China's resistance to the Japanese invasion escalated into a full-scale war after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937. As appeasement and isolationism permeated the international community, Western powers hesitated to intervene in the increasingly aggravated China–Japan hostilities. Nevertheless, the continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in overseas Chinese communities worldwide. This trend was especially visible in British Malaya and the Dutch colony of Java, two main destinations for Chinese emigration for centuries. The Japanese invasion of China sparked the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM), which included numerous boycott campaigns, fundraising and the recruitment of volunteers in both colonies, boosting the unprecedented enthusiasm of the overseas Chinese to participate in the domestic politics of their ancestral homeland between 1937 and 1941.
However, the Chinese population in Malaya and Java was by no means monolithic. On top of the large local-born Chinese population, the rapid growth of new immigrants from China in the first half of the twentieth century contributed to a significant demographic shift in both colonial societies. While their differences in birthplace resulted in a noticeable division between the local-born peranakan and the China-born totok, several driving forces further intensified the polarisation of the Chinese community.Footnote 1 The NSM provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’ and to readjust their relationships with the colonial regimes and the increasingly self-aware indigenous population. Accordingly, the shifting political landscape in each colony also significantly shaped their participation in the Movement and other groups’ reactions to such dynamics.
The overseas Chinese contribution to China's armed resistance against the Japanese invasion during the Second World War has been explored extensively in the Sinophone world. Besides academic works, a wide variety of literature exists, in memoirs, biographies, journalistic writings, and memorial essays.Footnote 2 With very few exceptions, however, Chinese-language narratives often primarily focus on the ai guo (patriotism) aspect of the NSM by highlighting its achievements and unquestioned solidarity. The ingrained rivalry, factionalism, and internal conflicts within the overseas Chinese communities, by contrast, are often intentionally downplayed or ignored. Often imbued with a strong sense of sinocentrism, such works rarely touch upon the larger picture, such as Chinese interactions with the indigenous population and the social dynamics of colonial societies.
By contrast, English-language scholarship has presented more nuanced understandings of the NSM. Yōji Akashi's work is by far the most comprehensive account on this topic, and engages in various discussions concerning the diversity of the overseas Chinese community and how such differences shaped the NSM.Footnote 3 Trying to generalise the NSM as an orchestrated effort by Chinese communities across Southeast Asia, however, Akashi's extensive study does not delve deeper into the social dynamics of Malaya and Java. Philip Kuhn and Didi Kwartanada have examined the factionalism and divisiveness of the overseas community, with Kuhn arguing that Chinese nationalism during this period was ‘not a single construct but a mosaic of related states of mind and channels of action’.Footnote 4 While nationalism was a vital driving force propelling the NSM, levels of participation among the diaspora were associated with varying strategies for survival in foreign lands, meaning that the Chinese had to adapt to their respective colonial sociopolitical realities including getting along with the indigenous population. Both Kuhn and Kwartanada suggest that despite the diversity within the Chinese community, it was the long-standing totok–peranakan divide that shaped the basic pattern of NSM. Across different territories, the main leaders and participants of the NSM were invariably totok immigrants who maintained closer ties to their areas of origin in China — and thus ‘behaved more patriotically’ — than their peranakan counterparts.Footnote 5 William Skinner's research demonstrates a similar pattern, but contrasted the NSM's different outcomes in Malaya and uncolonised Thailand. While confirming the evident split between totok and peranakan groups, Skinner argues that Malaya's colonial setting exposed the totok-dominated Chinese population to more radical ideas. Additionally, the Cantonese majority among the new immigrants had been aligned historically with revolutionary movements in their ancestral hometowns.Footnote 6
While such observations reflect some crucial dynamics behind the NSM, they seem to contradict several well-recorded facts on the ground. For instance, non-revolutionary business leaders, chiefly those of Fujianese origin, played a crucial role in organising the movement in British Malaya.Footnote 7 In Dutch Java, some peranakan groups actively participated in the NSM, whereas many new immigrants turned a blind eye to fundraising and boycott campaigns. Many totok business people also took advantage of the situation and benefited from collaborating with the Japanese during the occupation. Were the totok more patriotic than the peranakan, and the Cantonese more revolution-minded, therefore more patriotic, than the Fujianese? Not necessarily, and such generalisations run the risk of oversimplification. Evidence has shown that such patterns do not always stand scrutiny, as the heterogeneous Chinese communities reacted to the NSM in drastically different manners. Numerous exceptions indicate that neither birthplace nor dialect group affiliations alone determined levels of involvement in the NSM, as individual actions were not only based on varying relationships with China but also distinct — and continuously shifting — lived environments. Therefore, a more pertinent set of questions would be: How did diasporic groups’ multilayered identities affect their participation in a highly politicised movement oriented towards a distant and ambivalent homeland? How did colonial political, economic, and social conditions shape overseas Chinese communities’ perceptions of, and subsequent reactions to, the ambiguously articulated ‘national salvation’? Finally, where did nationalism and patriotism start and end in such contexts?
Using memoirs, newspapers, memorial essays and primary materials from multiple archives, this article explores the distinct roles of the overseas Chinese in the NSM between the escalation of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the beginning of Japanese rule in Island Southeast Asia in 1942. This research problematises existing Chinese-language literature that treats the NSM as a moment of diasporic solidarity and regards the Movement as predominantly driven by patriotism. The article also seeks to complicate existing narratives in English-language scholarship, which highlight the diversity to varying degrees, yet tend to conveniently situate the NSM's different outcomes within pre-set frameworks such as the totok–peranakan divide or dialect group rivalries. Although rising Chinese nationalism played an essential role in stimulating the NSM, this article argues that the changing political, economic, and social circumstances in local societies prompted diasporic communities to make swift adjustments. As a result, the shifting relationships of diasporic Chinese with their ethnic homeland and host colonial states profoundly affected how the NSM played out. While the Chinese community was deeply divided along class, clan, occupation, birthplace, and dialect lines, individuals’ ambivalent political orientations, conflicting economic interests, contradictory interpretations of ethnic identity, and the complex social networks also profoundly affected their reactions towards the NSM. Moreover, with disparate security concerns in Asia, British and Dutch authorities adopted different attitudes in their interactions with the highly politicised Chinese activities during this period, which in turn contributed to the NSM's varying outcomes.
Tan Kah Kee and the NSM in Malaya
In the Sinophone world Malaya's NSM has been commonly depicted as a success which mobilised the vast diaspora, collected much-needed funds for China's war efforts, and launched fruitful boycott campaigns against Japanese goods. Central to the positive outcomes was totok Fujianese business leader Tan Kah Kee, often portrayed as a hagiographic figure, who managed to break down dialect, class, political and factional barriers and united the fragmented Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.Footnote 8 This section shows that fierce rivalries persisted throughout the NSM, and the highly politicised movement further intensified existing tensions within the Chinese population. To many community leaders, national salvation was not a goal but an opportunity, by which they could gain significant influence over an increasingly agitated population. Consequently, rival forces competed aggressively for the NSM's leadership, but Tan Kah Kee and his Fujianese-based relief funds stood out as the most influential network in the process. Despite the NSM's relative success, the sense of diasporic solidarity was more of a distant ideal than an achieved reality.
