Guiqiao (Returned Overseas Chinese) Identity in the PRC 归侨的认同意识

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/17932548-12341283

Journal of Chinese Overseas 10 (2014) 239-262

brill.com/jco

Guiqiao (Returned Overseas Chinese) Identity in the prc

归侨的认同意识

Caleb Ford 富海亮

University of California, [email protected]

Abstract

Beginning in the early 1950s there were tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese who chose to ‘return’ to the People’s Republic of China (prc). Until fairly recently, little attention has been given to the approximately 600,000 ethnic Chinese who chose to immigrate to China from locations throughout Southeast Asia, as well as further afield in the first few decades after the founding of the prc. There were many factors influencing their migration to a country that many had never stepped foot on. However, it is clear that the Chinese state made a concerted attempt to rally the support (capital and immigration) of overseas Chinese communities. Many of the returnees were resettled on one of dozens of ‘Overseas Chinese Farms’ (huaqiao nongchang) scattered throughout the provinces of southern China. Outside of China they were considered ‘Chinese’ and for-eign, juxtaposed against the local or ‘indigenous’ identities that had taken shape in tandem with the independence of former colonies in Southeast Asia and the rise of modern nationalism. Upon their ‘return’ to what was, for many, an imagined ancestral homeland — a country many of them had never seen — they were confronted with a different type of discrimination and suspicion than they faced ‘abroad’. This was despite, and in some cases because of, certain favorable policies enacted by the party state to assist in their relocation and assimilation into society. Ironically, some of the same poli-cies that sought to gradually assimilate them into Chinese society actually reinforced their position as ‘permanent outsiders’: the creation of an official ‘huaqiao’ legal status; institutionalized segregation in the form of huaqiao nongchang, huaqiao villages, and

* Caleb Ford is a PhD student in the Department of History.

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huaqiao schools; and a resultant pariah status that did not begin to recede until after the reforms of the late 1970s. While the concept of ‘huaqiao’ (overseas Chinese sojourners) was falling out of use among Chinese communities abroad, the word was taking on a new meaning in the prc, both for the Chinese party state, and for those who would come to self-identify as huaqiao/guiqiao.

Keywords

Overseas Chinese (huaqiao) – returned overseas Chinese (guiqiao) – overseas Chinese farms (huaqiao nongchang) – identity – ethnicity

关键词

华侨 – 归侨 – 华侨农场 – 认同意识 – 种族

Introduction

In this essay I will argue that huaqiao/guiqiao1 (overseas Chinese/returned overseas Chinese) in the prc came to resemble something akin to a unique form of ethnicity in the latter half of the twentieth century. I will demonstrate that the party state played a crucial role in the formation of huaqiao identity through official policy, and highlight various mechanisms through which the state affected the formation of this identity: the creation of guiqiao/huaqiao as an official label, and the institutionalization of huaqiao nongchang (farms for returned overseas Chinese). While state policy is far from monolithic and comprehensive in the formation of identity — the ruled never completely lose their agency, no matter how powerful the state is — it is doubtful that such an identity would have taken shape on such a level without the hand of the party state. Finally, I will argue that, while this identity continues to be preserved by China-born ‘huaqiao’, it has also undergone significant transformation, and has come to be perpetuated by markedly different factors than those influenc-ing the older generation. To be sure, policy changes and a rapidly changing socio-political climate have been instrumental factors in this transformation,

1 In this essay ‘guiqiao’ generally refers to ethnic Chinese who chose to ‘return’ to the p.r.c. in the 1950s-1970s. The term ‘huaqiao’ refers more broadly to the first generation ‘returnees’ as well to their offspring born within the borders of the prc. In reality, the terms are often used interchangeably by the state bureaucracy as well as by guiqiao/huaqiao themselves.

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but, the agency of the younger generation in response to these changes is also a crucial component.

By arguing for the existence of a shared identity (‘ethnicity’/’sub- ethnicity’) of guiqiao, it is not my intention to deny the existence of other identities (Chinese, minority ethnicities, or Southeast Asian identities) within that com-munity. To be sure, identities are malleable, and social, political, and material developments can fundamentally shape them. Indeed, it is precisely the mal-leability of identities, and the processes through which change is enacted that makes investigation of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘Chinese-ness’ so intriguing.

The role of the state in delineating group identities for its own purposes through policy and rhetoric has been explored by a number of scholars. This phenomenon has been addressed among American sociologists in a discussion about ‘panethnicity theory’, which draws attention to the efficacy of state poli-cies in forming and sustaining minority identities” (Safran 1998: 9). Of course, it is also important to acknowledge the agency of those who the state seeks to delineate, and the ways in which people appropriate official categories so as to define and redefine their identities. There is no question that the state can play a critical role in the formation of minority identities, but it is the question of how this process is carried out that offers intriguing research possibilities.

Thomas Mullaney points out that, “the Chinese state has been remark-ably successful in bringing about a ‘convergence’ between ethnotaxonomic theory and practice, a term Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star describe as the purposive act of changing the world ‘such that the system’s description of reality becomes true’ ” (Mullaney 2011: 14). He shows how the creation of China’s fifty-five officially recognized minority ethnic groups was a conscious and concerted effort with long-term implications for how these groups came to perceive themselves and were perceived by outsiders. The purposive act of delineating group identities to suit the needs of the state had precedence long before the party state employed such strategies in the prc. The govern-ment bureaucracy in late Imperial China “created minority status based on the state’s judgment of a group’s allegiance, authenticity, or contribution” (Cheung 2009: 8). The mobility of such groups, both geographically and socially, was tightly controlled through official state policy. Before I turn to the case of the huaqiao/guiqiao, I will briefly discuss how other minority groups in China have taken on identities resembling ethnic groups. We will see that, “Not just ethnic minorities but marginal groups labeled and limited in ways resembling ethnic-ity constitute today’s recognizable minorities” (Cheung 2009: 8).

