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Chinese history paradigms

a
Wang Gungwu
a
National University of Singapore,
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 Asian Ethnicity
Vol. 10, No. 3, October 2009, 201–216

Chinese history paradigms

Wang Gungwu*

National University of Singapore

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Chinese people have had a strong bond with a long continuous history that has
shaped their identity as Chinese. The opening to the outside world during the last
century has exposed them to different kinds of histories. Within China, the threats
to their civilisation and the possibility of national history have led to many
revisions of the Chinese past. Those who have lived outside China have faced
alternative historical representations. How will the various experiences with
history paradigms influence the very idea of being Chinese?
Keywords: historical bonds; paradigms; traditions; becoming unbound

Chineseness is an ambiguous term that has been translated as zhongguoxing

(the nature of being of China) or (the nature of being someone Chinese).
The word is new and came out of questions asked mainly by foreigners about what it
meant to be Chinese.1 Outside China, it has recently been associated with another
concept, the identity of a minority ethnic community. It would be unusual for people
born in China of Chinese parents to think about the question of identity.2 However,
the question of Chineseness can be framed differently both inside and outside China
and can be used to compare modern Chinese with people strongly loyal to traditional
ideals. In that context, it could elicit thoughtful answers. Even Chinese within China
might admit that they could be considered less Chinese when compared with their
parents and grandparents. When made conscious of their past or when referring to
the history that shaped their present, the sense of having radically changed in the
twentieth century and even being culturally poorer has been recognized, often with
regret but sometimes with pride. For the educated, locating their position in relation
to the past livens up discussions of what being Chinese means. Episodes and images
of Chinese history serve as landmarks in paradigms that are central to their
self-recognition as Chinese. The paradigms provide patterns and sequences of
thought that define what they share with other Chinese. They also delineate the
boundaries near which the idea of Chineseness begins to blur. In that framework, the

*Email: eaiwgw@nus.edu.sg
1
The word is still not in the English–Chinese dictionaries that I know and neither of the
Chinese translations is widely understood. The idea of being Chinese or not is more easily
conveyed with a direct question like, ‘Are you Chinese?’.
2
This word, identity, often translated as rentong (recognizing sameness), is also new, but
many dictionaries now accept that.

ISSN 1463-1369 print/ISSN 1469-2953 online

Ó 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14631360903189674
http://www.informaworld.com
 202 Wang Gungwu

distance from Chinese history paradigms loosens the bonds with Chineseness.
Similarly, the acceptance of other history paradigms helps Chinese to be
unbounded.3
The word ‘Chinese’ has, of course, other dimensions and different layers of
meaning. Here I shall focus on its link with Chinese histories. Until the twentieth
century, it was a word used only outside China, with earlier equivalents in Sanskrit,
Arabic and Malay as well as in European languages. Chinese was an identity marker
with political, economic and socio-cultural content and, in the nineteenth century, it
also acquired racial attributes. Only then did it appear in the Chinese language as
zhongguo (Central-state, commonly translated as ‘‘Middle Kingdom’’) for the
country China and zhongguoren for the Chinese people.4 After 1912, with
the establishment of the Republic of China, zhongguoren came to refer to citizens or
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nationals of the new sovereign state. The meaning was steadily narrowed to
territories within the country’s physical borders and this called for a re-reading of the
Chinese past. The impact of this change on the Chinese living outside, the huaqiao
sojourners, who could be expected to return to China, was immediate. Some
huaqiao welcomed the new national identity because it raised their status abroad but
others were made uneasy by its longer-term implications.5
I shall not reach back to pre-national times when being Chinese had quite
different meanings. We know little about how Chinese outside China saw themselves,
and there are only scattered accounts of how others described them. From the late
nineteenth century, however, Chinese sources begin to refer to Chinese born outside
China to parents who lived as ethnic minorities among non-Chinese peoples. Such
Chinese seem not to have been bound by any specific idea of Chineseness. They
accepted being called Chinese by other communities, but were more concerned with
their identities as members of certain villages, lineages, ritual centres, counties or
language groups, or of certain trades and occupations. It was only after the rise of
modern nationalism that an awareness of China emerged. Only then did officials in

