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The Qiaowu weiyuanhui, Southeast Asia, and the Postwar Reconstruction of Chineseness

Sat, March 18, 10:45am to 12:45pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: Mezzanine, Norfolk

Abstract

In the late 1940s, the government of the Republic of China restructured and redirected its Qiaowu weiyuanhui (Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee), or Qiaoweihui. These changes accompanied larger institutional reforms as the Republic of China promulgated a new constitution and, at least rhetorically, moved into full constitutional democracy, the final stage of political development envisioned by Sun Yat-sen. From the late 19th century onward, Sun had built his revolutionary actions on the political awareness and financial support of Chinese residing outside of China, and many of China's other exiled nation-builders had worked among these diasporic communities. The Kuomintang itself had, after establishing a new national regime, continued to develop connections to Chinese communities around the globe. However, the nature of those relations had shifted somewhat with the creation of the Qiaoweihui, a bureaucratic organization designed more to shape those Chinese overseas in accordance with the party’s conception of Chineseness rather than rely on the nascent nationalism and native-place loyalties of those abroad. That centripetal force reached a new phase with the post-war reforms, which focused more intensively on educating the overseas Chinese, tying them more closely to the ancestral nation, and enlisting them in the struggle against communism. In short, through the Qiaoweihui, the KMT sought to extend its definition of Chineseness beyond China's borders. This paper will explore the details and meanings of that process both in Nanjing and among Chinese communities in the emerging independent states of Southeast Asia.

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