In her book Creating Chinese Ethnicity Emily Honig sets out to show that Subei people in Shanghai represent a type of ethnicity or sub-ethnic group. Honig argues that in Shanghai “local origins, not race, religion, or nationality,

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came to define identities that are ethnic in the context of China . . .” (Honig 1992: 1). She goes on to say that, a key component of her argument (and one which is particularly relevant in the case of huaqiao identity) “is to demon-strate how ethnic identities can be constituted among Han people themselves” (Honig 1992: 1). She points out that Subei ethnicity “was not an identity ini-tially created by the migrants themselves but was instead the product of their relationship to native(s)” (Honig 1992: 1). The area of contention in her analy-ses lies in her belief that Subeiren constitute an ethnic group. She states that, “I use ethnicity quite deliberately, for no other term is even approximately adequate to describe the function of the category Subei people in Shanghai’s history. To refer simply to native place identity obscures the process of social construction as well as the relationships of dominance and subordination that are involved” (Honig 1992: 1).

While the popular image of Subeiren as low-class helped to reinforce nega-tive stereotypes that contributed to the formation and perpetuation of their identity (as perceived by outsiders), so too did the converse view of huaqiao as bourgeoisie capitalists contribute to their position as social and political out-casts during the first three decades after the founding of the prc. Honig points to three main factors in the creation and perpetuation of Subei ethnicity in Shanghai — namely, economic, political, and social. In the case of guiqiao, such factors might include their perceived status as capitalists (economic), their presumed ties to foreign governments (political), and the difference in their speech, diet, dress, mannerisms (social), etc. As we will see, much like the Subeiren of Shanghai, guiqiao were a group that did not quite belong and may reasonably be considered “immigrants who had become ethnics” (Honig 1992: 1). With that in mind, I would like to turn to the case of huaqiao/ guiqiao and their descendants in the People’s Republic of China.

The Evolution of the huaqiao Label

Huaqiao 华侨 (overseas Chinese)2 and guiqiao 归侨 (‘returned’/domestic overseas Chinese) have been portrayed in many ways throughout the last cen-tury and a half, both through official channels, and in the popular discourse

2 My intention is not to use the term ‘overseas Chinese’ as a way to portray all people of Chinese descent abroad as a “monolithic entity”, as some scholars might accuse. See Tan Chee Beng, “The Social and Cultural Dimensions of the Role of Ethnic Chinese in Indonesian Society”. As I mentioned previously, arguing for a huaqiao identity does not deny the existence of extreme variations in such an identity, nor does it preclude the existence of other identities (i.e. Chinese, Han, shaoshu minzu, etc.).



of the masses in Mainland China. They had been, at various times, illegal emigrants, were crucial supporters of Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, patriotic citizens loyal to the civilization state of China (if not necessarily to a particular govern-ment), ‘capitalist-roaders’ and reactionary foreign spies during the Cultural Revolution, and one of the principal sources of capital fueling China’s modern economy. Overseas Chinese communities were so vital to Sun Yat-sen’s revolu-tionary activities that he once proclaimed, “Overseas Chinese are the mother of the revolution” (huaqiao nai geming zhi mu 华侨乃革命之母).

The spread of nationalism through the Overseas Chinese community in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can be conceived as the begin-ning of a breakdown of ‘ethnic’ boundaries within Chinese society. Striations within this broadly conceived society had previously been delineated primar-ily by markers such as native place and language; the solidification3 of new boundaries was established through a higher order of commonalities (their shared experience of sojourning; persecution abroad; and, in the case of guiqiao, ultimately repatriation, as well as shared status as refugees and second class citizens). Hence, the eventual formation of a ‘domestic’ huaqiao/guiqiao identity offers a compelling opportunity to study the process of ethnic change and how such change may be precipitated and legitimized by the popular and official narratives of the state through rhetoric, propaganda, and policy.

The refashioning (or “re-imagining”, to use Benedict Anderson’s term)4 and the perpetuation of the huaqiao identity was a joint effort by the state and its bureaucratic institutions on the one hand, and those who would come to claim this identity (and pass it on to their descendants) on the other. This enigmatic geographical and ideological repositioning of the huaqiao identity of the com-munities of Chinese sojourners abroad to those of the ‘domestic’ or ‘returned’ (guiqiao) overseas Chinese on the mainland is the phenomenon that I seek to unpack.

Huaqiao nongchang were created in the prc in the 1950s for the purpose of resettling thousands of ethnic Chinese refugees (often referred to as guiqiao 归侨 or Nanqiao 难侨, Chinese refugees in distress) who were fleeing anti-Chinese policies and ethnic violence in Southeast Asia. Many who arrived in the prc during this period had little, if any, knowledge of what they per-ceived as their homeland, a country where they had never stepped foot. They brought with them much of the culture, language, food, crops, and beliefs of

3 I have employed Duara’s concept of the solidification of group identities from his essay “Nationalists Among Transnationals: Overseas Chinese and the Idea of China 1900-1911” in the book Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism.

4 See Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.

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Southeast Asia, and were usually readily distinguishable from their compatriots through the languages they spoke and the clothes they wore. In this essay I am particularly interested in investigating the mutual influence of the individual and collective narratives of ‘returned’ overseas Chinese taken from interviews and oral histories, and that of the official narrative.5 Similarly, I explore the connections between state policy, particularly the institutionalization of the Overseas Chinese Farm system and the establishment of ‘huaqiao’ as a legal status (similar to that of minority groups)6 on the one hand, and the formation of a distinct huaqiao identity at the local level, on the other. The goal is to bring into view a complex system of mutual reinforcement and reciprocal validation between these two phenomena.7

5 This article came out of a research that I conducted in China in in 2011 for a master’s thesis in Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. During that time I made five trips (averaging a week each) to various Overseas Chinese Farms [华侨农场 huaqiao nongchang] in Fujian, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Hainan. Rather than carrying out formal interviews, I chose to employ more of a ‘participant observation’ approach. I talked to many residents of the huaqiao nongchang in cafes, teahouses, and restaurants, and often simply approached people on the street or working in their yards or fields. Many of the contacts I met were kind enough to invite me into their homes for lengthy conversations over tea and betel nuts. The pride they exhibited and their eagerness to share their ideas about guiqiao history and culture, their personal stories, as well as the way they identified with guiqiao from varying backgrounds, were what initially convinced me of the uniqueness of their group identity. Although I have included only a few excerpts from conversations I had while conducting my fieldwork, my conclusions are partially based on the totality of my experiences living, eating, drinking, and sometimes working with the guiqiao who were kind enough to let me into their lives, if only for a brief time. I have supplemented the qualitative data from my fieldwork with the narratives from an ever-growing body of oral histories of guiqiao, and have incorporated secondary sources from the fields of overseas Chinese studies, and diaspora studies. I have attempted to strengthen my conclusions through the consideration of various theoretical approaches in the social sciences field.

