Prompt: What are some issues mentioned in chapter 6? What are the standing points? Choose an issue, support a side and explain why.? Write a 300-word response using at least 2 references

6 China Beyond the Heartland

Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer

As Stan Toops illustrated in Chapter 2, China is Zhongguo, a two-character phrase meaning "middle kingdom" or "central state." Ear- licr chapters have explored China's geography, history, politics, and econ- omy, and now we will look at noncentral edges of the country: overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Tibet. These domains are all linked to Zhongguo but are not ordinary parts of it, even though they figure promi- nently in national policies for defense, foreign relations, growth, tolerance, and culture. The bonds that connect overseas Chinese with each other and with

China have usually been informal, but sometimes legal. Confucian imperial bureaucrats deemed overseas emigrants unfilial; sometimes the state made Icaving China a criminal act. Anthropologists write that these "edge dwellers" include "drinking buddies as well as chambers of commerce, or

Crested ghost worshippers as well as organized religiouscharities… SsOciations have survived the buffeting ofmodernity in both its

alist and capitalist forms [often revealingl the role of women insuc Suc ics,

OvC all the way these organizations can lay the groundwork 1or

Shaku DOltical change" (Weller, 2001:135-136; see also Wang and

).Relations of trust or conflict, not just formal legalities,

are

clf-

at the heart of this chapter.

of its state. Its meritocracy, rather than democracy, evolves from

rcople's Republic ofChina is avidly legalistic about the sovereignle

iprial beliet that legitimate rule depends on loyalty to auynus ademicevo uCrals who are credentialed because

they passed toughac

rectore minations. The Marxist doctrine that any state is the board or a

IOT'S of its ruling class meshes with this old Chinese legacy. The Chinese

179

180 Lynn T. White ll and RobertE. Gamer

Communist Party is not legitimized by popular votes, but by tha aTv merit of having led China's political and economic strengthening

China Beyond the Heartland 181

cCP implicitly claims to be "China." It also creates synergies he-volufion In eachperipheral Chinese area, the mainland's Leninist

small minority like itselt, on which it might depend to be imilarly

eause the mainland's "foreign'" direct investment comes mostly from ethnic

ese abroad. How did overseas Chinese become so wealthy? How doseeks a hine

they figure in China's affairs?

rial in extending PRC sovereignty. In Hong Kong, a city whosclato. essentialmerit the CCP officially defines as economic rather than political. tha

ignated leaders are a "chief executive" chosen by tycoons (althouehin future Beijing may shift to depend on leaders of a more proletarian

Iist party called the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hono(DAB) (So, 1999:118). In Taiwan, the CCP's potential ally has usually been the rather China-oriented Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, and Beijing re.gards the autonomist Democratic Progressive Party now in power as uselessfor its purpose of sovereign ultimate control (while it also disregards continuing hatred of communism within the KMT, and it seeks allies amongTaiwanese "Taishang" entrepreneurs who invest on the mainland; Mengin,2016). In Tibet, China in the 1950s depended on monks of the Gelukpa sectunder the Dalai Lama until he fled to India in 1959; since then the Chinesearmy has fostered a Tibetan elite that strains to counterbalance the continu-ing popular legitimacy of the Dalai (and thus ironically depends onordinary Tibetans' continued deep reverence for the exiled "living Buddha"). Inthese cases, the importance of the proxy to the CCP paradoxically dependson anti-CCP popular sentiments. Among overseas Chinese, in countrieswhere China is not sovereign, this paradigm is less applicable, but tnerstill tries to use it wherever possible, especially in Southeast Asia whereChinese economic elites are strong. The PRC encourages richoverseasnese to help their ancestral homeland. Premodern Chinesestatesalsouzed, ontheedges of the main domain, local proxy "lords ornusE), who collaborated gradually to expand the empire (Faure and Ho,2013).

