The Third IIAS Research Programme

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: QIAOXIANG BONDS
DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The IIAS is preparing its third research programme, International social
organization in East and Southeast Asia: qiaoxiang bonds during the twentieth
century. Dr. F. Pieke (Universiteit of Leiden) and myself (University of
Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) are the directors of the programme.
Funds are available for two postdoctoral researchers, each working for three
years; depending on how the project works out and the availability of funding
the project may be extended. The outline below is at present being elaborated
by the programme directors; a more detailed report will become available in
October 1994. This report will be the basis for an advertisement which will
invite applications for one post for a period of one year. This year will be
spent building up contacts in the areas of research, establishing an
analytical framework for research, and designing the definitive research
programme.

By Leo Douw

Over the past ten years qiaoxiang bonds (bonds with the home-district or
home-town) have been accorded increased importance in the social coherence
among ethnic Chinese overseas and their relationships with the Chinese
People's Republic. This development has political as well as economic reasons.
In economic life these bonds support the internationalization of economic
relationships in East and Southeast Asia that has accelerated since the
mid-1980s; and because business life in this region is increasingly branching
out worldwide, the importance of qiaoxiang bonds extends far outside the
region, particularly into Europe and North America. In close connection with
economic internationalization, qiaoxiang bonds are utilized in politics for
the cultivation of friendship with governments in East and Southeast Asia with
which the People's Republic has, or has experienced, diplomatic problems, like
the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, and Singapore. At present,
the South Chinese qiaoxiang of Lee Denghui, Corazon Aquino, and Lee Kuan-yew
are touristic hotspots with a pilgrimage-like atmosphere. The official efforts
to reactivate these bonds and their continuing vitality outside China after
the establishment of the Chinese People's Republic in 1949 show how relevant
qiaoxiang bonds are for an understanding of the formidable growth rate that
has been achieved by the Chinese economy since the 1980s, and how variegated
are the economic, social, and politico-ideological aspects which they
represent. For this reason they can be used as a starting-point for a
many-sided investigation into the workings of the international
socio-political relationships in this area.
In this research programme the central question is what importance should be
attributed to qiaoxiang bonds in the organization of business-life in East and
Southeast Asia, and for the social coherence within and between ethnic Chinese
communities, and between those communities and the various governments in this
area. An appeal to qiaoxiang bonds may work out positively in the sense that
it encourages feelings of solidarity and sociability in a generally inimical
political environment. Here the (sub-)ethnic element is relevant. Chinese
abroad can communicate most easily with people from their own region who share
their language and culture and who are often also connected by bonds of family
and friendship. In this respect qiaoxiang-based organizations can be compared
to clan-associations, which are also traditional organizations that have
functioned for centuries in order to organize migration, canalize investment,
and negotiate with governments and articulate their own interests in a general
sense.
However, the study of qiaoxiang bonds is also of particular interest because
this type of traditional bond cuts through other, more modern, and less
ethnically defined connections like political parties and trade unions.
International entrepreneurs generally avail themselves of a series of
loyalties and identities, of which the bond with the home country in China is
only one, one that is even only usable for specific ends. The multinational
economic empire of the Liem family in Jakarta is held together culturally by
reference to its roots in Fuqing, a rather insignificant port along the coast
of north Fujian. The heirs of the magnate Hu Wenhu, who live in Hong Kong but
have interests throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, have been seduced to
return to China by the restoration of their ancestral shrine in Zhongchuan,
a nondescript village in the remote and backward western part of Fujian. In
principle, any (group of) entrepreneurs and ethnic community can be studied
in relation to the significance of qiaoxiang bonds. In the course of the
twentieth century starkly contrasting constellations of social connections
have alternated, differing with the communities which created them and with
a varying content in the significance and the form of the qiaoxiang bonds.
Before World War Two, for instance, qiaoxiang bonds played a dominant role in
the organization of Chinese emigration abroad, whereas from the 1970s the
majority of ethnic Chinese youth in the Philippines preferred to join general
political parties. The history of the communities concerned in their 'host
countries' in Southeast Asia has determined the course of the developments
which are taking place now; an important role should be attributed to the
development of their social stratification. Therefore comparative historical
research is a useful method in this case.
The material nucleus of qiaoxiang bonds is the interest of the overseas
entrepreneur and the Chinese government in the flow of capital, technology,
commodities, and persons that is being mobilized and legitimized by them.
Quite apart from this, the articulation of this type of bond has
semi-religious and ideological aspects. The founding of temples, but also of
libraries and schools, the dispensation of charity, and the return to the
ancestral shrine, all connected to this type of bond, are rituals which can
create new social connections or invigorate old ones. From the point of view
of ideology, they are important because they can cover up unequal social and
political relationships. China is once again attractive to investment from
outside because of the abundance of cheap and obedient labour and the laxity
in the social legislation. The recruitment of labour from places like
above-mentioned Zhongchuan, or direct investment in industry or hotels in that
place could easily be legitimized in terms of qiaoxiang bonds, but in fact
they represent of patron-client relationships of a semi-colonial character.
Ongoing economic development in the Chinese People's Republic could in the
future decrease the role of the ethnic Chinese overseas and the importance of
ethnic relationships, as is happening in Taiwan at present.

REQUIREMENTS
The programme could be carried out by historians, sociologists,
anthropologists, possibly supplemented by politicologists and linguists,
preferably working in mutual co-operation. In the first instance we are
looking for post-doc anthropologists and sociologists who are competent to
work in Chinese communities in South China and Southeast Asia, which
presupposes a good command of Putonghua and/or one or more other Chinese
language. All this should be done in close co-operation with staff in the
relevant departments at Dutch universities.