6 Just a few parallels include the demarcation of guiqiao/huaqiao areas (nongchang and qiaoxiang), policies dictating deferential treatment in consideration for education and employ-ment opportunities (most common in the 1950s and 1960s), as well as the projection of an official discourse of exclusion (from the best jobs, etc.), as well as inclusion (as a distinctive part of a heterogeneous Chinese nation).

7 I have utilized primary sources such as newspapers, oral histories, and official policy docu-ments, as well as scholarly work on the overseas Chinese by historians such as Wang Gungwu, Michael R. Godley, Glen Peterson, Prasenjit Duara, Stephen Fitzgerald, and Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho. I also draw on theoretical frameworks from social scientists James C. Scott, and Ivan Light. In addition, I have included anecdotal information procured from interviews that I conducted with residents of various huaqiao nongchang in Fujian, Guangxi, and Hainan in 2011.



Much has been written about the mass exodus of Chinese who fled the prc in the wake of the Chinese Communist Party’s (ccp) victory over the Nationalists in 1949, but, until fairly recently, little attention has been given to the approximately 600,000 ethnic Chinese who chose to ‘return’. (Peterson 2011: 2) The story of the ‘returned’ overseas Chinese who chose to migrate to the prc after 1949, many of whom were refugees fleeing ethnic violence and persecution in their formerly adopted homelands, is one of perseverance in the face of extreme hardship and persecution, both abroad and ‘at home’. Outside of China they were considered ‘Chinese’ and foreign, juxtaposed against the local or ‘indigenous’ identities that had taken shape in tandem with the inde-pendence of former colonies in Southeast Asia and the rise of modern nation-alism. After the ccp victory in Mainland China, anti-Chinese sentiment spread throughout much of Southeast Asia, reflecting the anti-Communist crusade that was synchronous with the beginning of the Cold War, and also stemming from a long-running resentment of overseas Chinese, who locals often per-ceived as occupying an economically superior position. Upon their ‘return’ to what was, for many, an imagined ancestral homeland — a country many of them had never seen — they were met with some of the same discrimina-tory policies and suspicion that they faced ‘abroad’. Their position as outsiders was reinforced through the creation of an official ‘huaqiao’ legal status; institu-tionalized segregation in the form of huaqiao nongchang, huaqiao villages, and huaqiao schools; and societal ostracism.

Blue Jeans, Wristwatches, and Other Strange Accouterments

From the time they arrived in the prc, guiqiao had always stood out from their China-born compatriots. They were often readily distinguishable by their style of dress, their hairstyle, and their foreign wristwatches. One woman from Vietnam recalled that, “When we arrived in China it was obvious that we stood out from the ‘locals’. They would always stare at us and give us funny looks. No one there permed their hair or wore bell-bottom blue jeans like we did” (Chen 2010: 59). However, it was not only differences in clothing and speech that marked the rift between guiqiao and ‘bendiren’ (locals). Liu Quan com-ments that locals have often had feelings of resentment towards huaqiao communities in China because “they believe that their fellow countrymen abandoned the country and did not share in the hardships of the past (有困难就逃跑, 不能同甘共苦)” (Zhao 2007: 56). Indeed, bendiren had always looked upon huaqiao with suspicion and sometimes contempt, but during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) they were scrutinized and persecuted at an

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unprecedented level. Guiqiao stood accused of being particularly dangerous and subversive elements and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution era rheto-ric urged the masses to be suspicious of anyone having ‘illicit foreign relations’ (litong waiguo 里通外国). Chen Boda reportedly called Overseas Chinese Farms the “United Nations of enemy agents”8 (Liao 1978).

Aside from the stigma of their foreignness, their lack of connections pre-sented them with a real barrier to become fully integrated into the labor market. Much like people from Subei, whose limited connections severely restricted their employment opportunities, huaqiao were confronted with sim-ilar obstacles to social and economic mobility (Honig 1992: 70). Likewise, after political and economic backgrounds became important factors in determining one’s position in the labor pool and career opportunities, those whose history was suspect or unknown typically would have had a particularly difficult time finding suitable work, regardless of their previous training or skill-set. Mackie notes that, “The separateness of overseas Chinese stems as much from their treatment by the host societies and governments as from their own attitudes and behavior” (Mackie 1976: 2). To be sure, this collective experience of perse-cution, segregation, and living as second-class citizens led to the strengthening of guiqiao solidarity.

By the time the ccp took control of the country in 1949 they had no choice but to deal with the ‘huaqiao problem’, since many local economies in Southern China, particularly in Fujian and Guangdong Provinces, were largely fueled by remittances sent from overseas family members. According to some estimates, as much as one fifth of the land in Guangdong was owned by overseas Chinese (Peterson 2011: 44). As Peterson explains, “the prc’s approach to the ‘overseas Chinese question’ since 1949 has centred above all on an economic calculus: a conviction that overseas Chinese have an important, strategic role to play in China’s modernization” (Peterson 2011: 44). This economic calculus was ever-present in the government’s dealings with huaqiao and their remittances; it was manifested originally in the official decision to resettle tens of thou-sands of nanqiao, or ‘refugees’, in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, it was an economically motivated decision by the government of the prc to actively court the ‘return’ of huaqiao throughout the middle of the twentieth century, both through diplomacy and through a concerted effort to disseminate pro-paganda throughout the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia. Of course, it was also important to place the policies and attitudes toward the huaqiao problem into the larger context of nation building in the mid-twentieth century. It would be insufficient to attribute the prc’s decision to assist in

