Colonialism, China and the Chinese by Peter Monteath Matthew P. Fitzpatrick

Author:Peter Monteath, Matthew P. Fitzpatrick [Peter Monteath, Matthew P. Fitzpatrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367785031
Google: pZMezgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2021-03-31T01:37:04+00:00

Straits Chinese, British subjects, imperial citizens

For their contributions to the war effort and their historical demonstrations of a fierce loyalty to the British Crown, the Peranakan earned the moniker of the “King’s Chinese,” which they took immense pride in.48 While the Peranakan were indeed deeply loyal to King and Country, the story was much more complex than a simplistic adherence to the British Empire. The Peranakan had dual loyalties, a situation perhaps best summed up by Lim Boon Keng and Song Ong Siang in a series of pamphlets on the First World War that was later collected into a handbook distributed by the SCBA.49 In a pamphlet published for British readers across the Empire, Lim conveyed that:

At this moment, it is opportune for the Straits Chinese [Peranakan] to make it clear once and for all that, as a community, though they are not ashamed of their Chinese roots … while not forgetting the family of race or religion with their cousins of the Chunghua Republic [China], have become a thoroughly loyal and happy community owning allegiance to the King of England, and desiring nothing better than to live in and die for the land of their birth.50

Similarly, Song reinforced the duality inherent in the community, arguing:

By virtue of birth on British soil … the Straits Chinese [Peranakan], are subjects of His Majesty King George and owe allegiance to him. They are British subjects … [but] the Straits-born Chinese continue to belong to the Chinese race – that is a stern fact which none of us can get away from or should wish to deny. The Straits Chinese should be proud of the fact that they are members of a race which is the oldest in the world, which possesses such a long and remarkable history, and which, by such characteristics and qualities as adventurousness, industry, perseverance, energy, pushfulness and integrity, has always succeeded in asserting its presence whenever its representatives have gone and established themselves.51

What these excerpts reflect was a sense of Peranakan identity that reconciled a cultural conception of overseas Chinese nationalism with a sense of loyalty to the British Empire. Yet, Peranakan loyalty to the Empire did not entail acquiescence to any and all colonial policies. The community had a complex formulation of what historian Daniel Gorman calls “imperial citizenship.” While imperial citizenship developed from Gorman’s analysis of imperial thinkers attempting to develop a coherent policy towards British subjects in settler colonial rather than traditional colonial societies, I contend that the Peranakan demonstrated an understanding of their status as British subjects akin to imperial citizenship.52 As Gorman argues, all those born in the territories of the British Empire, “whether in London or Lagos, were technically subjects, all owing allegiance to the crown. The wide resonance of … imperial citizenship was manifested in ‘loyalism’ … to the sovereign … which provided the Empire with stability and cohesion.”53 As shown by their self-identification as the “King’s Chinese” and as demonstrated in the excerpts from Lim Boon Keng and Song Ong Siang given earlier, the Peranakan were clearly in tune with this conception of citizenship.

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