3
A powerful recent example, not officially accepted, of using Chinese history to challenge
current official stereotypes is ‘‘River Elegy’’ ( ) a six-part TV series produced in the late
1980s; Su and Wang, He shang and Ho shang. Also interesting is the officially approved 12-
part TV series, ‘‘Rise of Great Nations’’ ( ), now available in six DVDs; see also Tang
Jin (editor), Daguo jueqi. Beijing: Renmin publishing, 2006. This uses Western historical
sources to reconstruct the age of empires for the lessons it can teach the Chinese. The DVDs
are easily available to Chinese overseas and has been well received.
4
Words that referred to tribes or ancestral lineage have been used to convey the modern idea
of race. In the last years of the 19th century, people began to talk about the Chinese race,
zhongzu , in the context of racial decline. After 1898, Liang Qichao and Zhang Binglin
were influenced by Yan Fu’s translation of Thomas Huxley and their popularization of Social
Darwinism greatly encouraged the attacks on Manchu rule by nationalists like Sun Yat-sen.
For several decades, most Chinese did not distinguish that idea of zhongzu from zhongguoren
as nationals of China. This is discussed in Chow, ‘Imagining Boundaries of Blood’, 34–52);
Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China; and Duara, Rescuing History from the
Nation.
5
Attitudes and responses among the huaqiao varied between the establishment of the Republic
of China and that of the People’s Republic 37 years later. Nationalist appeals received keen
support during the time of the Japanese invasion, but the civil war caused not only ideological
divisions but also between the sojourners and many of the local-born settlers. The clearest
examples were found in Malaya and Indonesia; Charles Coppel, Indonesian Chinese in Crisis;
C.F. Yong, The Kuomintang Movement in Malaya; Wang, ‘The Limits of Nanyang Chinese
Nationalism’, 405–21.
 Asian Ethnicity 203

China ask the sojourners to be more conscious of what being Chinese entailed and to
examine how they were bound to China and to other Chinese.6 I have written about
this subject elsewhere. Here I shall confine myself to efforts to make Chinese
communities confront the history paradigms that defined China. In particular, I shall
explore the history paradigms central to being Chinese and consider how significant
they are to those who live in China and those who have settled in other countries.
Chinese history paradigms refer to the many ways the past is used to shape
thought and action at all levels of Chinese life, including how parts of the past can be
re-selected to justify either conservation or change. Such paradigms include packages
of values and judgments that the Chinese past invokes, for example, models of good
and bad lives, victors and losers in war and politics, literati duties and baixing
(ordinary folk) expectations, judgments made by the civilized and the barbarian, and
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the norms that determine the directions of change.7 After examining how Chinese
people are bound by history paradigms and introducing some reference points both
within China and outside, I shall focus on four aspects of what are binding and why.
Firstly, some images of being unbound today, with examples of Chinese and non-
Chinese history paradigms. After that, how people within China are bound,
separately comparing the perspectives from above and those from below. And
finally, the view from outside among those who consider themselves Chinese and
have lived among non-Chinese, including those who have adapted to the history
paradigms of other peoples. I shall end with some preliminary comments on the uses
of history paradigms.

Current reference points

Most young Chinese in China today are aware that transformative changes have
modified some of the paradigms in the heritage. They know that Deng Xiaoping also
re-configured some revolutionary and socialist paradigms after 1978. They now
observe the twists and turns in the emerging social framework forged by the opening
to a globalizing world. As they struggle to cope with the rapid changes around them,
they are continually reminded of what they have left behind. The textbooks for
schools and colleges and the writings in mainstream magazines and newspapers, still
highlight the successes of Mao Zedong, if only to underline continuity with the great
victories of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The paradigm that the final victory
put in place in 1949 keeps its meaning by emphasizing the weaknesses of the
preceding Guomindang government and, before that, the disasters of the warlord
years of division and confusion. At the same time, their artists and writers also recall
the more recent tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.8
6
The clearest example of official concern was first studied by Wen, ‘The Nineteenth-century
Imperial Chinese Consulate’. More details may be found in Ye Shujing , ‘Huang
Zunxian and Singapore’.
7
The best example of a modern presentation of Chinese history materials for the use of
modern schools was one edited by Xia Zengyou . He saw Japanese versions modeled on
Western school and college textbooks before preparing Latest Middle School Chinese History
Textbook. It was to become a classic text and was revised and re-published several times as An
Ancient History of China. The most recent reprint came out in 2006. Much of its content has
been incorporated in modified form in later textbooks for all Chinese primary and secondary
schools everywhere.
8
I have seen a few collections of the history taught in primary and secondary schools, for
example, the history volumes of the two sets published in Shenyang: Encyclopedia of Primary
 204 Wang Gungwu