8 See Liao,“必须重视侨务工作”《人民日报》社论 (1978.01.04).



the resettlement of so many thousands of people simply to huaqiao claims to ethnicity (and the government’s own projection of those claims). Nor can the decision be reduced to overly simplistic causes such as severe economic exploitation, or as being indicative of ‘Cold War’ politics.9

If we consider, for instance, James C. Scott’s thesis that one of the chief imperatives of a state is the “legibility and simplification” necessary for enabling a synoptic purview of the ruled, this would help to explain why ethnic Chinese posed such a nagging problem both to the new postcolonial states in Southeast Asia and to the Chinese state. However, while Indonesia ultimately opted for legibility through forced assimilation; in China, the government decided on a plan of “state-initiated social engineering” that sought to scientifically and legally codify a large sample of the population (those seen as potentially subversive outsiders) (Scott 1998: 4). The Chinese policy also served to fulfill “high modernist” ambitions of “scientific and technical progress, the expan-sion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws” (Scott 1998: 4). Furthermore, if we accept Scott’s conclusion that totalitarian-state- initiated social engineering projects such as Soviet collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, and forced villagization in Tanzania were destined for failure due to their oversimplification and the inflexible nature of their schematics, then the marked economic failures of most of the huaqiao nongchang should come as no surprise.10

In the case of China, the state’s endeavor to create and map out identities was not limited to ethnic minorities. They also sought to make a place for loyal overseas Chinese who wished to repatriate and contribute to nation building. Guiqiao was a term conceived by the party-state to instill overseas Chinese with a sense of pride and, more specifically, to attract them to ‘return’ to the mother-land to help build a new China.11 Ultimately, this official category came to influ-ence, if not determine, the social status and life chances of those attached to it, and helped to create an identity similar to that of an ethnic group (official and

9 The first groups of guiqiao arrived in China before the outbreak of the Korean War and, hence, predate the escalation of many of the embargos and economic sanctions that helped to define the Cold War era.

10 For data relating to the economic burden of the huaqiao nongchang saddled by the state see Godley’s “The Sojourners: Returned Overseas Chinese in the People’s Republic of China.” Pacific Affairs, vol. 62, no. 3.

11 I hope to further investigate the state’s motives and carry out a more detailed study of huaqiao policy history in future research.

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local recognition, a shared history, a minority position within the society, and, to varying extent, self-identification with the group label). While the state rec-ognized huaqiao as being of the same ethnic stock as the majority Hanzu [Han ethnicity], a rhetoric of exclusion, as well as segregationist policies during the 1950s and 1960s contributed to the mapping out of an identity that, while not identical to ethnicity, nonetheless came to resemble something resembling an ethnicity, or ‘sub-ethnicity’. Nowhere was this identity more extant than in the huaqiao nongchang, or Overseas Chinese Farms.

The Overseas Chinese State Farm

Overseas Chinese Farms were originally conceived as part of a broad effort to attract overseas Chinese investment in state-run, export-based agricultural businesses, and as a means of obtaining a low-cost labor force with experi-ence in tropical agriculture. For more than half a century, the farms were vital to China’s domestic tropical agriculture production; they accounted for most of the prc’s domestic supply of rubber (and were the only source of rubber throughout the u.s.-led Cold War trade embargo).12 At the beginning of the 1950s, the Chinese central government launched a plan to reclaim vast tracts of land in southern China and to turn the areas into productive agricultural zones specializing in growing tropical cash crops. These projects were ini-tially to rely almost solely on investment from overseas Chinese and guiqiao investors such as Chen Jiageng, the prominent Singapore rubber magnate who founded Xiamen University in Fujian Province.

Overseas Chinese Farms were also part of a larger system of state farms that effectively segregated marginalized groups of people, including prisoners, demobilized soldiers, and ‘returned’ overseas Chinese, from the rest of main-stream society. These farms differed in significant ways from the agricultural collectives found throughout most of rural China in the 1950s. Not only did they operate under a completely different set of rules and economic premises and an independent bureaucratic structure, but they were also often segre-gated linguistically, culturally, and in most cases geographically, intentionally placed in remote rural areas.

There were certainly practical reasons for situating the farms in remote bor-derland areas. Aside from state fears that the returnees would negatively influ-ence natives with their individualist, capitalist, bourgeois ways and thinking,

12 As Peterson describes, many of the export-oriented tropical crops, including rubber, were sent to the Soviet Union in exchange for economic and military assistance.



for their part bendiren often treated them with disdain or indifference at best. As Godley notes, except for those with “bad class backgrounds who had noth-ing to lose, it was considered neither progressive nor politically wise to be too close to these foreigners” (Godley 1989: 193). As for students who came to China in the 1950s and 1960s to pursue tertiary and advanced education, upon graduation they were almost always either assigned to one of the huaqiao nongchang, or to another remote location “where assimilation was doubly difficult” (Godley 1989: 193).

Although the farms were under the supervision of the central govern-ment, in practice they had a great degree of autonomy. The Zhong Qiaowei 中侨委 (the abbreviation for the Zhongyang Renmin Zhengfu huaqiao Shiwu Weiyuanhui 中央人民政府华侨事务委员会, or the Central People’s Govern-ment Huaqiao Affairs Commission) was the highest level official state organ in charge of overseeing and implementing overseas Chinese and domestic over-seas Chinese policy. Cadres were dispatched and assigned to the provincial and county levels (Sheng Qiaowei 省侨委 and Xian Xiaolian 县侨, respectively). Before being assigned to their posts, they were given extensive training in the specifics of huaqiao work (qiaowu gongzuo 侨务工作) and policies (huaqiao zhengce 华侨政策). Cadres at the county level and those assigned directly to the Overseas Chinese Farms were expected to report to the Sheng Qiaowei on a regular basis.