Historically, Malayan Chinese politics has been closely associated with the domestic politics of China. In the early twentieth century, Chinese nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen expanded his underground resistance movement, Tong Meng Hui, in Malaya and gained considerable support from its Chinese community for the revolution. Between 1921 and 1931, a notable demographic change took place in Malaya, where the Chinese population increased by 46 per cent, triggered by the influx of migrant workers in the tin and rubber industries.Footnote 9 While the Chinese already constituted 39 per cent of the total population by 1931, the local-born accounted for only 31 per cent of the Chinese community.Footnote 10 The majority of Malayan Chinese were totok who retained their Chinese citizenship and were ‘neither British subjects nor even permanent settlers’.Footnote 11 In the interwar period, with neither a strong indigenous nationalist movement nor serious discussions that might turn the vast immigrant population into the citizens of a new nation-state, the Chinese sense of belonging in Malaya was scarce.Footnote 12 As Winstedt points out, except for a small fraction of Straits-born Chinese, Chinese residents in Malaya generally regarded China as their political home.Footnote 13
Although the gradual totok takeover was conducive to forming closer political connections between diaspora groups and ancestral hometowns, the demographic change did not lead to the homogenisation of Malayan Chinese politics. Chinese nationalism, like the diverse Chinese community itself, was by no means monolithic. On the one hand, the Guomindang (GMD) government had been making consistent efforts to win the hearts and minds of the overseas Chinese, whose remittances to China constituted a crucial source of the government's revenue.Footnote 14 In doing so, the GMD cultivated an extensive network of local organisations and organised numerous nationalist campaigns within the Chinese community.Footnote 15 One the other hand, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had also exerted its influence in Malaya through clandestine activities since the mid-1920s. Intending to bring ‘world revolution’ to Southeast Asia through the overseas Chinese community, the CPC established several communist organisations under the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern). The GMD and CPC formed the First United Front between 1923 and 1927 when the Comintern promoted the two parties’ cooperation and encouraged cadres to hold dual membership. As the nationalists and communists fell out in 1927, their working relationship in Malaya also came to an end. Subsequently, CPC's Nanyang (Southeast Asian) branches adapted to varying local circumstances: in Malaya they transformed into the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) in 1930.Footnote 16 Despite attempts to indigenise the revolution by allying with the non-Chinese population, the MCP's China-oriented agenda, like that of their rival nationalists, still appealed predominantly to the Chinese community throughout the 1930s.Footnote 17 The GMD and the CPC formed the Second United Front after the China–Japan conflict escalated in 1937.Footnote 18 Local GMD and MCP organisations also reached a temporary rapprochement and sought to collaborate in the NSM.Footnote 19
However, as Stephen Leong points out, the GMD-CPC Alliance in China did not fully extend to Malaya, and cooperation between the parties’ local branches was limited. The GMD and MCP's lukewarm relationship was mainly due to their different positions in Malayan politics. Conservative GMD members were reluctant to work with the illegal MCP for fear of being affected by the colonial government's anti-communist policies. Moreover, the GMD regarded the British as a sympathetic power whose neutrality was key to safeguarding Malaya's stability, which was in line with the core interests of the overseas Chinese. Therefore, the GMD insisted that the NSM's projects had to be carried out based on Sino-British friendship.Footnote 20 By contrast, the MCP adopted a more aggressive approach to NSM campaigns, hoping to strengthen its influence over the Malayan Chinese community while challenging British rule in the colony. For instance, the MCP-influenced Anti-Enemy Backing-Up Society (AEBUS) organised an anti-Japanese protest in January 1938, which turned into a riot, resulting in the colonial government's fierce crackdown and the arrest of more than 100 Chinese activists, 11 of whom were deported.Footnote 21 The British authorities charged the group with an ‘attempt to carry out subversive activities under the guise of patriotism’, adding that the acts of violence ‘have been against other Chinese and not against Japanese’. The colonial government believed that AEBUS had been consistently deploying methods such as intimidation and coercion to achieve its goals:
In spite of the declarations of those communists (CPC) who have joined the Nanking Government, the Malayan Communist Party has not departed from its basic principle which is anti-Imperialist activity. The main creed of the Backing-Up Society is Communism; it only uses National Salvation as a means to an end.Footnote 22
However, the government also noted that the communist-influenced NSM campaigns were not popular within the Chinese community, observing that ‘the atmosphere in Singapore, and indeed throughout Malaya, is not intense’ because ‘responsible Chinese opinion strongly condemns those who, in the guise of patriots working against the Japanese, attempt to pay off old scores and thereby create agitation’.Footnote 23 Although the GMD and MCP shared the consensus of establishing a central body to coordinate the NSM, the GMD managed to keep the communists out of the NSM leadership and eventually gained the upper hand in connecting the Movement to the military resistance in China.Footnote 24
Yet, what constituted the backbone of the NSM leadership was neither the GMD nor the MCP but non-partisan community leaders. Ever since the late 1920s, the intensifying China–Japan rivalry had stimulated the rise of nationalist sentiment among the Nanyang Chinese community. Many relief associations, predominantly based on dialect groups, mushroomed across Southeast Asian cities. One of the most prominent figures in leading the movement was the Singapore-based Fujianese business tycoon Tan Kah Kee. As a well-connected businessman, Tan accumulated his prestige by building up a rubber empire which was successful through much of the 1920s. During the Great Depression, however, the slack global market hit Tan's rubber business significantly.Footnote 25 In the meantime, Chinese businessmen like Tan started to face unprecedented challenges from their Japanese counterparts due to Japan's state-sponsored economic expansion across Southeast Asia, which aimed to secure access to strategic materials and local retail markets traditionally dominated by the overseas Chinese. From 1931 to 1937, the trade volume between Japan and Southeast Asia almost tripled (from 109 million yen in 1931 to more than 387 million yen).Footnote 26 To reduce their reliance on the Chinese, the Japanese business community also actively cultivated their retail networks by working closely with the indigenous population.Footnote 27 To Chinese merchants, the real threats posed by the Japanese thus substantiated the initially abstract nationalistic sentiments tied up with the destiny of China, as Japan's economic expansion would further jeopardise their businesses in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Therefore, Chinese patriotism at this particular period was also closely associated with protecting overseas Chinese business interests. As Tan later put it bluntly in one of his famous public speeches:
If someone knows that the enemy is coveting Nanyang, this person will be aware that our business here is under threat and that Nanyang has to be defended. To defend Nanyang, however, (we must) defend our fatherland first. The situation in Nanyang will get better when our fatherland gets better. When the fatherland obtains victory, Nanyang will be automatically defended.Footnote 28
Growing Japanese aggression in China further catalysed the tension. Following the 1928 Jinan Tragedy, in which the Japanese army massacred more than 6,000 people in the capital city of Shandong province, the Malayan Chinese reacted strongly by organising a large-scale anti-Japanese movement under Tan's leadership.Footnote 29 As Zhuang Guotu points out, this movement was an important watershed in Malayan Chinese efforts to boycott the Japanese for three reasons: first, the movement's impact went far beyond Chinese business circles, as Tan managed to mobilise a large number of Chinese labourers; second, as an inclusive movement, the well-organised Shandong Relief Fund also received support from the various dialect groups and factions within the diverse Malayan Chinese community; and finally, the successful fundraising campaigns made Tan an indisputable leader in subsequent relief projects.Footnote 30 In 1929, Tan assumed the presidency of the Fujian Huiguan, the largest clan association in Singapore, further strengthening his leadership role within the Fujianese community. Tan's prestige in the sociopolitical sphere continued to grow even though his business suffered significant setbacks and was forced into liquidation in 1934.Footnote 31 Tan made continuous efforts to work with the fragmented Chinese community by engaging different dialect groups in his relief and boycott campaigns, as he believed that a united association with extended membership could play an active role in solidifying the overseas Chinese.Footnote 32 As China–Japan relations continued to deteriorate in the mid-1930s, Tan Kah Kee and his organisations became increasingly active.
Initially, the British tried to stay out of the China–Japan conflict by keeping a neutral position. For instance, the colonial authorities prohibited the Chinese and Japanese from carrying out political propaganda campaigns against each other in schools to ‘maintain the happy state of affairs’ in Malaya:
In view of the present situation in North China, and in the event of hostilities breaking out in the future, principals and teachers in all Chinese and Japanese schools must see that any matter calculated to inflame the minds of their pupils against any other race resident in this country is rigorously excluded from all lessons, compositions, speeches, debates, etc., in their schools. Any teacher who is found acting otherwise will be severely dealt with.Footnote 33
As the war continued in China, however, the NSM gained a certain leeway in organising fundraising campaigns, as long as the contributions were ‘entirely voluntary’ and not used for military purposes.Footnote 34 The Malayan authorities’ ambivalence had to do with both Britain's interwar appeasement policy and the intensifying conflict in China. It had become increasingly evident, especially after the Battle of Shanghai in August 1937, that Japanese aggression in China posed enormous threats to British interests in Asia.Footnote 35 As a result, Britain's Far East policy gradually shifted from steadfast neutrality towards avoiding military confrontation with Japan by lending indirect support to China's war efforts:
Following upon open committal of Japanese policy towards association with Axis you will have appreciated that our support of Chiang Kai-shek and his resistance to Japan has assumed new importance … It is important that this policy should be reflected in the attitude of the Malayan authorities to ‘Free China’ and its leaders, although it is not desired, of course, that this should take forms unnecessarily provocative to Japan … it will be in conformity with general policy of His Majesty's Government if relations with Chinese Government's representatives should be as sympathetic and helpful as possible.Footnote 36
While the British insisted that the GMD government should not interfere in colonial politics based on the Lampson-Wang Agreement of 1931, London instructed the Malayan authorities to avoid ‘too much pondering over the former agreement’, as ‘the present circumstances are so different to those of ten years ago’.Footnote 37 The British Foreign Office even criticised the colonial government's inflexible treatment of senior Chinese diplomats and poor handling of GMD activities in Malaya:
We are a little disturbed by the tone of the Governor's letter to the Chinese Consul General, which quite apart from the merits of the case seems to us exceedingly curt, considering that he was addressing the senior consular representative of a power with whom we are in particular friendly relations. Would it perhaps be possible to convey a hint to the Governor that this sort of thing is, to put it mildly, impolitic and hardly calculated to improve our relations with the Chinese?
Instead, the Foreign Office suggested that colonial officials in Malaya should act cautiously in investigating Chinese government-involved activities:
Straits Settlements police authorities might conduct an investigation discreetly and in such a way as not to offend the Chinese, and find out what the local (GMD) branches really amount to … If the activities of the branches are not found to be subversive, we would prefer in present circumstances that the matter should not be carried further.Footnote 38
Meanwhile, the Japanese carried out more anti-British activities across Asia.Footnote 39 Malayan intelligence services repeatedly reported cases of Japanese infiltration, which led the British authorities to adopt a more vigilant attitude towards the China–Japan conflict.Footnote 40 This shifting stance of the British thus enabled the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to explore the possibilities of organising relief campaigns in a more coordinated manner. From 1937 onward, Tan held numerous meetings at Ee Hoe Hean, one of Singapore's oldest millionaires’ clubs, which served as both Tan's office and the principal meeting place for NSM organisers.Footnote 41 The British gave the green light to Tan's relief campaigns with only a few strings attached: donations had to be voluntary; funds collected were to be used for relief and charity only; funds collected were not to be used for military purposes; only one designated body was to be appointed to handle the acceptance and remittance of the funds; and Anti-Japanese propaganda and boycotts of Japanese business activities were strictly prohibited.Footnote 42
To coordinate the fundraising campaigns more effectively, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce established the Singapore China Relief Fund Committee (SCRFC). Although still dominated by the Fujianese (14 executive members), the SCRFC extended its executive board by allocating seats to other dialect groups, including Teochew (9), Cantonese (4), Hakka (2), Hainanese (1) and Sankiang (1).Footnote 43 In the following years, SCRFC's fundraising activities turned out to be fruitful. Besides calling for regular monetary donations, the Committee also came up with new strategies such as carrying out contribution campaigns on special holidays, selling flags, flowers, and souvenirs, as well as organising charity sports events and cultural performances.Footnote 44 Consisting of approximately 20 branches and more than 200 subsidiaries, the SCRFC soon established the most extensive network within the Singapore Chinese community.Footnote 45 Although Tan's attempt to establish an integrated pan-Malayan Chinese relief fund faltered due to irreconcilable factionalism, the contribution campaigns in Malaya raised 146 million yuan by November 1940, which accounted for the most substantial portion of the money collected by the NSM across Southeast Asia.Footnote 46
While totok Chinese spearheaded the NSM in Malaya, Tan also reached out to the peranakan community through his personal network. Tan Kok Kheng, Tan Kah Kee's fifth son, played a critical role in connecting the totok Chinese with the mostly English-educated peranakan elites.Footnote 47 Peranakan leaders such as Lim Boon Keng and Lee Choon Seng took the lead in establishing the Singapore Straits Chinese Relief Fund Committee (SSCRFC), whose fundraising campaigns resembled those of the SCRFC. The SSCRFC organised many charity performances, often containing Malay cultural elements, which appealed to a wide variety of audiences. The SSCRFC also generated a greater impact by establishing profession-based sub-branches. Construction workers, barbers, peddlers, and maids in Singapore seized the opportunity to set up unions and relief organisations.Footnote 48
Following the Nanjing Massacre and the fall of Xiamen (Amoy) — the ancestral hometown for many overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia — in 1938, support for China's war efforts reached a climax. NSM leaders from across Southeast Asia came to realise the pressing need to found an integrated entity to coordinate the relief campaigns in the region. Lee Cheng Chuan, a Chinese business leader from the Philippines, proposed that Tan Kah Kee should play a leadership role in establishing such an organisation. Still troubled by his lack of success in setting up the pan-Malayan Chinese relief fund, Tan initially rejected Lee's proposal, as he anticipated enormous difficulties in dealing with factionalism and the complicated circumstances across the region. Tan's close friend, Tjung See Gan, a totok Chinese leader from the Dutch East Indies, also pushed Tan to accept the responsibility, both in person and through the official channels of the GMD's overseas organs. Tan finally changed his mind when Premier Kung Hsiang-hsi reassured him that the nationalist government would ‘provide the greatest support possible during the process’.Footnote 49
