the contemporary world, as well as the relationship between scholarship and politics.

One of the most iconic expressions in the last one hundred years associated with Sun Yat-sen, Nanyang and the 1911 Revolution of China has been “The Overseas Chinese are the Mother of the Revolution.” This paper traces the hazy origin of the slogan in its particular, well-known form as well as through paraphrases by examining its linkages to Sun Yat-sen and a wide body of writings from different periods. It highlights the waxing and waning of its usage, pointing to a period of high currency in the early 1930s, fading out in the 1940s, emergence as a Cold War coinage in Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1980s, and its surfacing as a focus of scholarship in the mainland of China after 1978. The final sections of the essay explore the more recent transformation of the saying in Nanyang popular culture through museum displays, theatre performance, and film. Over time, the saying, in its various configurations, serves to use it as an umbilical cord connecting the Chinese diaspora with its ancestral land.

Lee Kong Chian was one of the most important Chinese entrepreneurs in the Asian diasporic landscape from the 1920s to 1960s. Born in late Qing China, he migrated to colonial British Singapore as a young boy in 1903, but went back for part of his education from 1908 to 1912. Empowered by a bilingual competency, he began his working career in an assortment of jobs and eventually ended up working for the leading Chinese businessman and community leader Tan Kah Kee and later marrying his daughter. He surged into the public limelight as a force in his own right from the late 1920s and steadily built up a formidable business empire, due in part to his entrepreneurial flair in taking advantage of the Great Depression and the Korean War. He soon acquired the reputation of being the ‘Rubber King’ and ‘Pineapple King’ of Southeast Asia and left profound imprints in the realms of business, education, and philanthropy, the last in particular having reverberations to the present day through the uninterrupted dispensation of his largesse by the Lee Foundation he set up in 1952.

As a public figure who had lived through the tumultuous decades of high nationalism in China, Second World War, British decolonization, nation building and the Cold War, different images of Lee Kong Chian have invariably been produced and projected at different points in time and space. This paper begins with a critical review of the substantive pool of Chinese-language writings on him and then examines closely three major ways in which he has been portrayed amidst the changing circuits of power and shifting identity formation.

‘Singapore stories’ are frequently tales of departure and arrival, but in the midst of this the nation-state has set out to construct a sense of permanence, and with that a future, such that the transits might become meaningful in the national narrative. Those who leave are supposed to be overseas Singaporeans; those who come, new Singaporeans. To this end, the country could do with an icon of mobility such as Zheng He, who evokes history, characterand expansiveness. His legendary journeys stimulated imaginations and marked the apex of the navigational technology of his day. In mainstream historical accounts, he was a figure of peace, representing the mighty yet benevolent Middle Kingdom, and even a folk deity. The 600th anniversary of the launching of the first voyage in 1405 was celebrated throughout China and the Chinese diaspora. In Singapore, the Singapore Tourism Board and private agencies rode on the worldwide publicity generated by the 2002 book by Gavin Menzies – arguing that China discovered America before Columbus and circumnavigated the world before Magellan – to host a range of mega-events, including an international exhibition based on the book’s claims. However, the celebrations were dampened by the efforts of Singapore-based Geoff Wade, a historian of Ming dynasty China, who has tirelessly disputed such claims. Other scholars and businessmen in Singapore have also entered the fray. From Raffles to Zheng He, Singapore’s search for history serves only to emphasize its historical rootlessness.