In the 1950s and 1960s, most of the ‘farms’ were merely vast tracts of rugged, uncultivated wasteland. For the huaqiao who were resettled there, many of whom were former shopkeepers and petty merchants (xiao shangfan 小商贩), the job of turning the rugged landscape into a successful agricultural production site was gargantuan. Many people remember crying after seeing the conditions on the nongchang for the first time. One man describes his first impression of Xinglong Huaqiao Nongchang:

When we arrived in Xinglong the only things that we could see were a few dilapidated tile-roof houses, some thatched huts, and a few small shops that sold geta (Japanese clogs), firewood, and odd household items. The road was a muddy mess with huge murky puddles filled with rainwa-ter from the day’s torrential downpour. I looked around at the densely forested mountains and was filled with a profound sense of desolation (Wu 2010: 13).

In the 1950s and 1960s, the central prc government made a concerted effort to entice overseas Chinese to invest their money in state-private enterprises and to ‘return’ to China and contribute to the national project of socialist

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construction. Officials undertook a massive propaganda drive. The propa-ganda, aimed at attracting overseas Chinese capital and talent, was widely disseminated abroad through Chinese-language newspapers and other print media, and in Chinese-language textbooks used in schools throughout Southeast Asia. One of the most widely available periodicals distributed by the central government was the Renmin Huabao 人民画报, available at Chinese consulates and Qiaowu Ban 侨务办 offices throughout Southeast Asia.13 Such periodicals often spoke of the ‘high yield miracles’ ( fengchan de qiji 丰产的奇迹), enjoyed by guiqiao who “rejoice in their success at agricultural produc-tion and animal husbandry, and celebrate the end of their aimless wandering overseas”.14 An article printed in the January 1960 issue of Zhongguo Nongken 中国农垦 [China Agriculture] another periodical widely disseminated in Southeast Asian Chinese communities (see Figure B), published on the eve of the mass migration of huaqiao from Indonesia to China, proclaims that:

For generations, overseas Chinese and native Indonesians alike have suffered at the hands of the colonialists . . . 30,000 huaqiao have already returned in the last ten years to contribute to the glory and honor of building a new China in the areas of agriculture, industry, com-merce, and culture . . . The motherland extends a hearty welcome to all huaqiao . . . China’s state run farms extend a helping hand to all of the overseas Chinese orphans who are still suffering from oppression abroad (Zhongguo Nongken 中国农垦)

In their speech to the second National People’s Congress, which appeared in the October 1959 issue of Zhongguo Nongken, Wang Yuanxing and You Yangzu, high-level officials in the Zhongqiaowei, praised the huaqiao nongchang for being “integral to the success of the Great Leap Forward”. The farms were offered as proof of the “superiority of China’s socialist system” (我国社会制度的优越性). Wang commended the huaqiao for being model socialists and lauded the great improvements that they had made in their “socialist aware-ness” since their return.15 Consulates and local huaqiao associations that distributed these newspapers in Southeast Asia also frequently screened pro-paganda films produced by the ccp.

13 See Figure A.14 See《中国农垦》1960 年 01 期.15 See 王源兴,“大跃进中的华侨农场”《中国农垦》1959 年第 10 期.



Propaganda, Rhetoric and the Recruitment of Repatriates

Many of the subjects that I interviewed remembered reading publications like Renmin Huabao and Zhongguo Nongken.16 They frequently commented that these forms of media were very persuasive in presenting the prc as a prosper-ous country where returned overseas Chinese were valued for their work ethic and knowledge of foreign agricultural techniques.17 Accounts of huaqiao in published oral histories support this claim. One huaqiao recalls that, “We often read the newspapers that talked about the good life in a free and liberated China” (Wu 2010: 185). Another man recollects that, “The propaganda of the time made Overseas Chinese Farms appear to be idyllic socialist utopias where residents benefited from bountiful crops, comfortable living conditions, and free education through the college level” (Wu 2010: 185). The local Chinese-language newspapers printed rosters of all the local students who traveled to China to pursue a tertiary education, a point of pride for families whose chil-dren made this list. However, it was overwhelmingly the wealthy families who could afford the exorbitant cost of sending their children to study in China.

In a recent collection of oral history narratives of the residents of Zhuba Huaqiao Nongchang in Fujian, an interviewer asks two men about the nature of the anti-Chinese policies (paihua zhengce 排华政策) in Indonesia. The first interview subject, Sun, proudly proclaims that, “Some people claim that we returned because of the anti-Chinese policies, but that’s not true. We are patri-otic, and we loved to watch Chinese movies since we were young”. His friend Liu interjects, “We are all patriotic; if we were not patriotic then we would not have come back. Why do I say this? We often say that the Party is great at cre-ating propaganda. We love that stuff. We have patriotic spirits; [however] we were also influenced by the propaganda.” Then Liu wryly notes, “In those days we could sleep with the door open. At that time everyone was equal. If we had one bowl of rice, everyone would come share it. If we didn’t have anything to eat, then no one else did either. So, in those days we could sleep without clos-ing the door because no one had any money” (Chen 2010: 69, 72, 78).

Echoing official rhetoric, one of the interviewees continues, “We didn’t get on that boat (to come back to China) because of the anti-Chinese policies . . .

16 The various published collections of oral histories of the huaqiao nongchang corroborate these sentiments.

17 Anthropologist Tan Chee-beng also remarks that his informants in a Balinese huaqiao community specifically refer to the Renmin Huabao as a factor influencing their belief that the prc was a prosperous place. See Tan, “Reterritorialization of a Balinese Chinese Community in Quanzhou, Fujian.” Modern Asian Studies, 44: 3; 2010.

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we were simply trying to seek truth from facts”. “Whenever someone asks me why I came back (to China), I simply reply: Socialism is good [社会主义好]. No matter who asks, this is how I reply” (Chen 2010: 69, 72, 78). Later, the inter-viewer asks Liu if he is patriotic. He responds, “The only reason why I returned is that I am patriotic. I always say socialism is good. A lot of people, including members of the Public Security Bureau, say that I came back because of the anti-Chinese policies, and I always tell them that that is not true. I tell them that I only returned because socialism is good” (Chen 2010: 69, 72, 78).

