11 - Historical Linkage and Political Connection: Commemoration and Representation of Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution in China and Southeast Asia, 1946–2010

Summary

Introduction

Over centuries, China-Southeast Asian interactions have been best manifested through the tributary system from above and the Overseas Chinese or Chinese Overseas from below. However, over decades after World War II, the linkages of the two were overshadowed by the imagined China threat on the one hand and suspicions of the loyalty of Overseas Chinese on the other because of the Cold War and nation-building processes. Only with the end of Cold War and the rapid rise of China, China and Southeast Asia have started to be reconnected with each other substantially and at an unprecedented rate. From the dusty past, the long-neglected prominent figures like Admiral Zheng He and Dr Sun Yat-sen have eventually been rediscovered for that purpose. Zheng He's case serves perfectly to refute the China threat, while Sun Yat-sen's legacy proudly exhibits how Nanyang and Nanyang Chinese contribute to the making of a modern China. In Southeast Asia, neglected memorial halls and temples are hence renovated and rebuilt on the dusty and even damaged sites with government funding and private donations. Likewise, there have been symposiums, films and exhibitions on these subjects. Such development is an amazing contrast with the socio-political landscape just a few decades ago.

How and why were Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution represented in China and Southeast Asia under changing situations? How and why were they imagined and commemorated differently in different periods? Based on the reports in the People's Daily from 1946 to 2010 in China, the chapter, while not studying Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution per se, tries to construct and reconstruct their commemoration and representation in China and Southeast Asia and their dynamics.

Sun Yat-sen and Nanyang

Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary activities and legacy in Nanyang should at least include three aspects: (1) directly, his own physical involvements; (2) indirectly, his fellow compradors' activities under his leadership; and (3) the activities after the 1911 Revolution.