Hometown as fatherland : Nanyang Chinese under Japanese pan-Asianism and Pribumi nationalism in Malaya and Indonesia, 1937-1955
I argue that for Southeast Asian Chinese the shift from China-oriented identity to local-oriented identity was a particular historical dynamic that came about largely through internal responses to changing political and social conditions. This special historical event can be traced through the discourse of hua-ren (華人), ethnic Chinese in rather cultural sense than political sense, which distinguished Southeast Asian Chinese from Chinese in China. The discourse was generated from the debate among Chinese in both Malaya and Indonesia in the 1940s. The main elements which contributed to this debate were traditional and new Nanyang identities, Japanese pan-Asianist propaganda, Chinese experience under Japanese occupation, the Indonesian revolution, the armed struggle of the Malayan Communist Party, ethnic politics in Malaya and Indonesia, and the re-sinization movement in the post-wartime era. This dissertation discusses each of these aspects. I intend to build an 'autonomous history' of Southeast Asian Chinese, breaking away from the framework of national history, linking pre-wartime and post-wartime history, and bringing Chinese and Japanese elements to modern Southeast Asian history. This study examines the development of a discourse of hua-ren identity between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore before those countries were formed or gained their independence. Specifically, it will illustrate how the term hua-ren was used to make distinctions between Chinese within and outside China; its implications for inclusion/exclusion; and its use to maintain Chineseness in the new situation of Southeast Asia. Through the debate on the nature of literature, rights to gain citizenship and the will to keep Chineseness, the thesis will demonstrate how ethnic Chinese negotiated new identities within the new nations during this critical early phase of nation-formation. I demostrate and argue in this study that the sources of the new approach to identity among the Southeast Asian Chinese were the Chinese communities themselves and the dramatic political and social changes of the time, not the policy decisions of the Chinese or Southeast Asian national governments. It should be considered as one aspect of the autonomous history of the Southeast Asian Chinese.
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