Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T11:11:46.537Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinatowns and the Rise of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2019

IEN ANG Open the ORCID record for IEN ANG [Opens in a new window]
IEN ANG*
Affiliation:
Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Chinatowns in the West were ghettoes for Chinese immigrants who were marginalized and considered ‘other’ by the dominant society. In Western eyes, these areas were the no-go zones of the Oriental ‘other’. Now, more than a hundred years later, traditional Chinatowns still exist in some cities but their meaning and role has been transformed, while in other cities entirely new Chinatowns have emerged. This article discusses how Chinatowns today are increasingly contested sites where older diasporic understandings of Chineseness are unsettled by newer, neoliberal interpretations, dominated by the pull of China's new-found economic might. In particular, the so-called ‘rise of China’ has spawned a globalization of the idea of ‘Chinatown’ itself, with its actual uptake in urban development projects the world over, or a backlash against it, determined by varying perceptions of China's global ascendancy as an amalgam of threat and opportunity.

Type
Forum Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , July 2020 , pp. 1367 - 1393
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen-Kim, Erica. 2013. ‘The Political Economy of Chinatown Gates’. Pidgin (Princeton University School of Architecture) 15, pp. 68–77.Google Scholar
Anderson, Kay. 1990. ‘“Chinatown Re-oriented”: A Critical Analysis of Recent Redevelopment Schemes in a Melbourne and Sydney Enclave’. Australian Geographical Studies 18 (2), pp. 137–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Kay, Ang, Ien, Del Bono, Andrea, McNeill, Donald and Wong, Alexandra. 2019. Chinatown Unbound. Trans-Asian Urbanism in the Age of China. London: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Ang, Ien. 2014. ‘Beyond Chinese Groupism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (7), pp. 1184–1196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ang, Ien. 2016. ‘At Home in Asia? Sydney's Chinatown and Australia's “Asian Century”’. International Journal of Cultural Studies 19 (3), pp. 257–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ang, Ien. 2017. ‘Claiming Chinatown: Asian Australians, Public Art and the Making of Urban Culture’. Journal of Australian Studies 43 (3), pp. 336–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashley, Nicole. 2016. ‘Proposed North Miami Chinatown Miles from Asian Community’. Associated Press, 19 August. https://apnews.com/eed0983182394b29b1a202bb96a84a3a, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
Atherton, Mark. 2017. ‘Why China is still the Land of Opportunity’. The Times, 9 September. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-china-is-still-the-land-of-opportunity-qpvrkkncj, [accessed 30 September 2019].Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2016. Census QuickStats Haymarket. https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/SSC11877?opendocument, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Barabantseva, Elena. 2016. ‘Seeing Beyond an “Ethnic Enclave”: The Time/Space of Manchester Chinatown’. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 23 (1), pp. 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bojnansky, Erik. 2017. ‘Chinatown or Bust’. Biscayne Times, April. https://www.biscaynetimes.com/index.php?option=com_contentandview=articleandid=2638:chinatown-or-bustandcatid=50:community-newsandItemid=258, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Chapman, James. 2013. ‘China's an Opportunity, not a Threat, Gushes Cameron: PM uses Interview to say Nation's Rise is a “Defining Fact” of our Age—Even if the West doesn't Like it’. Daily Mail, 2 December. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516619/Chinas-opportunity-threat-gushes-Cameron-PM-uses-interview-say-nations-rise-defining-fact-age--West-doesnt-like-it.html, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Chou, Kevin. 2015. ‘Avoid its Pitfalls and China is Land of Opportunity’. USA Today, 25 September. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/09/25/avoid-its-pitfalls-and-china-land-opportunity/72821828/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
City of Sydney. 2010. Chinatown Public Domain Plan. Sydney: Spackman and Mossop Michaels. https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/142775/Final-Chinatown-Public-Domain-Plan_sml.pdf, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
Collins, Jock and Kunz, Patrick. 2007. ‘Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Ethnic Precincts and Tourism. The Case of Sydney, Australia’. In Tourism, Creativity and Development, edited by Richards, G. and Wilson, J.. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 201–214.Google Scholar
Curthoys, Ann. 2001. ‘“Men of all Nations, except Chinamen”. Europeans and Chinese on the Goldfields of New South Wales’. In Gold. Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia, edited by McCalman, Iain, Cook, Alexander and Reeves, Andrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 103–123.Google Scholar
Dawson, Kelly Chung. 2013. ‘North Carolina Chinatown Set to Open Next Year’. China Daily USA, 17 June. https://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2013-06/17/content_16629732.htm, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