This revealing exchange points to the complexities and range of emotions felt by guiqiao when considering their motivations for resettling in China, and also demonstrates their agency in employing official rhetoric. Although it is clear that many guiqiao do hold genuine patriotic feelings, they undoubtedly feel resentment toward the propagandist tactics that portrayed the mother-land as a socialist utopia, and also perhaps a sense of regret for believing in it. Their use of official rhetoric may also be symptomatic of a defense mechanism, indicative of the persecution they experienced during the Cultural Revolution. Kevin O’Brien has referred to the practice of employing official language for the purposes of protecting oneself or advancing a cause as “rightful resistance”.18

Differences among the Various Waves of Returnees

It is important to emphasise at this juncture that the differences in the vari-ous waves of returnees should also be taken into consideration. During my fieldwork I gradually developed the impression that the most recent group of returnees from Vietnam, who mainly came over in the late 1970s, are still seen as the ‘newcomers’ by many residents of the farms. Furthermore, Vietnamese appeared to be the lingua franca on the farms I visited in which returnees from Vietnam were the majority. Also, these locations are perhaps the most rustic and least-developed nongchang in the state farm system. On one such farm, I approached an elderly couple who were weaving baskets in front of their one-room homes. I introduced myself and explained that I was there to learn about the history of the huaqiao nongchang. The man welcomed me, and then with a cheeky grin exclaimed in a barely comprehensible form of Mandarin, “Researching huaqiao nongchang, eh? Well, you have found the shittiest one” (勘查华侨农场啊？你找到最鸟不拉屎的农场)! It is apparent that there are significant disparities in the experiences of residents of the different farms,

18 See O’Brien and Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China.



and the striations among the various groups of returnees comprise an area of inquiry worthy of further research.

As noted above, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (gpcr), huaqiao were commonly accused of having ‘illicit relations’ (clandestine busi-ness or political connections) with foreigners or foreign governments, and were frequently branded secret agents or spies (te wu 特务 or jiandie 间谍). The types of responses in the interview above, tinged with both pride and regret, were common among the subjects I interviewed. There are also quite a few huaqiao who are simply not able to express their precise motivations for immigrating to China, and who generally offer a vague description of having been influenced by the ‘high tide of returning to the motherland’ (回祖国的高潮). Whatever their ultimate motivations for ‘returning’, many never imag-ined how difficult their lives would be on the huaqiao nongchang.

It is important to consider that many of the ethnic Chinese refugees who ‘returned’ to the prc, commonly referred to as nanqiao 难侨, were from fami-lies that had been living in Southeast Asian countries for many generations. Despite their status as ‘ethnic Chinese’, many had little, if any, knowledge of their ancestral villages in China, and often only spoke the local language of their host society. However, regardless of where they migrated from, the lan-guages they spoke, and their varied motivations for ‘returning’ to China; after their arrival they formed a unique and resilient shared identity as ‘huaqiao’. This label was often defined “exclusively in terms of their quasi-foreign and not-quite-Chinese status” by the government and the general population. (Peterson 2011: 134) However, it is important to recognize that although this identity assumed a new profile and form after 1949, it had been taking shape for decades (or even centuries) before this group’s return in the mid-twentieth century, and, as I pointed out earlier, that it had its roots in pre-1949 govern-ment policies and general attitudes towards sojourning and emigration.

The Cultural Politics of Segregation

Other important aspects to consider in the formation of a collective huaqiao identity are the tactics of separation, segregation, and ghettoization imposed by the colonial governments of Malaysia and Indonesia but also implemented in the prc through institutionalization of the Overseas Chinese State Farm system. In Indonesia, under Dutch rule, “They [huaqiao] were confined by law to the well-defined Chinese quarter in each town or city, and could not trade in the countryside or travel to another locality without requesting a pass from

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the authorities on each occasion” (Willmott 2009:, 17). After Indonesia gained its independence in 1949, residence restrictions were lifted. However, they had been in place for so long that many Chinese were bound to the ghettos by soci-etal pressures and economic considerations.

The prc government continued this policy of segregation that had been imposed on the huaqiao while they were living in Southeast Asia, although Chinese officials used markedly different pretenses. This division is most apparent in the huaqiao nongchang. One of the most noticeable aspects of the huaqiao nongchang is that there is signage everywhere that serves as a visible reminder of the institutionalized ‘otherness’ of the farms’ inhabitants. (see Figures A and B) A Senior Center is usually called the ‘Overseas Chinese Senior Center’, local hotels are generally called ‘Overseas Chinese Hotels’, and so on. Indeed, the entrances to most of the farms have prominent and easily visible signage indicating to all on the outside that these places are huaqiao nongchang.

To be sure, there is a definite interchange between the institutionalization of the Overseas Chinese Farm system and the establishment of huaqiao as a legal status (similar to that of minority groups) on the one hand, and the for-mation of a distinct huaqiao identity at the local level, on the other. There is a complex system of mutual reinforcement and validation between these two phenomena. It is clear that demarcations of race and ethnicity may be utilized not only as self-identifying terms but also as a means of projecting an official discourse that seeks to define and demarcate what it means to be Chinese. Lai Zengchuang, a prominent guiqiao, once lamented in a conversation with Liao Chengzhi that, “Except for China, no country in the world uses a special term to describe someone who has returned from a sojourn overseas”. Lai goes onto say:

. . . but when we return to China, cadres and people from all social strata treat us as if we are different from them. You guys say that our overseas Chinese policy is based on equal treatment and appropriate consider-ation. But this so-called ‘equal-treatment’ is really a falsehood. No one treats us equally. . . . It is because you people say that we are backward. You value our foreign exchange, but our political treatment is different. I say the reason why overseas Chinese are not treated equally in China is pre-cisely because you have an overseas Chinese policy! (Peterson 2011: 134)

Similarly, it is likely that one of the main reasons the ‘huaqiao’ label continues to be relevant in Mainland China while it has fallen out of use elsewhere is precisely because of these state policies, and the continued existence of huaqiao nongchang, government-sponsored huaqiao associations.



