Comments on: Imperial Visits and Attitudes

By: revi

revi — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:47:56 +0000

You mean Western government and their respective intelligence agencies never tap their own emigrant citizens and sympathetic corporate/NGO entities for intelligence? Wow, what kinda myopic dreamscape certain people live in? Maybe its high time to beware the White Peril.

By: Inst

Inst — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:11:49 +0000

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government perceived itself as benefiting from strained conditions for ethnic Chinese; alienation encourages nationalism which encourages reverse migration from countries with higher average human development which provides well-educated human resources.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:46:45 +0000

I admit, I haven’t kept up at all on the literature regarding Chinese American identity. I say with great confidence, though, that such scholarship exists: look in sociology and anthropology journals, and Chinese studies conferences.

By: J B

J B — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:10:28 +0000

Do you know of any scholarly research into this? It’s an interesting question on several levels.
My personal experience has been HK/ Taiwan immigrants from the early eighties and later relate less to the PRC, while mainlanders feel a deeper connection- which makes perfect sense, I guess. One thing I find interesting is how the self-identities of immigrants moving to the US from a competing, rising power would develop, and whether or not the PRC could reverse the development of an American identity.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:32:31 +0000

The Chinese effort is, arguably, more extensive than the Japanese pre-war effort, and certainly more successful in terms of intelligence sources: there were no confirmed cases of Japanese immigrant espionage in the US before WWII, nor any post-war evidence that such espionage existed, though Japanese government agents certainly tried to develop contacts.

“Scale and scope” are really matters of perception, at least in terms of political/social effect. The Chinese immigrant population in the US has been pretty well normalized for generations, at least in terms of citizenship, due to the alliance with the US against Japan and a pretty strong sense of separation from the PRC in the Maoist era. The rise of China as a global power (as opposed to an isolated one in the Maoist era) combined with this deliberate cultivation of ties to the Chinese-descended community (I don’t know of a word that’s the equivalent of ‘Nikkei’ for Chinese) really could produce a shift in attitudes, I think.

By: J B

J B — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:37:23 +0000

Interesting piece, though I have a quibble/ question; namely, it seems to me the China Beat article is a bit more skeptical about the scale and scope of China’s efforts, and indeed it seems to offer only circumstantial evidence- do you think this is really a big issue? Or is it more a fear that it’ll get blown out of proportion in the US and perhaps eventually lead to some sort of yellow perilesque issue?

By: Frog in a Well - The Japan History Group Blog

Frog in a Well - The Japan History Group Blog — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:03:04 +0000

[...] x-posted. That it’s a better shot of the Admiral than of the Emperor is, I suppose, not surprising. [↩] See Gary Okihiro, John Stephan, also Morris-Suzuki [↩] see also [↩] [...]