DeHart, Monica. 2015. ‘Costa Rica's Chinatown: The Art of being Global in the Age of China’. City and Society 27 (2), pp. 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Del Bono, Andrea. 2019. ‘Ethnic Community in the Time of Urban Branding’. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1629191.Google Scholar
NSW, Destination. 2012. China Tourism Strategy 2012–20. New South Wales Government. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/about-us/strategies-and-plans/china-tourism-strategy, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
NSW, Destination. 2018. Chinatown Visitor Profile. Year Ended June 2018. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/chinatown-visitor-profile-ye-jun-2018.pdf?x15361, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
The Economist. 2015. ‘Long Live Cantopop’, 13 August. https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21661035-chinatown-cantonese-squares-against-mandarin-long-live-cantopop, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Eom, Sujin. 2013. ‘The Specter of Modernity: Open Ports and the Making of Chinatowns in Japan and South Korea’. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 24 (2), pp. 39–50.Google Scholar
Eom, Sujin. 2017. ‘Travelling Chinatowns: Mobility of Urban Forms and “Asia” in Circulation’. positions: asia critique 25 (4), pp. 693–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Shirley. 2008. Red Tape Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney's Chinese. Sydney: Halstead Press.Google Scholar
Gammage, Jeff. 2013. ‘A Hard Look at the Future of Chinatowns’. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 November. https://www2.philly.com/philly/news/20131111_A_hard_look_at_the_future_of_Chinatowns.html, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Gottliebsen, Robert. 2013. ‘Chinese Buyers Tower over Australian Real Estate’. Business Spectator, 6 December. https://spectator249.rssing.com/chan-9515211/all_p14.html, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
Hawken, Scott. 2015. ‘The New Chinatown: Sydney's Southern CBD’. ArchitectureAu, 26 October. https://architectureau.com/articles/the-new-chinatown-sydney-southern-cbd/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Huynh, Tu. 2015. ‘“It's not Copyrighted”. Looking West for Authenticity: Historical Chinatowns and China Town Malls in South Africa’. China Media Research 11 (1), pp. 99–111.Google Scholar
Inglis, Christine. 2013. ‘Chinatown Sydney: A Window on the Chinese Community’. In Chinatowns Around the World: Gilded Ghetto, Ethnopolis, and Cultural Diaspora, edited by Wong, Bernard P. and Chee-Beng, Tan. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 95–118.Google Scholar
Irving, Helen. 1999. To Constitute a Nation: A Cultural History of Australia's Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kamrany, Nake M. and Jiang, Frank. 2015. ‘China's Rise to Global Economic Superpower’. The World Post, 22 February. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nake-m-kamrany/chinas-rise-to-global-eco_b_6544924.html, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Klassen, Kelsey. 2015. ‘Chinatown's Last Stand’. Westender, 18 February. https://www.vancourier.com/news/chinatown-s-last-stand-1.1767115, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
Knapp, Anthony and Vojnovic, Igor. 2013. ‘Rethinking the Growth Machine: How to Erase a Chinatown from the Urban Core’. Urban Geography 34 (1), pp. 53–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Elizabeth. 2018. ‘Australian Real Estate Ranks Second only to the US for Chinese Property Investors’. The New Daily, 11 September. https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/property/2018/09/11/foreign-investment-real-estate/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Lanteigne, Marc. 2005. China and International Institutions: Alternate Paths to Global Power. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewin, Katherine. 2018. ‘North Miami Moves Closer to Chinatown Architectural Plan’. Miami Today, 14 August. https://www.miamitodaynews.com/2018/08/14/north-miami-moves-closer-chinatown-architectural-plan/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Barry. 2017. The New Chinese: How They are Shaping Australia. Milton Qld: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Li, Wei. 2009. Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in Urban America. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Loo, Yat-Ming. 2012. ‘“No Chinatown, Please!”: Contesting Race, Identity and Postcolonial Memory in Kuala Lumpur’. The Journal of Architecture 17 (6), pp. 847–870.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, Zhaoxu. 2014. ‘China is Australia's Land of Opportunity’. Financial Review, 31 January. https://www.afr.com/news/world/china-is-australias-land-of-opportunity-20140131-iy5qv, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Markus, Andrew. 1979. Fear and Hatred. Purifying Australia and California 1850–1901. Sydney: Hale and Ironmonger.Google Scholar
Marshall, Candice and Varley, Russell. 2012. ‘Gold Coast Chinatown Plans Gain Momentum’. ABC Gold and Tweed Coasts radio, 21 June.Google Scholar
McDonogh, Gary and Wong, Cindy. 2012. ‘Beside Downtown: Global Chinatowns’. In Global Downtowns, edited by Peterson, