For centuries, China has been known as the Middle Kingdom. This name clearly indicates the country’s place as the powerhouse of the East, but it also serves as a reminder that China is surrounded by dozens of other countries that are intimately linked to its fate. At times, these neighbors have tried to encroach on China’s power, but in the past decades China has retaken its place as the undisputed cultural, economic, and political center of Asia. And that leaves countries across the continent facing an uncertain future. Does China’s rise threaten its neighbors? And what, ultimately, is its end goal? Nowhere are these questions more pressing than in the Pacific, where those who share maritime space with China are finding themselves directly in the path of the country’s expanding territorial claims.
In China and Her Neighbours, Michael Tai finds answers to these questions through an in-depth exploration of China’s past. He takes us through thousands of years of Chinese and Asian history, looking at China’s evolving relations with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia specifically. Tai considers how in the past the Chinese state has handled its colonial powers, its territorial disputes, and its tensions with countries like Japan and the United States. As Tai shows, looking closer at how history has shaped the current regime’s views of regional integration and global governance can reveal much about its future ambitions on the continent.
While the disputes in the Pacific have attracted widespread attention, few works have considered the wider historical context of these tensions. This makes China and Her Neighbours an essential and distinctive perspective on one of the key confrontations of the twenty-first century.
Author(s): Michael Tai
Publisher: Zed Books
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 216
City: London
Cover
Half Title
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Asian diplomacy from ancient history to the present
Chapter 1: Introduction: can the world trust China?
Chapter 2: China and Japan
Early contacts
Tribute system
Japan in the tribute system
Relations with the Tang
Relations with the Song
Relations with the Yuan
Relations with the Ming
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
San Francisco system
Political identity
Chapter 3: The Ryukyu Kingdom
Discrimination on the mainland
Okinawan migration overseas
America and the Ryukyu Kingdom
Typhoon of steel
Chapter 4: Vietnam
A thousand-year rule
Independence and Chinese invasions
The Tay Son uprising
French rule
Sino-Viet relations during the colonial period
Ho Chi Minh
World War II
The tiger and the elephant
Dien Bien Phu
The Geneva accord
The second Indochina war
Daniel Ellesberg and the Pentagon Papers
Discord over Cambodia
Post Vietnam War
Invasion of Cambodia
Chapter 5: The Philippines
The Chinese in the Philippines
Chinese mestizos
Nationalism
Spanish rule
Secularization
José Rizal
Revolution
The Katipunan
The battle of Manila Bay
The siege of Manila
Chinese mestizos in the Philippine-American war
José Ignacio Paua
American conduct
Annexation of the Philippines
The Chinese under American Rule
The Japanese Occupation
Post war integration
China policy
Chapter 6: Malaysia
Early contacts with China
The Malacca Sultanate
The Portuguese
The Dutch
The British
The Chinese
Secret societies
Kapitan Yap Ah Loy
Economic progress
Banking
Manufacturing
Europeans and Asians
Political awakening
Tan Kah Kee
Japanese occupation
Chin Peng
Postwar Malaya
Onn Jaafar
13 May
New economic policy
Chinese under the NEP
Sino-Malaysian relations
Mahathir Mohamad
Chapter 7: Territorial disputes
South China Sea
Scramble for rocks
The Senakaku/Diaoyu Islands
Tokyo’s claim
Chapter 8: China and the world order
The Portuguese
The Dutch
The British
The French
The Americans
The missionaries
The treaty of Versailles
From isolation to integration
Notes
References
Index