In October 1938, 168 representatives from 45 Southeast Asian cities gathered in Singapore, marking the official establishment of the Nanqiao Zonghui (Nanyang Federation of China Relief Fund, NFCRF).Footnote 50 The NFCRF aimed to unite the vast overseas Chinese community by attracting participants of distinct backgrounds. In practice, however, the organisational structure of the NFCRF pretty much resembled that of the SCRFC, and many elected executive members had close personal ties with Tan Kah Kee. Out of its 21 executive members, 17 were Fujianese, and 16 were from Malaya.Footnote 51 The NFCRF intentionally excluded some prominent figures from its executive board, including Tan's long-time rival Aw Boon Haw (a Hakka), the China-oriented peranakan social activist Ang Jan Goan from Indonesia, and many English-educated elite peranakans from Singapore.Footnote 52 Despite the highly politicised arrangement, the establishment of the NFCRF was a significant milestone in the NSM, as the organisation fostered an unprecedented sense of unity among the fragmented Chinese groups across Southeast Asia. As of 1940, there were more than 200 NFCRF branches, which acted as the backbone in organising its fundraising campaigns.Footnote 53 The Chinese community in Southeast Asia contributed roughly 55 billion yuan to China's military resistance between 1937 and 1942.Footnote 54
In addition to monetary contributions, the NSM in Malaya was also effective in recruiting thousands of volunteer drivers and mechanics for China's war effort. In 1938, China regained its access to international aid after the completion of the Yunnan–Burma Road. Although the prospect of winning the war remained gloomy, the GMD government considered the project critical to China's national survival not only because of its great strategic value but also the enormous symbolic meaning it entailed — the international community supported China's resistance against the Japanese invasion. Nevertheless, China desperately needed a large number of truck drivers and mechanics (jigong) to keep the lifeline operational, especially when it encountered enormous difficulties in training transport personnel during the ongoing war. As a result, the government turned to Tan Kah Kee for help. NFCRF branches responded quickly by organising numerous recruitment campaigns and eventually deployed 3,260 people to China. Professional drivers and mechanics aside, students, skilled workers, and young merchants were particularly eager to volunteer. Although the NFCRF initially planned to recruit in the entire region, the overwhelming majority of the volunteers came from Malaya. Recruitment campaigns elsewhere were either nonexistent or mostly ineffective.Footnote 55
According to GMD policies, people of non-Chinese descent were ineligible for recruitment. As the campaign unfolded, however, the NFCRF made exceptions for two Malayan volunteers: a Sikh named Dara Singh and a Malay who registered himself under the name of Ma Yasheng. In his letter to the Transportation Bureau, Tan Kah Kee wrote in support of the two non-Chinese volunteers:
Both volunteers speak the Chinese language and recognise basic Chinese characters. They are sympathetic towards the Chinese people's struggle against the Japanese, determined to serve and have no other bad intentions. I am afraid that we would hurt their goodwill if we reject them.Footnote 56
While the NSM primarily targeted the Chinese population, Tan's letter shows that the Malayan campaigns were successful enough to have gained sympathisers beyond ethnic boundaries. Additionally, neither the GMD nor the CPC dominated the recruitment despite their intensifying rivalry. The majority of the volunteers served along the Yunnan–Burma Road, which was controlled by the GMD, but a handful of them also went further north to join the CPC resistance.Footnote 57
The NSM leadership gradually shifted towards the communist side after 1940. In that year, Tan Kah Kee and a couple of overseas Chinese leaders formed a delegation to China. During their stay from March to December, the delegation visited the volunteers along the Yunnan–Burma Road and toured the country, where they had opportunities to meet officials from both the GMD and CPC. While expressing his concerns over the increasingly aggravated GMD–CPC hostility, Tan Kah Kee was deeply disappointed by the GMD's bureaucracy and its pervasive corruption.Footnote 58 In contrast, Tan appeared to be more impressed by what he saw in Yan'an and regarded the CPC as China's ‘New Hope’.Footnote 59 Tan's pro-communist tendency enraged the GMD administration, which ordered its Minister of Overseas Affairs Wu Tieh-cheng, who was coordinating the NSM in Malaya at the time, to work with Tan's rivals in an attempt to remove him from the NFCRF leadership. Consul-General Kao Ling-pai also accused Tan of being a communist and demanded that the British government deny him re-entry to Singapore. However, such efforts failed due to Tan's extensive support in Fujianese-dominated NFCRF circles. In March 1941, Tan Kah Kee was re-elected as the organisation's chairman, winning 151 out of 152 votes.Footnote 60
Tan also enjoyed the constant support of Nanyang Siang Pau, Malaya's most popular Chinese-language newspaper, whose readership was predominantly Fujianese. In its fierce competition with the Cantonese-controlled Sin Chew Jit Poh, Nanyang Siang Pau gained an edge by producing detailed and timely reports on the war in China. As the war unfolded, Nanyang Siang Pau became increasingly vocal in backing the NSM, especially after the communist intellectual Hu Yuzhi took over as editor-in-chief in 1940. Despite his CPC membership, Hu realised that the NSM must rely on Tan's non-partisan position, which was most effective in mobilising the fragmented diaspora while gaining the sympathy of colonial administrations and native populations. Hu frequently penned editorials that aimed at promoting solidarity among the Chinese population. Additionally, he also advocated for closer cooperation with ‘foreign forces’, especially the British and Americans, to prevent the war from expanding southward. Yet, as the Japanese started their invasion of Malaya at the end of 1941, both Hu and Tan fled to nearby Dutch territories to escape almost guaranteed Japanese retaliation. With the assistance of the local Chinese network, the two managed to conceal their identities and stayed safe throughout the remainder of the war.Footnote 61
Political rivalries and the NSM in Java
British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies were both popular destinations for Chinese emigration. In stark contrast to Malaya, where the NSM was most active, the Movement was mostly lukewarm in the Dutch territories and mainly concentrated in a handful of major cities.Footnote 62 I argue that this difference could only be partially attributed to the distinct composition of the two Chinese communities. While both colonies witnessed the rapid growth of Chinese immigrants, the majority of the Chinese population in Java remained the local-born. According to the 1930 census, peranakan accounted for 79 per cent of the Chinese population in Java.Footnote 63 Moreover, the local-born had also established extensive business and social networks connecting colonial authorities, European business communities, and the indigenous population, which in turn contributed to the peranakan dominance of Chinese politics in the Indies.
With rare exceptions, peranakan elites founded most of the influential Chinese organisations and played prominent roles throughout the late colonial period. By contrast, totok Chinese played somewhat limited roles in local politics despite the group's rapid growth in numbers and influence. Additionally, neither the GMD nor CPC had established local networks capable of carrying out effective political campaigns in Java by the late 1930s. This is largely due to the fact that the Dutch administration adopted increasingly repressive measures against political activities — especially those deemed under ‘foreign influence’ (buitenlandse invloed) — in the aftermath of a series of Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) revolts at the turn of 1926 and 1927.Footnote 64 The government closely monitored individuals affiliated with the GMD and CPC, and intimidated, imprisoned, or deported many of them.Footnote 65 It is generally presumed that the local-born were less concerned with the political situation in China than were the new immigrants who maintained closer ties with their hometowns. Similarly, scholars also suggest that the peranakan-dominated Chinese community in Java was less enthusiastic about participating in the NSM than their totok-majority counterparts in Malaya.Footnote 66 As I will demonstrate below, however, such explanations only scratch the surface of the issue, and the situation on the ground was far more complex than the apparent peranakan–totok divide.
One complicating factor was citizenship, which was never fully resolved during the Dutch colonial period. In 1909, the Qing Dynasty enacted its first nationality law following the principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood), which stipulated that ‘every legal or extra-legal child of a Chinese father or mother, regardless of birthplace’, should be regarded as a Chinese citizen.Footnote 67 This act contradicts the Dutch Nationality Law, which follows the principle of jus soli (right of soil). It stipulates that people born in the Indies should be automatically recognised as Dutch subjects. Although the two sides signed the Consular Convention in 1911 to limit the jurisdiction of Chinese consuls, ambiguities over the national status of the peranakan Chinese persisted even after Indonesia became an independent republic. While most of the totok immigrants remained Chinese nationals, the local-born also had the right to reclaim their Chinese citizenship. Despite opposition from the Dutch authorities, GMD consuls repeatedly registered peranakan Chinese as Chinese citizens.Footnote 68 Moreover, many Indies Chinese held a flexible attitude towards the issue of national identity. Businessmen from both peranakan and totok circles regarded gaining multiple citizenships as a pragmatic strategy to maximise their economic benefits in the highly heterogeneous colonial society. As a result, the widespread practice of citizenship manipulation further blurred the boundaries between the two groups.Footnote 69
In addition to differences between the peranakan and totok groups, political cleavages existed within the peranakan community itself. As Leo Suryadinata points out, the peranakan Chinese had a rather complicated relationship with the colonial state, the indigenous population, their ancestral hometowns, and the rest of the overseas Chinese community during the interwar period.Footnote 70 Unlike their totok counterparts, who often relied on the pan-Chinese network for business and social opportunities, the peranakan Chinese were comparatively better-connected to local networks. The rise of Chinese nationalism in Java in the late 1930s, which was catalysed by the imminent Sino-Japanese War, coincided with two other competing political streams. On the one hand, as a result of the more favourable conditions provided by the colonial state, peranakan elites gained unprecedented opportunities to participate in colonial politics through the consultative body, the Volksraad (People's Council). On the other hand, with the simultaneous rise of Indonesian nationalism, a growing number of peranakan Chinese started to see their future as intertwined with the indigenous population. Divergence, rather than confluence, constituted the basic pattern of prewar peranakan politics in Java. Rivalries were particularly acute among three streams of peranakan forces represented by the pro-Dutch Chung Hwa Hui (the Chinese Association, CHH), the pro-independence Partai Tionghoa Indonesia (the Indonesian Chinese Party, PTI), and the China-oriented Sin Po Group.
Founded by Dutch-educated peranakan elites in 1928, the CHH was the first Chinese political organisation in the colony.Footnote 71 While retaining their Chinese cultural identity, CHH members regarded the Dutch Empire — instead of China — as their homeland.Footnote 72 The group openly accepted the still-controversial Dutch Nationality Law and encouraged peranakan Chinese to obtain Dutch citizenship. The CHH enjoyed official recognition by the colonial authority and the support of the Chinese community's upper echelons. Having articulated its pro-Dutch stance from the outset, the CHH ardently advocated for the more active participation of peranakan Chinese in local politics through lawful means such as the Volksraad.Footnote 73 The CHH's top priority was to fight for the peranakan Chinese to be accorded equal status to the Europeans. To achieve this goal, the CHH maintained a pro-assimilation policy for the Chinese by promoting Dutch education. As a result, the elite Hollandsch-Chineesche Scholen (Dutch Chinese Schools) mushroomed in the last few decades before the Japanese invasion.Footnote 74 CHH's leadership did not make serious efforts to work with the totok Chinese until the rapid rise of Chinese nationalism in the mid-1930s. In response, the CHH adopted some pro-China policies such as adding China-related material to the Dutch Chinese Schools’ curriculum. However, such attempts were mostly ineffectual in attracting the support of the new immigrants.Footnote 75
Dissatisfied with the CHH's elitism and pro-Dutch policies, a group of peranakan intellectuals founded the pro-independence PTI in 1932. The party positioned itself as representing the Chinese community during the rapid rise of the Indonesian nationalist movement across the Archipelago. Based in Surabaya, PTI's leadership comprised of primarily middle-class peranakan Chinese intellectuals such as Liem Koen Hian, Tan Ling Djie and Siauw Giok Tjhan. While working on the editorial board of the influential Chinese newspaper Sin Tit Po, PTI's leaders maintained close contact with prominent Indonesian nationalists such as Sukarno and Raden Soetomo. Compared to the CHH, PTI's political approaches contained more ‘Indonesian’ elements. The party actively expressed its discontent towards the colonial state regarding the deteriorating economic situation and tightened paternalistic control in the aftermath of the failed communist revolts in 1926–27. Ostensibly, the PTI was serious about peranakan–totok solidarity as it sought to represent the broader Chinese population. In practice, it recruited many totok members, but maintained a clear boundary between the two groups due to their presumably conflicting political orientations. As a result, the PTI excluded its totok members from party leadership and did not grant them the right to vote.Footnote 76
Alongside the CHH and PTI, the China-oriented Sin Po Group formed the third political stream of the peranakan Chinese in Java. The Sin Po Group was never a formal political organisation but enjoyed significant influence thanks to its widely subscribed newspaper.Footnote 77 Primarily consisting of lower-class Dutch and Chinese-educated intellectuals from Batavia, the Sin Po Group insisted that overseas Chinese, regardless of whether they were peranakan or totok, should retain their Chinese citizenship. While showing sympathy towards the Indonesian nationalist movement, the Sin Po Group believed that the Chinese community should not get involved in colonial politics. The Group openly opposed Chinese participation in the Volksraad and urged the Chinese community to resist the Dutch Nationality Law, which intended to turn Chinese into Dutch subjects. As nationalist sentiment continued to rise among the overseas Chinese following the escalating China–Japan hostilities, the Sin Po Group's China-oriented political ideals also became increasingly appealing. The Sin Po Group's anti-assimilation policy was effective in cultivating bonds between the pro-China peranakan and the rapidly growing totok sojourner population. While facing constant pressure from colonial authorities for publishing anti-Japanese articles, the Sin Po Group's nationalistic stance earned it the trust and support of the GMD government. Moreover, Sin Po served as a platform connecting the Chinese in Java to the more extensive pan-Chinese network in the region, which contributed to the Group's deep involvement in the NSM.