The shared space of the huaqiao nongchang helped to insulate these ‘imag-ined communities’ (to use Benedict Anderson’s terminology)19 and further strengthen their collective identity. It was within that space that the huaqiao/guiqiao identity took shape at an unprecedented level and was influenced by, as well as helped to legitimize, state policies and official rhetoric seeking to delineate this group from mainstream society. The farms’ physical isolation also strengthened this sense of shared identity among the residents. They were

19 Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.

Figure A Signage for a ‘huaqiao jiudian’, or ‘Overseas Chinese Hotel’ located on one of the Overseas Chinese farms

Figure B A billboard near one of the Overseas Chinese farms

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“unique social formations made up almost entirely of ‘outsiders’ and com-pletely isolated from the surrounding civilian economy and society. With their own state-furnished schools, hospitals, markets, and leisure activities, state farms were self-contained communities whose members had little if any inter-action with the world outside” (Peterson 2011: 117).

Of particular significance is the fact that overseas Chinese (huaqiao 华侨), ‘returned’ overseas Chinese (guiguo huaqiao 归国华侨), Overseas Chinese dependents (qiaojuan 侨眷), and returned overseas Chinese students ( huaqiao xuesheng 华侨学生) were not simply commonly used labels but were official identities (shenfen 身分) and legal statuses. To be a ‘returned’ overseas Chinese meant being a “permanent outsider,” and such status conferred upon its holder specific entitlements, as well as prejudices (Peterson 2011: 117). Their status as ‘huaqiao’ was noted on their files [dang’an 档案]; that status not only stuck with them for life but was transferred to their children and even grand-children. During the early years of the prc, a time when the most complex and far-reaching huaqiao policies and bureaucracy were established, huaqiao identity was given unprecedented legitimacy. ‘Huaqiao’ was no longer simply an ambiguous and self-applied identifier but a full-fledged legal status. And, with that new status came the potentiality for stigma, segregation, and a mutu-ally reinforced identity that would last for generations even after a ‘sojourner’ returned home, as a ‘permanent outsider’ or a ‘stranger who is not foreign’. One newspaper article states that, during the gpcr, the guiqiao were treated as the Jews of China. As Godley notes, the result of their segregation and being forced to “live, study, and associate together” and the subsequent forming of a solidified collective identity “was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy familiar to residents of other minority peoples” (Godley 1989: 345-346).

Conclusion: Present Conditions and the Status of the Next Generation

Today, long after the stigma of being a huaqiao has been lifted and the special policies dissolved during the reforms of the late 1970s following the indict-ment of the Gang of Four, the residents of the huaqiao nongchang and their descendants still self-identify as ‘huaqiao’, even among the third generation of China-born. The residents of Overseas Chinese Farms represent highly diverse cultural and linguistic groups. However, despite these divisions, they invari-ably identify as members of the huaqiao community. On some farms the lingua franca was, and remains, Malay or Indonesian, and in certain cases Balinese,



although Mandarin has been universally adopted by the younger generation. Nonetheless, although younger residents of the nongchang were born in China and grew up speaking Mandarin or other local Chinese dialects, they still con-sider themselves ‘huaqiao’ and appear to wear this title with pride. In addition to learning to speak Indonesian or Vietnamese, learning traditional Balinese dances, or cooking Thai curry, many among the younger generations living in the nongchang take special pride in their family’s personal connections to foreigners.

For example, although huaqiao have traditionally tended to intermarry, and marriage with locals (bendiren 本地人) is quite common among second generation, China-born huaqiao (di san dai huaqiao 第二代华侨), it is less common among the third generation. Even so, according to some of my inter-view subjects, it is now becoming highly desirable for third generation huaqiao to seek marriage partners who live abroad. Guiqiao often have more connec-tions with family and friends overseas than the average bendiren does, and marriages to Chinese abroad can bring prestige to families and even entire communities. In addition, their social and economic life is largely conducted within their own communities, although business and personal connections with Chinese abroad are quite common.

Although intermarriage among huaqiao appears to be most prevalent among the ‘first generation’ of returnees, this practice is still encouraged even among younger residents of the huaqiao nongchang. One of my interview sub-jects, a young woman in her early twenties who I will call Xiao Lin, told me that several of her friends and relatives had married Chinese men who lived in Singapore, Malaysia, and Canada. She explained that such marriages were common and typically were encouraged by the couples’ parents.20 They admit-ted that this was partly out of economic consideration — marrying a foreign man often meant the prospect of a more economically stable life outside of China — but also claimed that the more foreign ties a family had, the more bragging rights they would have at home on the nongchang or qiaoxiang. And, although she expressed interest in obtaining a foreign passport or citizenship, she emphasized the importance of eventually coming back to the nongchang to visit family and friends. Like many other rural locations, huaqiao nongchang are at their busiest during lunar New Year and other holidays when family members from metropolitan areas throughout China and abroad return to celebrate with their families. In a sense, the nongchang has become the new ‘native place’, or guxiang 故乡, for many huaqiao and their descendants.

20 Personal interview conducted in October 2011.

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In contrast, while some have no desire to return to their former countries of residence, for some older huaqiao who choose to remain on the nongchang, their former homes in Southeast Asia continue to occupy a position of consid-erable sentimental importance. Some return at least once a year to visit rela-tives and friends, as well as to engage in commerce. For example, I spoke with one shop owner, Zhang Ayi, who claimed to travel to Indonesia several times a year to visit her family and purchase items that she resells in her shop and wholesales to retail shops throughout Fujian.21 For many of these individuals, it is their former home in Southeast Asia that is their true ‘homeland’.

The institutionalization of the huaqiao nongchang, along with the accom-panying bureaucratic structures, political mechanisms, and associated official propaganda, has been instrumental in strengthening and legitimizing a shared sense of identity among huaqiao who come from divergent cultural and geo-graphic backgrounds. In addition,22 the creation of state-sponsored schools, universities, museums, offices of huaqiao affairs, hotels, and even an amuse-ment park with luxury condominiums and an eighteen hole golf course, only help to concretize the notion that ‘huaqiao’ is a legitimate minority identity, just as ‘real’ as any of China’s officially recognized minority groups. The latter part of the twentieth century even saw the development of a huaqiao literary genre,23 and there have been numerous projects carried out to preserve the oral history of huaqiao.

