Abstract:
This book explores contested notions of “Chineseness” in Southeast Asia
and Hong Kong during the Cold War, showing how competing ideas about
“Chineseness” were an important ideological factor at play in the region. After
providing an overview of the scholarship on “Chineseness” and “diaspora”, the
book sheds light on specific case studies, through the lens of the “Chinese cultural
Cold War”, from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and
Vietnam. It provides detailed examples of competition for control of definitions
of “Chineseness” by political or politically oriented forces of diverse kinds, and
shows how such competition was played out in bookstores, cinemas, music halls,
classrooms, and even sports clubs and places of worship across the region in the
1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The book also demonstrates how the legacies of these
Cold War contestations continue to shape debates about Chinese influence – and
“Chineseness” – in Southeast Asia and the wider region today
