4 - The MCP as a Hybrid Communist Party

Summary

The MCP’s discourse and activities show its hybrid nature as both a Chinese association and a communist party. In practice, the MCP’s double rootedness in Malaya and China as a Chinese association was achieved through the mechanisms of interwar globalization, that is, the discursive practices of the internationalization of both the Chinese snd Malayan revolutions as well as the attempt to indigenize the MCP. As the only Malayan Chinese association, the MCP both embraced the movement for Chinese rights in the British colony and campaigned for the overthrow of the Malayan and Chinese governments. The MCP’s Malayanization discourse mirrored British preferential policies toward Malays, whereas the Comintern’s rhetoric of colonial emancipation resonated with the MCP’s discourse of the emancipation of oppressed peoples by the Chinese, which echoed Sun Yatsen’s ideas. Different policies toward immigrant Chinese in Indonesia and Malaya resulted in different outcomes in the relationship between Chinese immigrants and indigenous nationalism. Yet, similarly, Chinese political parties in Indonesia (including leftist) embraced the national indigenous identity while also retaining a Chinese identity.