In recent years, some of the farms have constructed huaqiao-themed tourist areas and amusement parks in an effort to capitalize on the conditions of the post-reform era. This personifies the commodification and commercialization that have become common among China’s ethnic minorities in popular tourist areas. One of the parks boasts a dance performance, with most of the danc-ers being second-generation huaqiao who gyrate to Indonesian folk music for the entertainment of throngs of tourists from the mainland. According to Elaine Ho, some of the dancers are native-born Chinese with no family back-ground outside of China and are employed to fill shortages in staff (Ho 2012: 9). Likewise, several of my informants explained the influx of native born Chinese as being associated with broader changes in the governance of the farms. The traditional Indonesian songs and dances that were once forced behind closed doors in China due to fear of persecution are now celebrated openly,

21 Personal interview conducted in June 2011.22 Nongchang such as Xinglong in Hainan have even been paid tribute on a series of postage

stamps (released on May 15th 2004).23 For example, see Lin, Wenlie 林文烈. 1978. Guiqiao Ernü 归侨儿女. Guangdong:

Guangdong renmin dazu she chuban 广东: 广东人民大族社出版.



and have been put on display and commoditized. I was told by a tour guide, a self-proclaimed ‘third generation huaqiao’, that many Chinese living abroad with family ties to the area come to the park to get a taste of the culture their parents or grandparents had told them about. There are opportunities to pur-chase trinkets and edible techan 特产 [unique local products], at every turn. It is apparent that like members of China’s ethnic minority groups, many of the residents of this nongchang have realized how to capitalize on their unique status. As Elaine Ho argues, for the younger generation who grew up on the huaqiao nongchang, cultural difference is no longer a liability, but an asset that has been “mobilized as an economic strategy” (Ho 2012: 2). Interestingly, just as collective stigmatization helped to solidify the common bonds and col-lective identity of the first generation returnees, the economic potentialities of ethnic and cultural distinction had a similar function for members of the younger generation. Ho argues that many in the younger generation have far fewer, if any, cultural connections with Southeast Asia. I certainly agree with this assessment, but I would add that new opportunities afforded to them in the post-reform era have affected a continuation, as well as a transformation, of huaqiao identity on the state farms. While the children and grandchildren of the returnees do not share their affinity with Indonesia or Malaysia as their second homeland, the huaqiao nongchang have become the guxiang that adult children working in cities return to at Spring Festival and other holidays; and connections with friends and family from the nongchang are integral parts of their social network.

One of my informants, Mr. Li, a self-professed ‘second-generation huaqiao’, put forth a considerable amount of effort to show me around his nongchang and introduce me to all his friends and family. The first meeting that he set up was with one of the elders (Mr. Fu) who has written extensively on the farm’s history and has contributed to several volumes of oral histories of the farm’s residents. He presented me with the published volumes that he had contributed to and was delighted to learn that I was researching the history of the farms. He explained that the story of guiqiao and their life on the nongchang was one that needed to be told — and one that few people, particularly native-born Chinese, had any knowledge about. He stressed to me over and over throughout our conversation that “people need to know our story . . . it is important that our story be heard”.24

24 Personal interview conducted in June 2011.

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On another occasion, I was invited to meet Mr. Li’s close friends at a coffee house on the nongchang.25 Mr. Li’s family had migrated from Indonesia, and his two friends’ families were ‘returnees’ from Malaysia, and Vietnam, respec-tively. One of the questions that I raised to them was: “What does it mean to be a huaqiao (especially since all of them had been born on Chinese soil)?” Mr. Li, the eldest among them explained that, to him, being a huaqiao meant that the nongchang was his home. He explained that his family had experi-enced persecution back in Indonesia, and hardships upon their ‘return’. In a tone of voice that conveyed both pride and regret, he exclaimed that, “To be a huaqiao means to be without a home. If there is any place that I can call my home, it is here. It is on the nongchang”.26

In the past few decades there has been another large influx of Chinese returnees many of which have been attracted to the opportunities afforded in the atmosphere of post-reform era China. However, members of this group are seldom referred to as ‘huaqiao’. They are often referred to as ‘haiwai huaren’ [海外华人] (Chinese abroad) or, usually in the case of those who left to study abroad, ‘hai gui pai’ [海龟派] (‘returning sea turtles’). In fact, it is apparent that the government mainly reserves the terms huaqiao and guiqiao for residents of the huaqiao nongchang, and not for those who have returned in recent years, many of who come from privileged economic backgrounds. Considered in this light, the continued use of huaqiao by and for the residents and former resi-dents of the nongchang, and others (and their descendants) who arrived in the 1950s-1970s differentiates them from the more recent returnees.27

For the older generation, shared memories of hardship, at ‘home’ and abroad, of repatriation, and of life on the nongchang were crucial factors in bringing about feelings of solidarity, regardless of where they come from. Their shared memories, along with the policies, institutions, and rhetoric of the state, com-bine to make up the glue that holds these ‘imagined communities’ together.

For the younger generation, the perceived benefits of their cultural status due to shifting state policies and a favorable social climate, and their agency as demonstrated by the strategic commodification of that status in response to

25 The abundance of coffee houses on many of the nongchang is one of the most visible signs of Southeast Asian influence.

26 Personal interview conducted in June 2011.27 For a detailed study of this group, and of the state’s efforts in recruiting talent from

among the diasporic community (such as the Thousand Talents Program) see Huiyao Wang’s Globalizing China: The Influence, Strategies and Successes of Chinese Returnees. It is instructive that neither Wang, nor any of his interview subjects ever use the term ‘huaqiao’.



economic incentives may prove to be factors in the continuation and transfor-mation of a huaqiao identity in the prc — at least in the near future. However, in the wake of widespread reforms that have sought to incorporate the huaqiao nongchang into the jurisdiction of provincial and local governments, the passing of many in the ‘first generation’, and the widespread migration of the younger generation to China’s urban and industrial centers, it remains to be seen how long the huaqiao identity will endure.

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Documents

Guiqiao (Returned Overseas Chinese) Identity in the PRC 归侨的认同意识