In the 1930s, the Indies Chinese business community experienced intense competition both internally and externally. Similar to the Malayan situation, the Great Depression forced many Indies Chinese businesses into bankruptcy. In Java, however, peranakan-owned businesses appeared to have suffered more than those of other groups. With the influx of totok immigrants, peranakan businessmen gradually lost control of key sectors such as moneylending and textiles. Meanwhile, indigenous and Japanese merchants were becoming a more substantial challenge. With the rise of Indonesian nationalism, indigenous entrepreneurs increasingly saw the Chinese dominance in the local economy as problematic. As a result, the Indonesian business community, spearheaded by affluent hajjis, established industry-based cooperatives and associations to challenge the status quo.Footnote 78 The 1930s also saw the rapid growth of Japanese influence in several key business sectors. Backed by the Japanese government's economic expansionism noted earlier, Japanese firms gained a significant share of the Indonesian textile market while exerting increasing pressure on European and Chinese competitors. Cheap Japanese goods were popular among the indigenous population. Many Japanese merchants also managed to cultivate close business connections with local partners, including Chinese groups — irrespective of peranakan or totok — who saw such a relationship as profitable.Footnote 79
Despite their divergent political views and economic interests, Chinese business elites started to feel the growing pressure to contribute to the NSM as the Sino-Japanese conflict worsened in the late 1930s. While adapting to the changing environment, Chinese businessmen also needed to protect their personal reputations within the diaspora, which was increasingly showing concern for the fate of China and opposing Japanese aggression. As a result, all three peranakan groupings mentioned above started to organise anti-Japanese campaigns to gain support from the increasingly nationalistic Chinese population. As Kuhn points out, however, many business elites had to make hard decisions balancing political safety, business profitability, and community expectations.Footnote 80
The pro-Dutch CHH established closer contact with the GMD government as the latter sought to influence the overseas Chinese through its nationalist campaigns. Facilitated by Sung Fa Hsiang, China's Consul General to Batavia, CHH members founded the pro-China Chinese Chamber of Commerce (Siang Hwee) in 1934. From its outset, the association's primary goal was to promote Chinese products while boycotting Japanese ones. Kan Hok Hoei, the CHH chairman whose daughter was married to the Consul General's son, was appointed to lead Siang Hwee. Only one year later, however, Kan decided to step down due to pressures from the colonial authorities. He realised that his position in the China-oriented organisation would undermine the benefits he could otherwise enjoy by holding a pro-Dutch stance. CHH leader Thio Thiam Tjong, who chaired the Semarang Branch of the Zhongguo Cishan Jijinhui (China Charity Foundation), led a few local campaigns which received only tepid reactions.Footnote 81 By contrast, the peranakan elites’ pro-Dutch attitude became increasingly explicit following Germany's invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940. Yap Hong Tjoen, CHH member and a renowned doctor from Yogyakarta, established foundations to collect money to support the Dutch government's war efforts in Europe. The CHH elites’ solidarity with the Dutch culminated when the colonial administration finally declared war against Japan after the concerted attacks on Malaya, Hong Kong, and Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Siang Hwee's leader Liem Ing Hwie regarded the situation as a golden opportunity to demonstrate Chinese loyalty to the Dutch. Under Liem's leadership, the CHH helped to set up a self-defence force named the Chineesche Burgerfront Organisatie (CBO), which actively participated in the Dutch defence against the Japanese invasion.Footnote 82
Meanwhile, the pro-independence PTI had become more involved in the NSM after 1936, when left-leaning intellectuals such as Tjoa Sik Ien and Tan Ling Djie took over the leadership of the Surabaya-based newspaper, Sin Tit Po. Influenced by radical socialism and Mao Zedong's communist revolution, Sin Tit Po published numerous articles introducing China's anti-imperialist struggles and openly supported China's armed resistance against Japanese aggression. Siauw Giok Tjhan, who would become a prominent peranakan politician after Indonesian Independence, established Zhen Ji Hui (Relief and Charity Association) in Surabaya, which eventually became the backbone of the NSM in East Java. Sin Tit Po was suspended for a week by the Dutch administration in 1939 for repeatedly publishing articles ‘offensive to the Indies Japanese community’.Footnote 83 It is noteworthy that the PTI's anti-Japanese narratives did not receive the reciprocal sympathy they expected from Indonesian nationalists despite the organisation's overt enthusiasm for participating in anti-colonial struggles.Footnote 84 Prominent Indonesian nationalist leader Sutan Sjahrir observed that a large number of native intellectuals were drawn to Japan's Pan-Asianism long before the war expanded to Indonesia:
Now [1937] Indonesians regard the Japanese as ‘fine people’, ‘civilised’, they say; and they regard the Chinese and the whites as kasar or coarse. Their disaffection with the whites derives, naturally, from the three hundred years of white rule, and their dislike for the Chinese is due to the latter's economic position as middlemen (approximately in the same way as the Jews in Europe) … [Indonesian nationalists] showed unmistakable signs of Japanese sympathies … although they don't dare to talk about it. As the attacked and the underdogs, the Chinese necessarily should have sympathy and support, and yet nevertheless in this Japanese-Chinese war, Japan has a measure of the support of our people.Footnote 85
The China-oriented Sin Po Group played the leading role in the NSM in Indonesia. Ang Jan Goan, Sin Po's director, who also served on the executive board of the Batavia Huqiao Juanzhu Zuguo Cishan Shiye Weiyuanhui (Charity Committee for the Relief of the Fatherland), was a key organiser of the fundraising campaigns in Java although he was excluded from the executive board of the totok-dominated NFCRF due to the organisation's internal politics.Footnote 86 Ang's right-hand man, Kwee Kek Beng, actively participated in anti-Japanese propaganda work following his trip to China in 1933. Under their leadership, the Sin Po Group cut its employees’ salary by 5 to 10 percent to support China's war effort.Footnote 87 The Sin Po Group raised 17.15 million guilders between 1937 and 1942, accounting for almost half of the total amount donated in the entire Dutch East Indies.Footnote 88 In addition to fundraising campaigns, the Sin Po Group mobilised its followers to support China's war efforts. For instance, Kwa Tjwan Sioe, a renowned doctor and social activist, formed the ‘Indies Ambulance Mission’ consisting of 20 volunteer doctors, nurses, drivers, and mechanics to serve in the battlegrounds of China.Footnote 89
