Chinese people living in countries throughout Southeast Asia share the same cultural identity, but that doesn't necessarily translate into political identification with China.
Wang Gungwu (王賡武), chairman of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a respected Sinologist, is one of the foremost experts on Chinese migration and what it means to be huaqiao (華橋), or overseas Chinese.
The former director of Singapore's East Asian Institute will present some of his ideas, which he developed over a 40-year career as a researcher, in a lecture hosted by the Lung Ying-tai Cultural Foundation (龍應台文化基金會).
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LUNG YING-TAI CULTURAL FOUNDATION
"The confusion for some is that in Asia the concept of a political identity and a cultural identity has to be understood as being two different things and they are not exclusive," Wang said recently in an interview published in the academic journal Asian Affairs. "Most [overseas Chinese] … identify themselves with the country where they live. A Chinese in Thailand is first of all a Thai."
Wang's lecture will focus on the different attitudes huaqiao living in Malaysia and Singapore hold toward Chinese tradition. He will use his experience to examine the situation in Taiwan and predict what the future may hold.
Wang has written extensively on Chinese identity in overseas communities. His recently published Divided China: Preparing for Reunification, 883-947 is an examination of the 53-year period separating the fall of the Tang Dynasty and the founding of the Sung Dynasty. Earlier works dealing with China and Chinese migration include China and Southeast Asia: Myths, Threats and Culture, The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy and Joining the Modern World: Inside and Outside China.
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
Burnt-out love-seekers are shunning dating apps in their millions, but the apps are trying to woo them back with a counter offer: If you don’t want a lover, perhaps you just need a friend? The giants of the industry — Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder — have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone. Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Bumble has also acquired the
RSS