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As part of "China's south," Southeast Asia has historically assumed a peripheral position when juxtaposed against the power of the Chinese state. In the existing scholarly literature, the power asymmetry is reflected in the ostensible bias where most studies are about China's presence in or engagement with Southeast Asia rather than the reverse; studies on the presence or influence of Southeast Asia in China have been a marginal enterprise. The present volume aims to fill this void by exploring the historical entanglements and contemporary engagements of Southeast Asia(ns) in China through a Southeast Asian perspective. As China seeks to understand Southeast Asia's presence in the country on its own terms, it is also engaged in a process of self-discovery and defining where and how it should stand in relation to the region. Departing from the discourse of China as the a priori center dominating the scholarship on China-Southeast Asia relations, the present volume hopes to subvert such power relations in order to bring fresh perspectives on the historical and contemporary contributions of Southeast Asia(ns) in China.
List of contents
Preface
Part I: Historical Entanglements:
Chapter 1: At the Crossroads of Empire and Nation: Nanyang Volunteers in Wartime China
Chapter 2: Ethnicity and Frontier Studies in Southwest China: Pan-Thai Nationalism and the Wartime Debate on National Identity, 1932-1945
Chapter 3: Traversing the Migrant Corridor: Singapore's First Ambassadors to Thailand
Part II: Contemporary Engagements:
Chapter 4: Southeast Asian Studies in China: The Politics and Geopolitics of Knowledge Production
Chapter 5: Responding to China's Soft Power and People-to-People Exchange: The Case of Indonesia
Chapter 6: Southeast Asian Capital in China: The Role of the State and the Chinese Diaspora
About the author
Ying-Kit Chan is research fellow for the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden University.
Chang-Yau Hoon is associate professor and director of the Centre for Advanced Research at Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