Other elements in the paradigm remind them of the Japanese invasions that
penetrated further into China than the European empires that the Japanese had
studied and sought to emulate. These invasions created the conditions that led the
CCP to set about saving China. Earlier on, within living memory, there was the
Manchu Qing dynasty that claimed to inherit the great traditions of the ancient
Chinese civilization that its predecessor, the Ming dynasty, had revived. Through
both those dynasties, the Chinese reached back to the classics of Confucians,
Legalists and Daoists, the sutras of the Buddhists and the literary works of all the
ancients, all helping to consolidate Chinese history paradigms. In addition, there are
still echoes of history in every family ritual, notably those concerning birth, death
and marriage, also there are many festivals being revived, and a range of public
performances that seek connections with the past. Most of these layers of history
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make cultural bonds for all Chinese, although it is their family, school and colleagues
at work who would be the most direct influence on how they define themselves as
Chinese.
For Chinese outside China, history paradigms have a lighter and less direct effect,
including the paradigms drawn from the historical experiences of other peoples. In
recent times, depending on which schools local Chinese went to and the level of
education attained, a mix of national, regional and even global histories have diluted
the Chinese mindset.9 In comparison with earlier generations of Chinese settlers,
modern lives have many more dimensions. The Chinese overseas no longer look to
extended kin groups and sympathetic officials in China, and there is little to bind
them to images of China and Chinese history. Although this makes their fellow
nationals happier, it does not necessarily make their positions comfortable and
secure. For them, there remains at best a pride in seeing an ancestral civilization
recovering. For those who live in countries where upward social mobility exists as in
some early Southeast Asian kingdoms, and where local value systems are attractive,
new history paradigms can readily be absorbed, accompanied by religious
conversions and high public service.
The Chinese experience in Southeast Asia before the nineteenth century can
provide examples of what decisions to settle can lead to. During the century and a
half after the Manchu conquest, from the late seventeenth till the early nineteenth
century, most southern Chinese rejected any identification with the Qing dynasty.
Where there were opportunities for social mobility, such Chinese settled with their
local families. Chineseness was not an issue. In areas like those under Dutch
administration, there was an alternative paradigm. By becoming trading associates
of the Dutch, local-born peranakan communities were nurtured that survive to the

Schools Teaching Materials , volume 4, and Encyclopedia of Middle

Schools Teaching Materials , volume 7, Shenyang Publishing Co., 1990–
1993. They reflect the common syllabi that all schools follow. It is interesting to note that the
Japanese have followed history teaching in China closely, and have translated in full the
Middle Schools and Colleges History Textbooks edited by People’s Education Publishers in
Beijing, for example, Nyumon Chugoku no rekishi: Chugoku chugakko rekishi kyokasho; and
Chugoku no rekishi: Chugoku koto gakko rekishi kyokasho. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, in 2001 and
2004 respectively.
9
Colonial schools offered histories of each respective empire as well as the ancient history of
the West followed by the emergence of national histories of newly emerging nation-states;
Vickers and Jones, History Education and National Identity in East Asia. A well-known
example from the British Empire was Williamson, The British Empire and Commonwealth. A
recent study outlines other features; Watson, ‘Rulers and Ruled’, 147–74.
 Asian Ethnicity 205

present day in many parts of the Malay world. How far the peranakan kept faith
with their Chinese past depended on the access they had to Chinese ideas and
practices. Here, it was not authenticity that they needed but the means to confirm
their special place as trading communities of Chinese in the socio-economic
framework that the Dutch had established.10
After the mid-nineteenth century, the exodus out of China of unskilled labour
across the globe was part of a larger phenomenon. It came at the same time as
modern institutions that included better communication methods, ideas of
nationhood and new scientific paradigms. As new waves of Chinese dispersed to
every continent, all Chinese overseas began to receive official protection. By the
twentieth century, sojourning was considered a patriotic act. Although the idea of
Chinese nationhood was slow to convince those who were born overseas, the
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pressure to accept it was strong. The introduction of Chinese newspapers and books
and the building of modern schools using textbooks and teachers imported from
Shanghai brought a higher level of history paradigms to anyone who wanted them.
But these paradigms changed with the different warlords, Guomindang and CCP
regimes. As a result, for several decades, the descendants of Chinese abroad
experienced considerable difficulties in trying to keep abreast of what it meant to be
Chinese.
There were also changes in the countries in which the Chinese resided. For
example, decolonization in Southeast Asia demanded local loyalties and nation-
building programmes transformed school curricula. The pressure to be unbound
from Chinese customs and values increased. At the same time, more Chinese, first
from Hong Kong and Taiwan after 1949 and then, after 1978, from the China
mainland, moved to join the Chinese overseas elsewhere. New political and cultural
choices became available. On the one hand, different official rewrites of Chinese
history have come with each group of new emigrants. On the other, Eurocentric
history paradigms offering alternative universalisms, like liberalism, socialism, free
market borderless economies, have been added to the national paradigms in the
countries where Chinese settle.11 And as Chinese both overseas and within China
face the reconstruction of Chinese history as part of world history, the idea of being
unbound is much more open than it has ever been. There are many dimensions to the
changes to Chinese history paradigms. Let me focus here on four aspects of this
phenomenon.

Images of unbound Chineseness today

Three examples of where the parameters have already been stretched are
entrepreneurship, education and political culture. All three have roots in Chinese

