Southeast Asia From the Japanese Occupation to Independence

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the survival capability of Chaoshan people in the maritime world of the South China Sea amidst the changing monetary systems of the rival empires and political regimes from 1939 to 1945. It particularly focuses on overseas Chinese remittance business in Shantou under the Japanese rule. Local societies in coastal China and overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia experienced severe hardships due to the Sino-Japanese War, the Pacific War and the Chinese Civil War. As fighting among the rival empires and regimes intensified, Chinese migrant communities straddling between Southeast Asia and South China had to negotiate and adapt to survive these crises, regardless of whether they were government-affiliated or local autonomous subjects. Design/methodology/approach This research draws on archival materials to investigate the reactions of Chinese migrant communities in Chaoshan region in times of war and regime change. How did local maritime societies and overseas Chinese adapt to the harsh realities of the wartime? How did the Japanese Empire use Wang Jingwei’s puppet government in Nanjing to control the Chaoshan remittance network? How did the remittance network shift its operational structure in face of a wartime crisis? Findings Faced with the wartime crisis and the Japanese occupation, Chaoshan communities used a variety of survival strategies to protect and maintain the overseas Chinese remittance business. In dealing with remittances from Singapore, British Malay and Indonesia, they cooperated with the Japanese military authority and its puppet government to maximize the autonomy of their business operation in the Japanese-controlled East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere. On the other hand, to secure the flow of remittances from French Indochina and Thailand, the indirectly controlled territories in the Japanese Empire, Chaoshan merchants sought an alternative path of delivering remittances, known as the Dongxing route, to bypass the Japanese ban on private remittances from these two regions. Research limitations/implications It would be a better research if more resources, including remittance receipts and documents during the Japanese occupation, could be found and used to show more detailed features of Chaoshan local society. Originality/value This research is the first one to investigate the contradictory features of local Chaoshan society during the Japanese occupation, an under-explored subject in the Chinese historiography.

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A Sudden Rampage: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia 1941–1945. By Nicholas Tarling. pp. xv, 286, 2 maps. London, C. Hurst & Co., 2001.

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland ◽

10.1017/s1356186302460257 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 235-237

Author(s):

Simon C. Smith

Keyword(s):

Southeast Asia ◽

Japanese Occupation

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From Idealism to the Ground: The Japanese Empire's Occupation of Southeast Asia - The Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore, 1941–45: A Social and Economic History. By Paul H. Kratoska. 2nd ed.Singapore: National University Press of Singapore, 2018. xxvii, 407 pp. ISBN: 9789971696382 (paper). - Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War: A Transnational History. By Ethan Mark. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. xii, 386 pp. ISBN: 9781350022201 (cloth). - The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War. By Jeremy A. Yellen. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2019. xi, 288 pp. ISBN: 9781501735547 (cloth).

The Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0021911819002316 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 79 (1) ◽

pp. 241-248

Author(s):

Kirsten L. Ziomek

Keyword(s):

Southeast Asia ◽

Economic History ◽

Second World War ◽

Transnational History ◽

World War ◽

Japanese Occupation ◽

Cornell University ◽

Total War ◽

National University ◽

Second World

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Book Reviews

Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia ◽

10.1163/22134379-90002132 ◽

1963 ◽

Vol 119 (3) ◽

pp. 317-328

Author(s):

P. Emst ◽

R.A. Stein ◽

F. Sierksma ◽

Jacob Vredenbregt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Southeast Asia ◽

The Philippines ◽

Japanese Occupation ◽

Cornell University ◽

Oxford University ◽

The Pacific ◽

Far Eastern ◽

Oxford University Press ◽

Original Drawings

- F. Sierksma, R.A. Stein, La civilisation tibétaine. Paris (Dunod) 1962. Collection Sigma, I. With original drawings by Lobsang Tendzin and photographs. 269 p.- P. van Emst, A. Grenfell Price, The western invasion of the Pacific and its continents. A study of moving frontiers and changing landscapes 1513-1958. Oxford University Press. Oxford 1963. 236 pp.- Jacob Vredenbregt, Elmer Lear, The Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Leyte, 1941-1945. Data paper number 42, Southeast Asia Program. Department of Far Eastern Studies. Cornell University, June 1961.- Jacob Vredenbregt, U Hla Pe, U Hla Pe’s narrative of the Japanese occupation of Burma, recorded by U Khin. Data paper number 41, Southeast Asia Program, Department of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell University, April 1961.- C. Nooteboom, Ornulv Vorren, Lapp life and customs, a survey; translated from the Norwegian by Kathleen McFarlane; London, Oxford University Press, 1962. 171 pp. text, 24 plates, 57 drawings, map., Ernst Manker (eds.)

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