Chinese migration has a long history, dating back to the Ming dynasty in the case of South-East Asia. The global Chinese diaspora began in the nineteenth century, when there was a surplus of labour in the southern coastal provinces of China and Chinese workers were recruited for the European colonies, often as indentured labour. The biggest migratory movements were to South-East Asia, but the Chinese also went in large numbers during the second half of the nineteenth century to the United States, notably in search of gold and to build the railroads, and also to Australia and many other parts of the world including Europe and South Africa. Over the period 1844-88 alone over 2 million Chinese found their way to such diverse locations as the Malay Peninsula, Indochina, Sumatra, Java, the Philippines, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, California and Australia. In the second half of the twentieth century there has been a big expansion in Chinese migration to North America, Australia and, very much more recently, Africa, as well as elsewhere.
There is a voluminous literature on the subject, including: Lynn Pan, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: The Story of the Overseas Chinese (London: Arrow, 1998); Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: UCL Press, 1997); Susan Gall and Ireane Natividad, eds, The Asian American Almanac: A Reference Work on Asians in the United States (Detroit: Gale Research, 1995); Wang Gungwu, China and the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991); Wang Lingchi and Wang Gungwu, eds, The Chinese Diaspora: Selected Essays, 2 vols (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998); Wang Gungwu, The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy (London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).
Guide to Further Reading
It is difficult, a little invidious even, to select a relative handful of books from the vast range of sources — including books, academic and newspaper articles, lectures, talks, seminars, personal conversations, conference proceedings and countless interviews — that I have used in writing this book. Nonetheless, having spent years burrowing away, I feel it is my responsibility to offer a rather more selective list of books for the reader who might want to explore aspects of the subject matter a little further. I cannot provide any titles that offer the same kind of sweep as this book but no doubt in due course, as China ’s rise continues, there will be several and eventually a multitude.
I have mainly used three general histories of China, though others have been published more recently. The best is John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), but I also found Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, 2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), and Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), very useful. Julia Lovell, The Great Walclass="underline" China against the World 1000 BC-AD 2000 (London: Atlantic Books, 2006), is a highly readable account of the Wall as a metaphor for the long process of China’s expansion, while Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), is a formidable account of the huge expansion of Chinese territory that took place under the Qing dynasty. Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007), examines one of the most remarkable achievements in Chinese history. Although Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steeclass="underline" A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years (London: Vintage, 1998), only has a little about China, in a few short pages he demonstrates just how untypical Chinese civilization is in the broader global story.
There are many books that deal with Europe’s rise and the failure of China to industrialize from the end of the eighteenth century. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), and R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000), have been amongst the most prominent recently in arguing that Europe’s rise was largely a consequence of contingent factors; Pomeranz’s book has become a key book in this context. Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), still remains essential reading for those seeking an explanation of why China lost out on industralization. I also found C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), by taking a global frame of reference, useful in arriving at a broader picture.
Göran Therborn, European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, 1945-2000 (London: Sage, 1995), offers a powerful argument on the exceptionalism of European modernity. Deepak Lal, Unintended Consequences (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), raises interesting questions concerning long-running cultural differences between diverse peoples and civilizations and what lies behind them. There is one outstanding book on the nature of Japanese culture, and that is Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (London: Secker and Warburg, 1947), which, though written over sixty years ago, remains a classic on how to analyse cultural difference. Kosaku Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan (London: Routledge, 1992), offers interesting insights into Japanese identity, while Michio Morishima, Why Has Japan ‘Succeeded’: Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), is an excellent general history.
On the nature and extent of East Asia’s Westernization discussed in Chapter 5, I would mention K. C. Chang, Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), and especially Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word (London: HarperCollins, 2005), which tells the story of world history through languages and makes some illuminating points about Mandarin in this context. Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), provides a perceptive account of the distinctive characteristics of East Asian politics, though it is much stronger on North-East than South-East Asia.
Moving into Part II, many books have been published on China ’s rise but the great majority tend to deal with its economic aspects, with surprisingly few taking a more general approach. One of the most useful of these is James Kynge, China Shakes the World: The Rise of A Hungry Nation (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006), which is highly readable and has a distinctive take. I would also mention David M. Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). Paul A. Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), raises interesting questions about the nature of American writing and interpretation of contemporary China. Although arguably a little dated, Lucian W. Pye, The Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), displays a remarkable ability to grasp some of the underlying characteristics of Chinese politics, in a very accessible manner which has few if any peers. On the civilization-state and related matters, I would highly recommend William A. Callahan, Contingent States: Greater China and Transnational Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Callahan is one of the few Western writers who does not view China through a mainly Western prism, but seeks to understand it on its own terms.