Overseas Chinese Eor thousands of years, South Chinese merchants from Fujian and Guang. dong have been trading in Korea and Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia,

Siam

Thailand), Malaya (mainland Malaysia), and Java (the most populous is- land of Indonesia, see Map 2.1). Traditionally, these emigrants received no official permission to leave the fatherland, and sometimes they were prose-

cuted for doing so-or even for living too near China's southern coast, which pirates often controlled. Their overseas commercial families pros- pered during the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republican periods (see Table 3.1). Most emigrated for work or business. Some settled in over- seas societies, often as the richest members. They came not from all parts of China, but from specific counties in south Fujian, north Fujian, or Guangdong. The main spoken languages of these three south coast areas are mutually incomprehensible with each other and with Mandarin, the tongue of the north China capital that is official, central, and now widely taught in schools both in China and overseas.

Lenin.

Kong

Southern traders had early leaders who were often rebels to the Chi- nese state. One of them (called Koxinga) is famous for having taken Taiwan from Dutch imperialists in 1661, supposedly liberating it for China; even though Koxinga was seen as an outlaw by the then current dynasty, his notner was Japanese, and he kept Taiwan independent of Qing China. An- other of these south Fujian subtropical vikings (Limahong) almost took Manila from Spain a century earlier. These were pirate kingS. South ni- eSe such as they ran trading networks all along the coast of East Asia from Java to Japan, but they were not homogenous or controlled by

anystac They fought and traded for themselves.

ayalready know that Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997,uare engaged in diplomatic and military competinowell as economic cooperation, and that many Tibetans resostraints on their religion. The outcomes of these issueS-ariect the central kingdom's future. We look at thehistoria cacn area and then examine its present and future trends

Duropeans, arriving in the sixteenth century, had settled at Macau,

T a local Chinese official allowed Portuguese to stay because their can

uoons pea tight pirates. Spanish settled at Manila in the Philippines, Por-

Se and then British at Melaka (Malacca) in Malaya, and Dutcn a d Jakarta) and other Java ports. Merchants from Fujian

andGuang

and d all these places. Portuguese and Spanish, then Dutch, Frenc,

Drosn n courts in colonial Southeast Asian capitals let Chinese traders mioas heads of their own local business communities. Many

eary

ingthlarried local women; later, some brought wives from China. Dur

issues-on-the-edges cou of

first topic, heast Asia and furtherStandhow their financial capital and trade connections

raordinary recent economic growth. Many threads a

mainland to Hong Kong and Taiwan. As Chapter 1 noteu 0millionHan Chinese

who have left, or whoseanc tmentm China. The richest among them control huge amounts

identitie

They canself-identify as Chineseare not just capitalist, but are alsoanticommunis.

road, will help you under ided China's

ex Chinese

at least

oney

Cmployed youths from specific ancestral places-not all localities in any

uneteenth century, as China's population burgeone

This creates proD

182 Lynn T. White Il and Robert E. Gamer China Beyond the Heartland 183

province-moved to cities such as Penang and pore in Malaya, vwhere

missionary schools in mainland China introduced their adents to English and

a modern Western curriculum; their best graduates

were welcomed into leading US,

British. and European colleges and univer-

they became majorities. They also filled borers, miners, plantation workers, teachers, journalists, tradi.PPets, |a Derformers, house servants, and retallers. Others went to the Amapeta Australia to construct rail links or South Pacific islands (Dye, 1997; T. L. Chang, 1988), Sydnev(A Calcutta, Europe, London (Pieke et al., 2004), San Francisca(TS 2001),

2000: E. Lee, 2003; V. Li, 2006; Yung, Chang, and Lai, 2006),Van(Chong, 1996), the West Indies, and Latin American cities such :Those working on plantations, railroads, and mines often experiencede treatment, harsh conditions, and tight restrictions against obtaining citiship in their new places (E. Lee, 2003; Phaelzer, 2007; Kwong and Misee.vic, 2007; Sandmeyer, 1991; McClain, 1996; K. S. Wong and Chan, 1998)2Those who did not perish or return home stayed to set up small shops suchas laundries, often working in "Chinatowns" that emerged in cities even beyond their original ports of entry (I. Chang, 2004; Chen and Omatsu, 2006;See, 1996; Yung, 1995, 1999; Zhao, 2002; S. Chan and Hsu, 2008; J. T. Y.Lee, 2007)3