10
Skinner, ‘Creolized Chinese Societies in Southeast Asia’, 51–93; and Reid, ‘Flows and
Seepages’, 15–49). Khoo Joo Ee, The Straits Chinese.
11
For Chinese history, the obvious rewrites came from Taiwan and Hong Kong, with
historiography being even more a political battlefield on the mainland as Marxist historical
materialism was forcibly introduced with each revision of Chinese history; Feuerwerker,
History in Communist China; Cohen, China Unbound. In comparison, both colonial and
national histories reflected different ideological perspectives. The Chinese who settled in North
America and Australasia were most open to essentially Eurocentric ‘world history’
approaches, exemplified by books by Langer, An Encyclopedia of World History and
McNeill, A World History; and generations of history textbooks influenced by the two.
 206 Wang Gungwu

tradition, but how they are practised today is quite different. For example, the range
of modern entrepreneurship is new. From the innumerable studies of Chinese
business methods and networks during the past decade, it is clear that the higher
status given to the merchant in Chinese society today has been the key to Chinese
successes, first overseas and then in China itself. This has been particularly true of
the Chinese in Southeast Asia. By the end of the nineteenth century, the many
successful local Chinese so impressed the mandarins of Qing China that their
acceptance helped to normalize the growing importance of the merchant classes on
the mainland. That change in turn made the overseas Chinese more respectable
in the twentieth century. The freeing from historical paradigms that had constrained
the shang (merchant) class within China unleashed new forms of enterprise, and the
very success of such ventures helped to shape new images of what constitutes
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Chineseness today.12
As for the tradition of learning as a shared ideal, that has even deeper roots in
Chinese history. It suffuses the Confucian-coloured texts that form the bulk of
China’s literate heritage, and it remains the most powerful single unifying goal
around which Chinese societies are organized. There were built-in limits to that goal.
It was confined to the pursuit of excellence in defined areas of knowledge, notably
those that led to public office. Breaking away from this goal was almost impossible in
China before the twentieth century. But, among the Chinese overseas, the loosening
process had begun earlier through contact with Western laws and administrative
procedures, and Western medicine and technology. Respect for the educated
remained strong so that, when China’s own literati accepted the ‘new learning’ of the
West, the Chinese outside were well placed to take advantage of opportunities
available to them. Significantly, they were ready to turn what had been an elitist
paradigm into one that saw education as a common resource. Where conditions were
favourable, as demonstrated in the higher education systems of Western Europe,
North America and Australasia, the push to acquire knowledge to promote material
success was inevitable. When China established similar centres, the urge to continue
studies in China also surfaced. Wherever possible, the desire to build popular
education institutions transformed an ancient paradigm.13
As for political culture, this is a sensitive area. The history paradigm here is
explicit and powerful. The Chinese are accustomed to reading stories about strong
dynastic leaders gaining legitimacy by victory on the battlefield and how their
ancestors accepted the idea of central control in the hands of highly educated
officials. As long as there are honest functionaries who are more or less efficient,
most Chinese do not demand political processes that encourage public divisions.

12
The Culture of Chinese Merchants, Toronto: Toronto & York University Joint Centre for
Asia Pacific Studies, Working Paper Series No. 57, 1989. The result of favourable business
conditions outside China is well illustrated by the essays in McVey, Southeast Asian
Capitalists.
13
The full story of the education of the children of the Chinese overseas during the twentieth
century has yet to be told. The studies of huaqiao education published in Chinese do not
convey the variety of educational institutions that Chinese students attended. The stress on
only those schools where the medium of education was Chinese nevertheless brings out the fact
that popular education available to all was the ideal everyone subscribed to from the early
years of the 1912 Republic; Chen, (Footprints of the Trailblazers: 300 Years of
Chinese Education Overseas). There is a growing literature on the commitment to popular
education in the twentieth century; Peterson, Hayhoe, and Lu (eds.), Education, Culture, and
Identity in twentieth-century China.
 Asian Ethnicity 207

Chinese today all know about democracy and the desirability of participation,
consultation and transparency but in Mainland China, there is still residual fear that
divisions would threaten social stability and even lead to bloodshed. The Chinese
overseas, however, have other choices. Wherever officially encouraged or not,
politicization has occurred, and many Chinese now take for granted that they can
win public positions through democratic elections. It is too early to say if this is yet
another example of the unbinding of tradition, but there is little doubt that, given
the right circumstances, even the strongest mindset can be unbound.14
There are other areas where questions may be asked as to whether the Chinese
overseas are now less bound to the Chinese past and whether the modernizing of
values and mindsets in China may bring back historical continuities and restore the
aura of Chineseness. Certainly living among different kinds of non-Chinese has led
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to other kinds of binding, and ties some of them to other history paradigms. For
those of Chinese descent beyond the second or third generation, the new bonds
may have unbounded Chineseness beyond recognition.15 But let me limit my
questions to the Chinese of the twentieth century within and outside China. This
begins when a nationalistic Chinese republic brought new history paradigms into
its relationship with the overseas Chinese. I shall choose paradigms from within
China that reflect different perspectives, one from above and one from below.
From outside China, I shall look at those who say they are Chinese or are seen as
Chinese, but who have to adjust to the history paradigms of their host societies
and countries.

