From 1989 onwards, the People's Republic of China's use of the Qiaoban, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau, has burgeoned notably in regard to attracting investment and loyalty from overseas Chinese outside mainland China. This article analyses the impact of the Qiaoban and the PRC influence upon “diasporic Chinese” living along the northern Thai border, particularly ethnic Chinese (e.g. Teochiu, Hakka, Hainanese) and Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang-KMT). It finds that, while the Qiaoban has largely succeeded in the engagement with the ethnic Chinese of northern Thailand, the active efforts of the PRC to engage the Nationalist Chinese have been notably unfruitful. However, the Qiaoban's efforts have caused increasing tension between different generations in Nationalist Chinese communities.

Dissemination of a scientific theory often follows a circuitous route. It is a widespread notion supported by eminent scholars that the noted linguist and religious scholar F. Max Müller is responsible for the dissemination of the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), and thus played into the hands of imperial interests. In this article, we argue that there were other stakeholders in the process of the widespread acceptance of AIT. In particular, Brahmo Samaj, a prominent socio-religious reform association in nineteenth-century India, also played a major role in the spreading of AIT. Prominent leaders of Brahmo Samaj, actively or passively, collaborated with Müller in that process. We closely examine the development of affairs during that time and attempt to establish that the development of a scientific theory is not a unilateral process, but rather strongly influenced by the socio-political environments of the time.

This article focuses on recent revisionist scholarship demonstrating that China's maritime history in the period 1500 to 1630 is no longer a case of ‘missed opportunity’, a viewpoint fostered by earlier writing dominated by state-centric and land-focused models. To challenge this perspective, this study first reviews analyses demonstrating the far-reaching commercial networks between Ming China and localities in Southeast and Northeast Asia, and then considers the impact of the metaphor of Fernand Braudel's ‘Asian Mediterranean’ and his ideas about ‘world economy’ on the study of East Asian seafaring history. Secondly, this investigation reveals the dimensions of Chinese trade networks which the mid-Ming government officially sanctioned, as well as the extent to which literati from the southern provinces challenged the state's involvement in overseas commerce of trade and exchange. Finally, the article assesses how modern historians have studied late Ming maritime defense policies as security along the littoral lapsed.