inland jobs as rubb By contrast, US 1

eities. Japan, too, received students from China (Bieler 200

ondhalfof the nineteenth

work on farms. Some settled i ericas

and Tokyo century, prominent urban Chinese families often

their children international eaucations. Many graduates who returned China became prominent in gOvernment, commerce, and cultural life, t0lite's exposure to European and Japanese cultures was considerable. when mainland Chinese studying abroad later settled back in China, many

wanted to introduce tne tecnnlques and 1deas they had learned on their so-

er Lima!IS

journs abroad. Treaties imposed after the Opium Wars (Chapter 7) forced the emper-

ors to allow emigration. The western order made China a new participant in

European-created international law. For the first time, China sent perma-

nent ambassadors to foreign capitals. The Qing government began to sup-

port schools for Chinese in Southeast Asia and conferred citizenship on overseas Chinese and their children (a policy that is now generally aban- doned). Consular officials were available to assist Chinese when they en- countered problems in their adopted countries, and sometimes to intercede against abuses of laborers there, although many of the abusers were Chi- nese too. After centuries of being cut off from their homeland, under threat of death as illegal emigrants, overseas Chinese were treated as compatriots. The Qing government encouraged them to send money home to relatives.

Anti-Qing Republican revolutionaries, notably Sun Yat-sen, also raised

The wealthiest families made fortunes by serving as intermediariesin trade between China and non-Chinese in Asia, Europe, or the Ameri-cas. Chinese in Manila traded silver brought by the annual galleon fromAcapulco, for instance (Fong and Luk, 2006). They became patrons toChinese-language schools, newspapers, temples, cultural festivals, cemeer1es, legal aid societies, and origin-specific welfare associations (Sun, 2004,2006; S. F. Chung and Wegars, 2005). Siam's court encouraged Cnmen to maTy indigenous women. A Thai-Chinese boy at age eighteencouchoose tobecomeThai by getting a bowl haircut and spending timeuddnist monk (most Thai politicians today are part Chinese)-Or, avely, he could grow a queue and join the local Chinesecommunydman prospered greatly as a noble of the royal court so long astawere paid and intercommunal peace lasted. In MuslimSoutheasChinese met with greater prejudice unless they converted toi Spanish Philippines

to Catholicism (Skinner, 1973). TneDte Tmmigrant and Singapore hired Chinese and Indians for bureaucraticpamilies set up shops, andmost sent money to poorer

money from overseas Chinese to modernize the homeland. This connection created precedents that affected China's foreign rela-

tions and the lives of many overseas Chinese. It reinforced a preference of China's pre-1949 governments to treat Chinese abroad as continuing sub- Jects of China-and nearby countries as implicitly linked to China's do- main. It encouraged overseas Chinese to isolate themselves from the social and political life of their adopted lands and to interest themselves n La's domestic politics and economy (Barabantseva, 2014). But this did

as a

erna

whose

sia, local

not always benefit the overseas Chinese, many of whose profitscameroBritish in Malaya

ng Concurrently with the places where they lived. Close links aiso: es hurt the Chinese government; in fact, they helped topple tne ynasty when Sun Yat-sen's revolution finally succeeded.HisKeviv

Cnina did not concern itself with the needs of Chinesewi abroad. To control piracy and rebels, the Ming and n55 forbade emigration

under penalty of death, but t obeyed. Except in the Philippines,

where the Spanishesta universities

for locals, few Chinese who were bornovo their local communities.

Most who attended schoolwe mmunitie

dialects then (now inMandarin). Many leaders ofovers

served southern Chinese

traditions in strong lineagesaandfamin

often

their edicts were not, generally

utside

in Chinese

OCiety, which started the Kuomintang, was born among Cninc

abroad. Sun lived in Japan,Brew up in Hawaii studying in an Anglican school, and

he later

States, Canada, Singapore, and Penang

With the Qing dynasty verthrown, political factions in China still

Europe, the Unitedablished schools an

Teturning to China by 1911, where he was brieflyelecicdoverseas studied president of the new republic.

coas unancial and moral support among overseas

Chinese. The govern-

184 Lynn . wnite il ana RODert E. Gamer China Beyond the Heartland 185

ment promoted equal treatment for Chinese in their cOuntri,helped them send children to China for study, and gaveo reside they established businesses back in the homeland. The Republi he

no March Abroad," 2016). Will they be latter-day Sun Yat-sens, ex

the mainland's ever-larger middle tnce,

anding democracy in Chi

pais Conservative? That road could be bumpy, but time will tell. and making

cused on founding sch0ols, training teachers, and setting eda.cationa statefodards for children of overseas Chinese. The KMT regimecritieial stan.ernments of emigrants' countries for "interfering" with thie gov.

conducted in Chinese (Fitzgerald, 1972:8).

The problems and benefits of divided loyalties among overseas Chi have continued. Both China and laiwan have tried to use the deep

class

Chinese abroad, in fforts to spread their influence in Asia. Atcation After 1921, the Communists and Nationalists cooperated in a patrint.

he same time, the PRC has urged overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia to

Loeofthemselves as citizens of their adopted countries-partly because of dangers always faced by rich minority ethnic groups. But we turn now to

pocketsof anti-imperialist "united front," but by 1927 they were bitter rivals

atriotic sought financial and moral support from overseas Chinese. In 1936. thau

Both again declared a united front against Japan's invasion of China, whichh1942 spread to Japan's four-year capture of Southeast Asia. Overseas Chi.nese gave resources variously to the Kuomintang and the Communists,

andthey led guerrilla war against Japan (which fostered some Muslim Malaypolitical hopes) rousing suspicions that Chinese were not loyal to theiradopted countries. Later, they found themselves caught up in battlesbe

a beautiful city where 95 percent of the people are ethnic Han Chinese.

Hong Kong The First Opium War and Unequal Treaties In 1839, the Qing emperor appointed Lin Zexu as special commissioner in Guangzhou, the only port open to foreign trade, ordering him to stamp out sales of addictive opium (Chapter 7; Maps 2.3 and 2.5). Guangzhou (Can- ton) is located on the Pearl River upstream from Macau, where local Chi- nese sheriffs had already for three centuries allowed Portuguese to settle on condition that these Westerners use their guns to help control nonstate piracy. Lin sent troops to the foreign wharves, where trading took place, and refused to let the merchants leave until they surrendered alltheiropium and promised not to import more. Among those in attendance was Captain Charles Elliot, Britain's trade representative. After six weeks of standoff, Elliot yielded 3 million pounds of opium to Lin, who had it flushed into the sea. Elliot retreated downstream to Macau, where the Portuguese did not WIsh to become involved. So he headed across the Pearl River to a sparsely nhabited large island called Hong Kong. It had an excellent protected har bor, where he and his companions stayed aboard ship. When some Chinese war junks tried to expel his crews from the harbor, Elliot's ships sank them. nus began China's humiliation by foreign powers.

tween communist and democratic states.Emigrant business people benefited most when they could balance theirlocal links to non-Chinese leaders with their global connections to Chinesenetworks, which created trust in external markets and among less wealthyChinese (Skinner, 1957,, 1958, 1968). Many Southeast Asian countries, andHong Kong, still have extensively oligopolized local markets, notwith-standing ardent official free-market rhetoric to the contrary. A few of tnerichest overseas Chinese were called "godfathers" because theirpronsupended on politics or coercion. In Thailand, where The Godfather moviewas a smash hit, such leaders are still normally called godfathersaopndhongpaichit and Baker, 1995). Money laundering in SingaporereTOr nich Indonesians, for example, or in gambling in Macau, hasbSIVC Trom colonial times up to the present. Most overseas Chinese,ever, are small traders or manufacturers. Theirmedium-si ns.Espe measurably higher productivity than do tycoociall

exten

ater the 1997 Asian financial crisis, fast growth in Asia's "tiger bigcorporations

economies reliedmore on small overseas Chineseenterprise ones (Studwell, 2007). large e 1ollowing summer, England sent a fleet commanded by Elliots

,Admiral George Elliot, to avenge Lin's ban on the profitable opu Cgnecers, academics,

accountants, and other professionals-and as,higher proportions of overseas Chinese havetors,

amics. His ship, the Nemesis, was an all-iron steam-powered gun-

doc Tinanced British purchases of Chinese products such as ted, silksan O0aa Ma

and aDroad from all parts of China, not just the sou

landChinese now get most of the fast-track visas Tor investors st. Main- outclassing wooden junks with sails (Hoe and

