basis. Only Siam was in a position to accord recognition to the new
Nationalist government, yet it failed to do so. As for European colo-
nial administrations, any interests they might have had in opening up
a dialogue with China or in expanding trade were subordinated to
those of their metropolitan governments. All matters that concerned
China and Southeast Asia were referred to European capitals. Para-
doxically, however, as official relations atrophied, unofficial
relations—primarily between political movements in China and over-
seas Chinese—blossomed as never before (or since the establishment
of the People’s Republic of China in 1949).
Just as Southeast Asian elites saw their voices silenced by colo-
nial domination (nowhere more cruelly than in the Philippines, whose
revolution against Spain led only to annexation by the United States),
overseas Chinese in these countries began to be stirred by Chinese
nationalism. This was actively encouraged by Guomindang agents dis-
patched to Southeast Asia to raise money for the party, and to remind
overseas Chinese that their primary loyalty was still to China. In 1926,
the newly established Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission of the
GMD spelled out its objectives. These were essentially to ensure that
overseas Chinese enjoyed equal rights and treatment in their countries
of residence; to assist overseas Chinese to give their children a Chinese
education; and to encourage overseas Chinese to set up industries and
invest in China. All overseas Chinese, after all, remained citizens
of China.
In 1929, the Nationalist government passed a Nationality Law
that reiterated Qing policy with respect to overseas Chinese: that is,
that all children born of a Chinese father, wherever they lived, were of
Chinese nationality. The law encouraged Chinese in the colonial
context of Southeast Asia, where they fell into a separate national and
racial category, to think of themselves as Chinese, but it created diffi-
culties with respect to dual nationality and exacerbated social tensions
with indigenous peoples by encouraging ethnic and cultural exclu-
sivism. The success of Nationalist policy, however, was reflected in the
The changing world order