Within China, the past that binds from above

When the twentieth century began, Confucianist ideas were still largely intact.
History was still inclusive of a large body of knowledge that provided the governance
literature that dominated Chinese political life. That knowledge continued to be
respected by the ruling elites through the warlord years to the establishment of the
Guomindang government in 1928. Despite the challenge of new knowledge brought
back to China by returned students from Europe and the United States and the
revolutionary rhetoric inspired by the May Fourth Movement after 1919, the
Nanjing government (1928–1948) reaffirmed history paradigms that were closely
linked with traditional political culture.16

14
Aspiring Chinese community leaders have, directly or indirectly, been engaged in the
political process in native kingdoms, colonial states and new nations, most openly in Thailand,
Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, but increasingly also in migrant nations like United
States and Australia. The following capture their early political activities: Suryadinata,
Peranakan Chinese Politics in Java; Tejapira, Commodifying Marxism; Ratnam, Communalism
and the Political Process. Examples of recent developments in the United States may be found
in Chang, Asian Americans and Politics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects. New immigrants
are also participating although somewhat differently, Lien Pei-Te, ‘Transnational Homeland
Concern and Participation in US Politics’, 56–78.
15
Two outstanding historians in Southeast Asia who wrote on subjects that affected Chinese
lives without identifying with Chineseness are Ong Hok Ham in Indonesia and Khoo Kay
Kim in Malaysia. An example from each author: Ong Hok Ham, The Thugs, the Curtain Thief,
and the Sugar Lord; Khoo, ‘The Beginnings of Political Extremism in Malaya, 1915–1935’.
16
Lloyd E. Eastman. The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist rule, 1927–1937;
Oldstone-Moore, ‘The New Life movement of Nationalist China’.
 208 Wang Gungwu

An interesting example of this confirmation is the way senior scholars began to

modernize the way all knowledge had traditionally been grouped.17 There were four
categories and these were placed in the following order: jing, shi, zi and ji. Jing ,
the classics, was the body of texts built around the works of Confucius and his direct
disciples. It included all the commentaries on the surviving classics that outlined the
boundaries of what constituted the highest moral ideals of civilization. Shi stood
for history but defined broadly to include every branch of learning that pertained to
the administration and control of the Chinese empire, including geography,
administration, biographies and fields that would be comparable to the social
sciences today. Zi referred to the work of ‘masters’ ranging from Laozi, Zhuangzi
and other non-Confucians thinkers who were not part of the orthodoxy. These
writings preserved the ideas and practices that were thought to be useful but not vital
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for imperial government. As for ji , the word meant ‘collections’. These were the
selected works of literati who were renowned for the quality of their prose and
poetry. Although political and occasional essays and memorials composed in
imperial service were included, it was their aesthetic contributions embodying the
essence of Chinese civilization that were greatly valued.
In the process of modernization, modern scholars learnt from the sociology of
knowledge that emerged in Western Europe and the United States. As a result, there
was a reordering of the first and last categories, those of the classics and collections,
while the other two categories of history and ‘masters’ were greatly expanded to
accommodate a wide range of scientific and technological writings. Broadly
speaking, most of the social sciences pertinent to the needs of modern civil and
military governance became the largest sections in the history category, while the
natural and technical sciences dominated the ‘masters’ category. The impact on
university curricula was immediate, with history removed from its old position as the
body of learning providing lessons for ruling the empire and redefined as what
professional historians wrote and taught.
This process was revised again after 1949 by the Maoist authorities, and even
more obviously so during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. But, while
the young Red Guards were extolled to reject all tradition, the Confucian classics
were reinterpreted and politicized to fit the overriding polemics of the day. As
befitting Chinese history paradigms, far from rejecting tradition, the past was
used to criticize the present. Indeed, when Mao Zedong’s disciples quoted Marx
and Engels against Chinese traditions, they were actually replacing a Chinese
history paradigm with one inspired by Karl Marx.18 This implicit replacement has
been abandoned since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms after 1978. The opening to global
developments has yet to produce a historical paradigm for good governance. In
the meantime, efforts are proceeding to re-define what is national and sovereign

17
This is more fully discussed in Wang, ‘ : ’ [History and Knowledge:
different library classifications in China and the West].
18
Wang, ‘Juxtaposing Past and Present in China Today’, The China Quarterly, March (1975),
1–24. For the background to the change in history paradigms, Wang, Inventing China Through
History. An excellent example of early efforts to write world history for Chinese students is
Chen Hengzhe , [Western History]. Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998
(based on the first edition published in 1927). He Bingsong’s translation of James
Harvey Robinson’s A New History (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1924) was particularly
influential in introducing Anglo-American historiography to college students before the
introduction of Marxist and later Soviet historical writings.
 Asian Ethnicity 209

for the Hua or Han Chinese and the 54 other minorities within Chinese
borders. Modern scholars still draw from all known sources of Chinese tradition,
including recent experiments with nationalism and communism, but the direction
of change is not clear. There is a sense that the Chineseness that is being
unbound among the elites of China is comparable to that experienced by the
Chinese overseas. Faced with the modernity that offers many choices, all Chinese
can find things from the past that they want to reject and may now see no
bounds for what they are looking for.19