RoebuckK, 1Y that governments

of rich countries gra FHarvard, and less famousmainland parents actlikewistheirchildren

werewilling to

depart from thePRC eventually get legalreS1ac

T0401:116-117). Because Elliot's captains refused to sign picuge

Ot to trade opium, Lin had their ships expelled from Macau.

bay, where Captain Elliot had establish a village

Og. Though the British had declared an embargo on trade wim

his daughter 10

rant. Xi Jinping sends They headed across thepercent of parents who could affordovers e. A Shanghai

survey

, the United States acted as intermediary for English traders whopay for that. Half the univ

students ho

d bonds promising to obey Chinese lawsS.in Western counno

Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer186 China Beyond the Heartland 187

etiesof Chinese mandarins. Soon after Hong Kong was established, the

fast-growing city became a ral place where traders, pirates, bankers,

Admiral Elliot then blockaded Guangzhou's harbor. hea blockade the mouth of the Yangtze River, and was able to sennorth to the city ofTianjin (see Map 2.3). This was the first Opium WOpsinto gotiation that followed, China ceded the island of Hong Ko fficials met to do

business. The community included Britons (espe- other Indians, Bohra Muslims, Bagh-

cialy and many kinds of Chinese. Tycoons in all these groups sold which was by far the most profitable commodity. Crowded streets

emerged on steep hillsides riSing Irom the harbor. Further wars, skir. mishes, and unequal treaties staDilized diplomatic and trade relations with China, and ships sailed in and out of Hong Kong even when these con- flicts were most intense. British traders imported 6.5 million pounds of

and offered to pay a war indemnity and reopen Guangzhou's trade wil Britan Scots),Americans, Parsis and

Britain. When word ofthe agreement reached Britain, foreiensLord Palmerston was furious about these terms, he said the only realcession of the Chinese was "a barren island with hardly a house onithough actually, a centuries-old fishing community was on another Dartthe island (Ingham, 2007). Palmerston dismissed Elliot, refused to sign thetreaty, and sent another naval expedition that reopened hostilities, deci.sively defeating Qing forces and forcing the 1842 Sino-British Treaty ofNanjing (Hibbert, 1970:73-182; Tsang, 2007:3-28).

Secretary

Con

opium into China each year (Marks, 2015:127).

Hong Kong's Expansion and Rising StatureThis treaty became the basis for China's relations with all foreienpowers. It opened the ports of Guangzhou in Guangdong, Fuzhou and Xi.amen in Fujian, Ningbo in Zhejiang, and Shanghai for residence by Britishsubjects. It allowed British consulates in all these cities and let merchantstrade with whomever they chose, not just with the mandarin-supervisedtrading organizations (cohongs; see Chapter 7). It let Chinese subjectswork for the British and promised to protect Britons living in China, alongwith their property. It limited taxation on imported goods to "a fair andregular tariff" at customs halls in the five "treaty ports" and stipulated thatforeigners no longer needed to use terms such as "I beg you" in correspondence with Chinese officials (Spence, 1999:160-163). Deviating from hisinstructions, the British negotiator also forced the Chinese to cede HongKong lsland to Britain "in perpetuity." Further treaties later increased tnenumder of treaty ports, extended these privileges to other nations, andaowed missionaries to come to China. Foreign countries establishedcbassies in Beijing. These treaties expanded the principle ofextratety-that any foreigner accused of a crime should be overOtficialsofhis or her own government for punishment. Chaptc '* furtherexplains these developments.

In 1860, after the Second Opium War, the British got a lease on Kowloon,

a peninsula on the mainland just across from Hong Kong Island (Tsang, 2007:29-44). There, they had room for more military barracks. By 1896, the Qing regime (smarting from the Treaty of Shimonoseki after defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War) signed a secret treaty with Russia, agree- ing to take common action against Japan in case of attack and allowing Russian ships to visit any Chinese port. The Germans then used the murder of two missionaries as an excuse to send in warships, forcing China to lease for ninety-nine years the port of Qingdao on the Shandong peninsula (Map 2.3). The Russians seized Lushun in Manchuria and negotiated a treaty ced- ing it to them for twenty-five years (they renamed it Port Arthur). In China's extreme south, the French obtained a lease ceding a harbor on Hainan Island for ninety-nine years. The British, feeling the need for more land to defend Hong Kong harbor from Russian and French warships plying Chinese waters by 1898, obtained a ninety-nine-year lease for the New Ter- Ftories north of Kowloon-365 square miles of land and 235 surrounding 5lands(Hayes, 2006). The Kowloon-Canton railway, completed in 1912, nked Kowloon with the New Territories and China. By that time, Hong AOng's population surpassed a quarter million, including many icn andowning families that fled Taiping, Small Swords, and Nationalist revo-

