Qiaoxiang Ties

LEO DOUW is a lecturer in Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam and the Free University Amsterdam. His research is concerned with the twentieth century intellectual history of China, on which he wrote his Ph.D. (1991), and with the impact of ethnic Chinese transnational investment on the society and politics of South China. He is a director of the HAS research programme on International Social Organization in East and Southeast Asia: Qiaoxiang Ties during the Twentieth Century. MICHAEL R. GODLEY, who recently retired from Monash University, Australia, was trained in Chinese politics and Asian history. His publications include The Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernization of China (Cambridge University Press, 1981) and several dozen chapters, articles and essays. At present, Dr Godley is a visiting fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora at the ANU. CEN HUANG is currently a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden. Her research project is concerned with the structure and social organization of overseas Chinese invested enterprises in South China with a special focus on cultural aspects of transnational managers and migrant workers.

What is a diaspora? How are its members linked to one another and to the home country? Are only business interests served by the institutions in which the diasporas are grounded? How do the transitional cultures which make them function relate to the global spread of free market institutions? This interdisciplinary volume examines a specific aspect of the Chinese diaspora, which revolves around the cultivation of quaoixchang ties, or links with the home town, as revealed through extensive case studies of the way in which entrepreneurs of Chinese descent from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia brought their business ventures into South China after the implementation of the open-door policy in the late 1970s. The historical case studies here examine the methods used by businesspeople and their voluntary associations in Hong Kong and Singapore during the first half of this century to build up relations with various governments in South China. The anthropological case studies focus on the way business people and local administrators use qiaoxiang-ties in the day-to-day handling of business. Among the topics covered are: mobilization politics and the case of Siyi businessmen in Hong Kong; culture as a management issue and the case of Taiwanese entrepreneurs in the Pearl River delta, the Singapore-Anxi connection and ancestor worship as moral-cultural capital; and economic culture in theory and practice. The volume includes an appendix of Chinese sources for the study of qiaoxiang ties.

Preface: Qiaoxiang Ties: 'Cultural Capitalism' in South China; Introduction; The Chinese Sojourner Discourse; Mobilization Politics: The Case of Siyi Businessmen in Hong Kong, 1890-1928; Cohesion and Fragmentation: A County-Level Perspective on Chinese Transnationalism in the 1940s; Bridges Across the Sea: Chinese Social Organizations in Southeast Asia and the Links with Qiaoxiang, 1900-49; Government Policy in the Reform Era: Interactions between Organs Responsible for Overseas Chinese and Qiaoxiang Communities; The Singapore-Anxi Connection: Ancestor Worship as Moral-Cultural Capital; Getting Things Done Across the Hong Kong Border: Economic Culture in Theory and Practice; Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs: Cultural Norms as Resources and Constraints ; The Qiaoxiang Irony: Migrant Labour in Overseas Chinese Enterprises; Culture as a Management Issue: The Case of Taiwanese Entrepreneurs in the Pearl River Delta; The Moral Economy of Profit: Diaspora Capitalism and the Future of China; Appendix Chapter: A Note on the Study of Qiaoxiang Ties