Overseas Chinese in the People's Republic of China. by Glen Peterson. London and New York

Book Reviews / Journal of Chinese Overseas 8 (2012) 291-303 299

Overseas Chinese in the People’s Republic of China. By Glen Peterson. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Pp. xi + 229.

Much has been written about the Chinese overseas and their links with their emigrant homeland (qiaoxiang), but there has been no comprehensive study on the overseas Chinese living in China after 1949. This book describes the PRC policies toward the domestic overseas Chinese including those who had returned to China and the qiaojuan or family dependents of overseas Chinese. The main argument is that the state policies were shaped by two contending impulses, namely the economic impera- tive which stressed the need to retain the transnational linkages between the overseas Chinese and their family members in China, and the political consideration emphasiz- ing the need to implement a socialist ideology (p. 164). The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the themes of socialist China and the overseas Chinese, Chinese migration in historical perspectives, the emergence of qiaoxiang society, and China and the overseas Chinese before 1949 and at the beginning of PRC governance. The introductory chapter shows the notable influence of the overseas Chinese in China, especially in qiaoxiang or emigrant communities. Even in Jiangxi, Mao Zedong’s survey in 1930 shows that in remote Xunwu county, 108 of the 131 “foreign goods” consumed there came from Meixian and Xingning, two emigrant counties in Guang- dong Province (p. 13). Chapter 2, “Transnational Families Under Siege,” examines the state intervention in the lives of these families. In order to maintain continuous communication with the overseas Chinese, the new PRC government launched a letter-writing campaign in the early 1950s. Theqiaojuan were encouraged to write to their family members overseas glorifying the new China and to ask for remittances. While by 1957, 500,000 letters had been sent by family members in Guangdong to their overseas relatives (p. 35), the success of the campaign was dubious as the overseas relatives had doubts about such letters while they were caught in Cold War politics and did not wish to be seen as having connections with the communists. Another issue which interfered with the lives of the transnational families was the reform introduced by the 1950 Marriage Law. While the marriage reform came with a liberal divorce provision, the state discouraged women from seeking divorce from their overseas husbands in order that it could maintain ties with the overseas Chinese. In cases where divorce was inevitable the state even favored the overseas husbands in the division of marital property (p. 42). The land reform also affected the transnational households. Various measures were taken to prevent the land belonging to overseas Chinese families from being expropriated, such as by lowering their class status. The Agrarian Reform Law of June 1950 contained provisions exempting the land of such rich peasants from expropriation. But as land was a sensitive issue which encroached on the interests of local families that had no links with the overseas Chinese, not all local authorities were interested in giving special considerations to the overseas Chinese families. This chapter provides readers with much information about the lives of the overseas Chinese families soon after the PRC was established and shows the state’s concern with keeping its contact with the world via the overseas Chinese.

Thus in trying to maintain the support of the overseas Chinese, the new PRC government in effect treated the overseas Chinese families as a special category which is the theme discussed in Chapter 3. The special consideration given to these families can be seen in the policy of allowing the overseas Chinese and also “compatriots” from Hong Kong and Taiwan to change their class status from “landlord” and “rich peasant” to “ordinary peasant.” Their right of ownership to family houses was also restored. The domestic overseas Chinese were also given preferential rations of food grains and access to consumer goods not available to the other local people. This chapter discusses the question of remittances from overseas Chinese in considerable detail, as well as the roles of He Xiangniang, Chairperson of Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (OCAC), and her son, Liao Chengzhi, as well as Fang Fang, in the formulation of overseas Chinese policy. Chapter 4, “Open for Business,” further discusses the PRC quest for investments and remittances. This chapter is also relevant to our understanding of China’s opening up since 1978. Even during the Maoist period, the communist state had already adopted the pragmatic policy of accepting state capitalism to encourage overseas Chi- nese investment. Of particular interest is the detailed description of using the labor and knowledge of the returned overseas Chinese in the development of the rubber industry in Hainan, at a time when the United States was imposing a trade embargo on China. The creation of the state farms (guoying nongchang) was not just for planting rubber but also other crops familiar to the Chinese from Southeast Asia. While the planting of rubber was fairly successful, the actual commercial investment from the overseas Chinese was limited because of the Cold War and also because the Chinese in Southeast Asia had new economic opportunities in the new states. Chapter 5 describes those who had returned to China: the patriots, refugees, tycoons and students. After 1949 the overseas Chinese who had returned to China are referred to as guiqiao or Returned Overseas Chinese. The “patriots” among them included famous scientists like Qian Sanqiang and Qian Xuesen, and famous tycoons like Tan Kah Kee from Southeast Asia. There were also students who “returned” to study, many of them from Indonesia including leftists who were patriotic to the new China. Many of the returnees were “refugees” from Indonesia especially in the 1960s; those from Malaya in the 1950s were mostly deportees who were communists or were suspected by the then British authorities as communists. The Chinese state created Overseas Chinese State Farms to settle them. The returnees, especially those who were sent to the farms found life tougher than in Indonesia. Chapter 6 deals with the anti-rightist campaigns when the preferential treatment came under attack. Chapter 7 is about the Cultural Revolution during which the overseas Chinese in China were criticized for having foreign connections, and many were denounced as “enemies of the people” or “foreign spies” serving a “Fifth Column” in spreading capitalism in China (p. 167). By 1971 when the Chinese state allowed some returnees to leave, quite a number had left for Hong Kong. The book ends with a discussion of the new era since 1978 when Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy transformed China and impacted the world. As for the returned overseas Chinese described in this book, the author is correct to point out that there is the need for more research on their suffering and their present lives. In his words, “. . . it is the ‘new migrants’ that now embody China’s renewed desire since1978 to mobilize