Ons, which had seized or threatened their estates in China. Hong Kong

Among the treaty ports, one would prosper at the mouangize watershed: Shanghai was then a fishing village, Du

the

now

Kong

of China's largest city. Its chief rival was that "barrenislan amlies keep memories; most are still antileitist.i ne pearl of the south. Immediately after Elliotst'sarrival,

lot Dent,

from the reach

Pping company owners such as Alexander Matheson, Laiere they Nawllam Jardine began to build warehouses in Hong Kong StOred opium and other goods that they could trade, away of Chinese officials (Brook andWakabayashi, 2000). >O community grew in and around Hong Kong. Thejage Coast,withmany islands and peninsulas, offeredsai and smugglers

who had plied these waters for centuriesu

ne90,000 inhabitants of the New Territories had a history of practcd rom China–there is scant record ofthem being under Chi

erore the eleventh century. Since many engaged in Smuggi CDelled fiercely against the Manchu Qing dynasty, tnc

and

edto force their migration inland from the sea in 1662. Ethnic minorty

tneend of the nineteenth century, new rebels gravitated to the arca.

Soon afrontier

0at people" settled there as well as Chaozhou people from

ng.Fishermen and farmers from farthernorthjoined them.Castern

efuges for pirates

China Beyond the Heartland 189 LynnT.White lland Robert E.

Gamer 188

Variegated Chinese and foreigners met in Hong Kono D. 1997; Hibbert, 1970; Caroll,

2007; L. O.-f. Lee, 2008 OWn and Ounding several, and this precipitated strikes against the ies. During one of these in Hong Kong, British soldiers inese and wounded a hundred. For sixteen months, Kong ships and goods, crippling the port's economy.

China's Nationalist-Communist united front split apart and, as

years, Chiang sought aid from the United

Foo,

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

(now calle HSBC), was founded in 1865 and

grew into the biggest hanl

by the end of the century. (By 2016, it still had moreassete

oftheFar than ina

boycottedHong East

se aggression grew in later

Crates and Britain. Hong Kong's trade resumed.

soon PRC state banks.) Hong Kong and Macau facilitated

contac acts,

ny excer remittances,ceas

Chinese worldwide. Hong Kong's non.investments, and trade with over

Staen Japan occupied Hong Kong in 1941 after a short battle, the city

16 million inhabitants (dnoW, z003). Britain returned to the colony in

o4and quickly restored order, a stabie currency, public utilities, ade-

Chinese populace in 1865 did not exceed 20,000, and fewerthan1,500were British. Chinese in Hong Kong could study and discuss new ideaswithout much worry about political consequences; some learned about government and spoke English. The Red House, located in the New1

liamentary

quatefood supplies, and a predictable climate for businesses. This con-

Fasted sharply with the situation in other Chinese cities. Britain's policy ofries, became a center where several coups against the Qing dun0

planned (see Stephanie Chung. 1997; J.-f. Tsai, 1995; Tsang, 2007:73-1 Hundreds of individuals involved in aborted attempts against the lanchu Qing government sought refuge in Hong Kong. Sun Yat-sen studiedmedi- cine at the city's College of Medicine for Chinese. A generous gift byaPani opium tycoon motivated the British govermor and other donors to expand the medical college into Hong Kong University by 1911. In the next year, Sun founded the Republic of China (see Chapter 4).

nfinuing good relations with the Kuomintang, while establishing early

dinlomatic relations with the new Communist regime in 1950, contrasted

with that of the United States. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from

China's civil war poured across Hong Kong's border, until both sides tried

to shut off the flow in 1950. Many of these refugees, fleeing Shanghai and