Although totok Chinese generally maintained close connections to China and were more eager to participate in the NSM, their campaigns were severely constrained by their lack of influence over the mostly peranakan-dominated Chinese community in Java. Nevertheless, a handful of totok businessmen managed to elevate themselves to the leadership of the Movement by working closely with the China-oriented Sin Po Group in city-based relief organisations.Footnote 90 Tjung See Gan's Algemeene Chineesche Importeurs Vereeniging (Chinese Importers’ Association) emulated the strategies of its Malayan counterparts by launching a series of boycotts against Japanese products. However, such campaigns rarely met initial expectations. With the huge demand for Japanese goods from the enormous indigenous population, and alternatives through non-Chinese business channels, Japanese merchants in Java suffered very little from these boycotts.Footnote 91 Also, many Indies Chinese showed no particular commitment to joining the boycotts for economic reasons.Footnote 92 Overall, the NSM only met with moderate success in Java. By the end of 1940, the NSM raised 31.5 million Chinese yuan in the Dutch colony, which was in sharp contrast to Malaya's 85.4 million yuan.Footnote 93 Similarly, large-scale recruitment of jigong never materialised in Indonesia. Only a small number of volunteers managed to travel to China via Singapore or Yangon on their own.Footnote 94
Tan Kah Kee criticised the NSM's campaigns outside of Batavia and Bandung for being poorly organised. According to Tan, relief associations in Surabaya and Semarang could have collected more funds if the campaigns were carried out properly, as both cities were prosperous commercial centres with considerable Chinese populations. On the contrary, while NSM's Batavia branches were able to collect the equivalent of 300,000 yuan per month, its Surabaya counterparts barely reached half that amount, while Semarang contributed close to zero due to ‘weak leadership’. On top of that, relief associations in the smaller towns also failed to organise effective campaigns.Footnote 95 As plausible as Tan's criticism (of leaders’ irresponsibility) might sound, it was not a sheer coincidence that the two big cities with such tepid responses happened to be the strongholds of the PTI (Surabaya) and CHH (Semarang), respectively. For instance, the Semarang-based Oei Tiong Ham Concern (OTHC), the CHH's major sponsor and the largest ethnic Chinese conglomerate in pre-Second World War Asia, insisted that business rationality should take precedence over politics and community sentiment. As a result, the company maintained its close business ties with Japanese firms and only made symbolic contributions to the NSM. Under its influence, very few Chinese participated in anti-Japanese boycotts in Semarang.Footnote 96 Unlike in Batavia, where the influence of the pro-China Sin Po was the strongest, Chinese groups in other cities rarely prioritised the NSM despite the rising nationalism stimulated by the ongoing Sino-Japanese war.Footnote 97
As the Movement unfolded, Chinese newspapers in Java adopted very different positions. The Batavia-based Sin Po and Thien Sung Jit Po, as well as the Surabaya-based Tay Kong Siang Po, spearheaded anti-Japanese propaganda campaigns.Footnote 98 The colonial government repeatedly exercised persbreidel (press restraint) to suspend the circulation of all three newspapers for publishing anti-Japanese articles.Footnote 99 By contrast, CHH member-controlled newspapers such as Siang Po and Keng Po were more hesitant in voicing their support for China despite their subtle anti-Japanese undertones.Footnote 100 Interestingly, Matahari, a pro-independence newspaper in Semarang founded by PTI chairman Liem Koen Hian, voiced sharp criticism of both the pro-China Sin Po Group and the pro-Dutch CHH. The GMD government thus considered the newspaper ‘pro-Japanese’. Ironically, the colonial government suspended the Surabaya-based Sin Tit Po, also run by the same PTI group, and charged it with repeatedly printing hateful articles against the Japanese.Footnote 101 In May 1939, a Dutch-educated peranakan named Oey Tiang Tjoei broke away from Keng Po and established his own Malay-language newspaper, Hong Po, due to a personal grudge against the Keng Po editorial board. In stark contrast with Keng Po's implicit anti-Japanese attitude, Hong Po openly advocated Pan-Asianism and worked closely with Japan's Deputy Consul in Batavia Toyoshima Ataru. Through his pre-war activities with Hong Po, Oey earned the deep trust of the Japanese and became the editor-in-chief of Kung Yung Pao, the only Chinese-run newspaper in Java during the occupation.Footnote 102
The Dutch were especially wary of the anti-Japanese campaigns, as they saw this highly political Chinese movement as exerting a potentially dangerous influence over the native population, further encouraging the indigenous nationalist movement.Footnote 103 Such anxieties were most discernible in the increasingly tightened control over a broad spectrum of the native press during the same period: newspapers such as Indonesia Moeda, Al-Islaah, and Masjarakat suffered similar persbreidel for publishing anti-colonial articles.Footnote 104 In addition to native nationalism, the Pan-Asianist propaganda of the pro-Japan native press also alerted the colonial government, which recorded the alarming tendency in great detail in its correspondence with the metropole.Footnote 105 The Dutch authorities only exercised persbreidel against the Japanese-Malay press from 1938 onward, however. While the government temporarily suspended newspapers such as Sinar Selatan and Tohindo Nippo and brought criminal charges against the former's editor-in-chief, the punishments received by the pro-Japanese press were incommensurable to those handed out to their pro-China counterparts.Footnote 106 It was not until the Dutch declared war against Japan in December 1941 that the colonial government arrested Oey Tiang Tjoei, the director of Hong Po, for its inflammatory propaganda.Footnote 107
Chinese merchants’ boycotts against Japanese goods in the Indies also turned out to be less effective than those in Malaya. Tan Kah Kee pointed out that the Japanese often reported such activities to the Dutch administration, which generally cracked down on the boycotts by labelling them ‘subversive’.Footnote 108 In December 1937, the government arrested Tjung See Gan, one of the most active campaign organisers in Java; a Siang Hwee member had provided Tjung's information to the Dutch authorities, who confirmed Tjung's leadership role in the NSM. This whistle-blower also claimed that Tjung's association had imposed a fine of 400 guilders on his firm for selling Japanese goods, and the money had gone to the Chinese Red Cross Fund, according to the receipt he received.Footnote 109 Although the government eventually released Tjung due to lack of evidence, an uneasy air permeated across the Chinese business community, which effectively prevented many from taking further action to push the boycott forward.Footnote 110 The Dutch authorities conducted more thorough investigations into Tjung's activities after his release. In a report submitted to the governor-general, A.H.J. Lovink, head of the Bureau for East Asia Affairs, described Tjung as an ‘ambitious intrigant’ (eerzuchtig intrigant), who ‘works hard when it comes to the so-called national interests of the Chinese’, and ‘always looks for favours of consular officials, envoys from China, and prominent people, especially those from the peranakan circles’. Lovink warned the government to be careful about Tjung's further actions:
Given his personality and his undesirable action in the Dutch colony, as well as [his role in China's] National Political Council, it will be highly possible that he will not only take actions in China that are directed against the policy of the Dutch-Indies Government concerning the Chinese population here but will also return to the colony with assignments, the execution of which will be harmful to the public order.Footnote 111
The Dutch authorities tried hard to stay neutral to the intensifying Sino-Japanese conflict. After 1937, the colonial administration reiterated its stance, stressing that public fundraising campaigns were not allowed, while anti-Japanese propaganda was strictly prohibited.Footnote 112 The government also kept a watchful eye on the interactions between the GMD government and local Chinese organisations and regarded the Chinese consul's call for fundraising as China's ‘interference’ (bemoeienis) in domestic affairs.Footnote 113
The Dutch also stipulated that all funds collected by the NSM should be handled by the International Red Cross Committee in Shanghai, which was primarily controlled by the British and Americans.Footnote 114 The Indies Chinese community, however, maintained that their contributions should go through the Red Cross Society in Hong Kong, which was directly administered by the GMD government. They believed that the Hong Kong-based organisation would serve the real needs of the Chinese people, as opposed to the International Red Cross, which ‘provided aid to both sides of the war’. In response to the Japanese consul's protest, Dutch authorities withheld the remittances the NFCRF had collected in Java for three months. Such delays further dampened the Javanese Chinese community's enthusiasm for making further contributions.Footnote 115 Similarly, the colonial authorities refused to support Dr Kwa Tjwan Sioe's ‘Indies Ambulance Mission’, as they saw his efforts as closely associated with ‘foreign military service’.Footnote 116 The Dutch Indies Red Cross even published an official statement to distance itself from the mission, claiming that the organisation had no connection whatsoever with the Ambulance Mission, which left the Chinese activists no options but to handle the issue themselves.Footnote 117
Conclusion
Overall, the NSM was primarily led by China-born immigrants who still maintained close contact with their homeland and enjoyed greater access to the official channels of government support. However, unlike many existing works, this study shows that the totok–peranakan divide alone did not directly lead to the NSM's different outcomes in British Malaya and the Netherlands Indies. In Malaya, totok leader Tan Kah Kee managed to lead effective fundraising campaigns thanks to his personal prestige as a non-partisan leader in predominantly Fujianese-dominated business networks. However, the NSM's relative success by no means suggests that the Malayan Chinese reached a moment of diasporic solidarity, as intrinsic factionalism persisted and rival forces competed fiercely for the Movement's leadership. In the process, Tan Kah Kee and his Fujianese-based relief funds stood out as the most significant network influencing an increasingly agitated Chinese population, leaving pro-Japanese activities little space in the Malayan diaspora community. As a result, during the wartime occupation itself, the Japanese forces launched radical purges — most notoriously the Sook Ching executions in Singapore — against perceived hostile elements in Chinese circles.Footnote 118
In comparison, the NSM in Java lacked a central figure in its leadership who could solidify the sporadic campaigns organised separately by a wide array of forces. Tjung See Gan, a totok businessman who represented Indonesia in the NFCRF, was not powerful enough to exert a strong influence over the peranakan-dominated Chinese community in Java. On top of the existing totok–peranakan divide, rivalry among the three peranakan groups — as well as internal personal feuds — also complicated the Movement. While the China-oriented Sin Po Group spearheaded the NSM, the pro-Dutch CHH and pro-independence PTI did not prioritise the Movement in their political agenda due to their more pressing concerns over participation in colonial politics or the nationalist movement. Moreover, many groups regarded Japan's rise in the region as an opportunity. Consequently, they cultivated new patron–client ties in the rapidly changing political and economic environment, eventually resulting in widespread collaborations and fewer sweeping purges against the Chinese population during the Japanese Occupation.
The Movement encountered obstructions in both Malaya and Java due to the colonial powers’ appeasement policy, but the anti-Japanese campaigns in Malaya gained more leeway from British authorities, as the Japanese advance posed an increasing threat to British interests in Asia after the Battle of Shanghai in late 1937. With no significant presence in other parts of Asia, the Dutch government adopted stricter policies in constraining the NSM, as they feared the latter's anti-Japanese campaigns might destabilise the colonial social order and spark a larger-scale indigenous nationalist movement. As Nazi Germany's occupation of the Netherlands began in mid-1940, many peranakan elites diverted their attention to assisting the Dutch war efforts in Europe as a way to prove their loyalty. These Indies Chinese finally reached anti-Japanese solidarity with the Dutch in December 1941, as the latter belatedly declared war against Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor, by which time it was too late for the NSM to make any difference.
The Sino-Japanese War undoubtedly stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in diaspora communities worldwide. The NSM was particularly active in areas where there were dense populations of totok immigrants (more so in Malaya than in Java). However, due to the simultaneous rise of the indigenous nationalist movements and the more active participation of peranakan Chinese in local politics (more so in Java than in Malaya), the extent to which the Movement affected the heterogeneous Chinese population and how the Chinese participated in the NSM, varied significantly. Looking beyond Malaya and Java, donations from British Burma and the United States-controlled Philippines were comparable to those from the Dutch East Indies. Funds collected in Thailand and French Indochina, however, were significantly less despite having similar-sized Chinese populations.Footnote 119 Were Chinese communities in these territories necessarily less patriotic towards China than those residing in Malaya and Java? How did Thai, French, and American authorities, respectively, react to the NSM in the changing international and local sociopolitical environments at the time? In short, although the rise of Chinese nationalism was undoubtedly one of the universal driving forces behind the campaigns, nationalism alone was insufficient to explain how the Movement played out. To better understand the topic, further comparative studies on the overseas Chinese vis-à-vis local politics are much needed.