Binding at the base

The dominant elite discourse is not the only historical paradigm that is deep rooted.
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There are at least two other paradigms that are relevant here. Both are drawn from
popular representations in the past of what deserves to be remembered and
preserved. A few examples are briefly outlined below.
The first may be described as inclusive, with the possibility of being universal. I
call this the Justice paradigm that is often associated with the right for the people to
revolt against tyrannical and corrupt rulers. Its premises are based on an ideal of a
balance of rights and duties, of reciprocity and fairness. It appeals to key Confucian
ideas but is greatly strengthened by also being endorsed by some religious concepts
and practices, including those inspired by Buddhism and Daoism. The philosopher
Mencius, the most distinguished disciple of Confucius, expressed the ideal of the
Mandate of Heaven, which is really a mandate for popular rebellion in the name of a
greater justice than what governments and rulers can offer. It is an historical
paradigm that appeals to the past to provide stimuli for action and also the lessons
about timing and location that enabled successful revolts to be launched. Much of
the paradigm stems from history-based stories in poetry and fiction and
performances of various kinds of theatre, often operatic, performances at festive
occasions. And the paradigms also demonstrate that, at its most effective, rebels are
inspired by religious experiences and, not least, are led by people from heterodox
organizations that remind one of older Buddhist and Daoist sects. Outside China,
wherever dissident organizations are found, the origins of their activism often have
roots in the responses prevalent in China.20

19
In 2001–2003, a group of Shanghai scholars led by the historian Su Zhiliang of Shanghai
Normal University produced a new set of high school history textbooks that was tried out for
three years. After being reported on by Joseph Kahn in The New York Times, the controversy
drew official attention to its unorthodox approach and it was eventually withdrawn; Joseph
Kahn, New York Times, September 1 2006; [Southern Weekly], September 13 2007.
The official view that historical materialism remains paramount during the past three decades
of revisiting Chinese historiography may be found in the first five essays in [Historical
Research], no. 316, June 2008, 1–33. A more muted essay about research on modern Chinese
history is by Yu Heping in [Modern Chinese History Studies], no. 168,
June 2008, 82–99. Nevertheless, in both these journals as well as those published by major
universities, historians display knowledge of, and willingness to use, a wide range of theories
and methods derived from reading books and journals published outside China. Incorporating
the results of new research into history textbooks will have to wait.
20
Liu and Shek, Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China; Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion; Ma,
. [Chinese Religions and Beliefs, a Series of
Contemporary Studies in China]; Bolton and Hutton, Triad Societies; Ownby and
Heidhues, ‘Secret Societies’ Reconsidered.
 210 Wang Gungwu

The second example is more exclusive and might be called the Ancestral
paradigm. Bonding within the family is an ancient heritage that Confucian and other
thinkers in the past had made into both ritualistic and spiritual paradigms. Although
keeping genealogies among the ruling elites is not unique to the Chinese and
extended kinship ties are also known elsewhere, the preparation of genealogies
spread among ordinary Chinese families and the kinship claims that are still being
made have a longer and more continuous history than among other peoples. Off and
on during the twentieth century, most Chinese saw the practices as virtues that
should be sustained.
Related to this are same-surname organizations that supplement many kinds of
sub-ethnic identities. These also draw on real or virtual ancestral links. The most
prominent of those used by the trading and artisan classes could be described as
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locational institutions that connect people of the same village, county, prefecture or
province whenever they left home to work or to settle. These are less binding than
blood-kin relationships, but they can function as a social utility that helps sojourning
people in need of protection and care. Occasionally, some have large enough
memberships that enable them to act together as organizations with economic if not
political clout when dealing with officialdom.
Linking these organizations and providing them with other worldly support are
Buddhist and Daoist temples, and shrines dedicated to a variety of gods and spirits,
that together confer extra powers to protect the interests of their members. The
combined additional support strengthens the various bonding devices that are
available to all those who qualify to join. These bonds are stronger in small
communities or in cities where small minority groups feel otherwise overwhelmed.
All the relational mechanisms that connect people readily have evolved over time
and reached high degrees of sophistication by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Even the
Manchu conquerors recognized their importance as Chinese cultural markers and
not only accepted them as socially desirable but also adopted similar practices for
themselves. By the twentieth century, the ancestral paradigm has become the
strongest set of institutions for all Chinese whether they stayed at home or ventured
out.21 It provides each individual with the confidence to strike out whenever they
wish to. At the same time, it also binds them to their communities whenever possible.
The revolutionary regime since 1949 has tried to replace both these paradigms,
especially during the Cultural Revolution. That was only partially successful.
Following the reforms after 1978, many of the older institutions have reappeared.
Communist Party cadres continue to supervise these private practices to see that no
alternative authority centres are set up and ensure that these revived social bonds are
optional and undemanding. What is remarkable is that these paradigms survive
among many overseas communities and, during recent decades, it is from outside
China that much of the encouragement to resuscitate them in China has come.22
Nevertheless, it would be correct to say that Chineseness has been unbounded within

21
The work of Maurice Freedman on this subject has inspired modern research on this subject
where the Chinese oversea are concerned. His essays collected by G. William Skinner are in
The Study of Chinese Society. Another pioneering study is Ho Ping-ti’s historical survey of
Landsmannschaften in China, . . (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1966).
More recent are essays in Faure and Siu (eds.), Down to Earth. For the Confucian
background, Slote and De Vos, Confucianism and the Family.
22
Liu, ‘Old Linkages, New Networks’, 582–609.
 Asian Ethnicity 211

China for most of the past century. That is the context in which we can look at the
unbinding processes among the Chinese who have always lived abroad.

