Seven papers on Changes and Challenges to 'Chinese' identity outside China

What is it about?

'Chineseness Unbound: Boundaries, Burdens and Belongings of Chineseness outside China' is a special issue comprising 7 articles on the theme of the changing nature of 'Chinese' identity outside China. The papers cover the global issues as well as some specific contexts in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. To the long-term process of gradual incorporation into new national identities has been added the rise of the PRC as a global power, and focus of both loyalties and resentments.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

In an increasingly integrated yet diverse world, the simplicities of national identity are being questioned as much as those of racial identity were by a previous generation. Multinational states are becoming as fashionable as multi-passport individuals. Identity politics have not subsided in this shifting world, but have taken on an increasingly international character, as if the only important labels are globally recognised ones. ‘Chineseness’ has become a global category, detached from its historic associations with empire, territory or language. Yet the return of political China to a place among great powers, and its claims over Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, suggests also an opposite trend, where pride in a successful ‘homeland’ again conflicts with local and global identities. The potential collision of these two trends with each other and with local contexts makes this topic timely. In Southeast Asia in particular, each country is in a different stage of transition, as its ‘Chinese’ communities become at once more locally integrated, more assertive about their rights, and more interested in China.