Unbinding outside China

I now turn to the place of history paradigms among those Chinese born outside
China, in particular Chinese who have become the nationals of other countries and
have adapted to the history paradigms of their adopted homes. They are quite unlike
the new emigrants from the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau who may
also be unbounded but in ways connected to the changes occurring where they came
from. I shall, therefore, not deal here with the newcomers but concentrate on the
kinds of choices among those born outside China whose Chineseness is being
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questioned and is undergoing some kinds of unbinding.

Firstly, there are those of an older generation who have used and still use the
mega-history paradigm favoured by the Chinese literati to resist what their local
national authorities have to offer. For them, their persistence provides a valuable
continuity with high Chinese civilization. This group consists of people who are
educated, at least in part, in Chinese-medium schools that used textbooks modeled
on, or inspired by those of China, or Taiwan or Hong Kong. In addition, Chinese
students today have access to fairly authentic translations of major Chinese classics,
together with comprehensive studies of Chinese history. This is particularly true of
Anglophone countries. The books available can provide platforms for young
Chinese to opt for Chinese history paradigms if they wish. If they do so, they need
not necessarily deny the validity of the national paradigms of their countries of
adoption. But the Chinese identity they find could be suffused with images drawn
from other histories. In addition, there are paradigms that claim to be universal,
especially those emanating from Western Europe and North America. Here, they
would observe the place these paradigms give to Chinese history as they consider
how far they accept them.23
Secondly, there are those who do not look to Chinese history paradigms at all but
emphasize personal connections with the paradigms of their family and ancestral
past, each Chinese in its own way. What is important is the use of Chinese languages
or dialects to keep in contact with those who are meaningful to their lives.
Institutionally, these would consist of family links that are still traceable, the means
available to sustain such links, and the organizations established for community
bonding as well as for occupational and business networking.24 If these channels are
open and not interfered with by their local national authorities, they could sustain a

23
There are now thousands of Chinese students, most of them descendants of overseas
Chinese, studying in Anglophone schools and colleges. If they did any arts and social science
courses, they are likely to use textbooks that deal with China that are written by Western
scholars. Good examples, among several others, would be Wm. Theodore de Bary’s Sources of
Chinese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, many editions since 1960) and
Edwin O. Reischauer and John K. Fairbank, East Asia: the Great Tradition (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, several editions since 1960). Mainstream histories of the West would
include the very accessible books by J.M. Roberts and William McNeill.
24
Kuah, Rebuilding the Ancestral Village, provides a good example of what is being attempted
today. For an earlier period, a fine account is Yuan-yin Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of
Home. For examples of problematical adjustments, Yow, ‘The Changing Landscape of
Qiaoxiang’.
 212 Wang Gungwu

lightly bound Chineseness indefinitely. And this need not prevent them from
accepting other paradigms that are locally favoured or internationally respected.
The number of those settled abroad who say they are Chinese, or are seen by
others as Chinese, and have adjusted to the history paradigms of their host societies,
is growing. Within China, it is known how the Chinese have been picking at and
loosening old bondages. The attitudes there towards a varied continuum of history
paradigms are more open and many choices are available. Chinese overseas, too,
unless they have chosen to be narrowly national about their adopted countries, are
more global than anyone could have expected a few decades ago. It is likely that this
trend will continue whether nationalism or the nation-state survives or not in its
present form.
But there are other trends. There are Chinese who still try to shake off vestiges of
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Chineseness as desired by their fellow nationals and, as long as they are not pointed
to as Chinese, will merge totally with local national populations. Certainly, those
who openly reject the history paradigms emanating from China have lifted the
burden of Chineseness to a large extent. Whether their fellow citizens appreciate that
varies from place to place, but the freedom to choose what bonds to keep or refuse is
there. For some, the social harassment about their troublesome identities is over. The
willingness to transfer to other history paradigms is one of the keys to that end. It
lifts the chains of sojourning that link them to families and homes in China and to
the Chinese state. Of course, if they were to re-migrate and sojourn elsewhere, that
opens them to new dimensions of being Chinese found elsewhere. In such cases,
changing perceptions of cultural revival in China can keep the issue alive indefinitely.
Finally, there is yet another embracing paradigm that parallels the others. I refer to
conversions or re-conversions to major religions that affirm their own historical
paradigms. These range from the three that originated from the Middle East, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, to the East and Southeast Asian Buddhism that began in India.
Most Chinese are aware that their ancestors once took transcendentalist Buddhist
sutras to enrich their particularistic Confucian and Daoist heritage. During the
twentieth century, the urge to seek other spiritual paradigms has grown among many
for whom the secular brand of internationalism represented by the Marx-Lenin-Mao
trinity is a god that failed. Such Chinese can now supplement what they cherish in their
traditions by choosing between secular faiths that stress Chinese history paradigms and
world religions that can transcend time and history.25

The uses of history paradigms

These are preliminary thoughts. Some aspects of Chinese history paradigms are being
modified beyond recognition. Recovery of what is essential to Chineseness is work in
progress. It is hard to predict which parts will be reborn. But there is one area where a
fundamental disposition may survive. This is the present-mindedness that suffuses
Chinese thinking. This looks upon history as a body of knowledge that should be useful
25
Some perspectives of recent developments in China are found in Yao and Badham, Religious
Experience in Contemporary China; Yang, Chinese Religiosities; MacInnis, Ting, Zheng and
Luo, Religion under Socialism in China. Comparable manifestations may be found among the
Chinese overseas facing Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. The complex responses among
peranakan Chinese who have lived four or more generations in the region can be seen in
Clammer, ‘Syncretism, Religion and Ethnic Identity’, in his collection of essays, Diaspora and
Identity.
 Asian Ethnicity 213

to the present. It assumes that the past has lessons to teach the Chinese and expects
their historians to select and clarify what will enhance Chinese civilization.
Chineseness obviously has many levels of significance. For those who operate
close to governing elites, it would be hard to be unbound because their commitments
and mindsets are rooted in ancient texts and their possible reinterpretations. At the
same time, when members of the elite choose to abandon what they no longer believe
is viable, they could be liberated even more thoroughly from what they once thought
was the core of that Chineseness. At one end, they could become revolutionaries
prepared to destroy all past paradigms in order to rebuild from totally new premises.
At the other, they could seek a life of eremitism, meditation and prayer and turn to
transcendental matters.
At popular levels, everything is more down-to-earth. Those who wish to preserve
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their notions of Chineseness, or hope to enrich it with new ideas and values, can
adjust their lifestyles to fit new environments and absorb fresh insights. Should they
lose hope in keeping their Chinese identity, they might look elsewhere. They can be
persuaded that what is represented as Chineseness to them has become narrow and
artificial and that the high-sounding historical paradigms are irrelevant and can no
longer be reconciled with the modern lives they now want to live. Some may awaken
to the fact that they do not need to be bounded by that kind of Chineseness anyway.
They accepted it only because there was no other source of authority. Once that is
challenged by alternative paradigms clearly better suited to current conditions, they
can be freed. And if that can happen among Chinese within China, only a few among
those outside would want to be more loyalist than them.
An interesting question may still be asked of the trajectory of change among
Chinese overseas. From the tenth to the nineteenth centuries, they were largely
huashang or merchants and they were bound by the idea of sojourning, bound
to travel and trade to and fro whenever and wherever possible. After the middle of
the nineteenth century, they were largely huagong or coolie labourers, and they
were tied to other kinds of bonds from which few could escape. By the twentieth
century, they were politically identified as huaqiao or ‘overseas Chinese’, and
new bonds of ethnicity and nationhood replaced their fragmented local identities.
Each time conditions changed, these huaqiao moved to other kinds of binding. As
foreign nationals, new adjectives described their Chineseness. Those settled longest
outside China became huayi or descendants of Chinese and many could cease
to be Chinese if their fellow nationals agree. Over time, many have found the
freedom to choose what parts of their former identities they want to keep if they wish
to defend their descendants from becoming rootless.
The act of unbinding Chineseness involves adjustments to viable history
paradigms but there is rarely a total rejection of an historical identity. There are
different kinds of bonds. Some become tighter the harder one tries to loosen them.
Others are loose to begin with and are easier to be freed from. Yet others are so
intangible that they suffuse past and present experiences of living and survive unseen
even inside those who say they are not Chinese.

Notes on contributor
Professor Wang Gungwu is in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University
of Singapore and Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University. His recent books
include The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy (2000), Don’t
Leave Home: Migration and the Chinese (2001), Anglo-Chinese Encounters since 1800: War,
 214 Wang Gungwu

Trade, Science And Governance (2003), Diasporic Chinese Ventures (2004),

(China and Its Cultures: From the Periphery) (2007). He is Fellow
and former President of the Australian Academy for the Humanities, Foreign Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Science, Member of Academia Sinica, Honorary Member of the
Chinese Academy of Social Science. In Singapore, he is Chairman of the Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies, the East Asian Institute and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Malaya in Singapore, PhD. from
the University of London (1957) and first taught at the University of Malaya (Professor of
History, 1963–1968). At Australian National University (19681986), he was Professor and Head
of the Department of Far Eastern History and Director of the Research School of Pacific Studies.
From 1986 to 1995, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
Author’s postal address: East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, Bukit Timah
Campus, Tower Block #06-01, Singapore 259770.
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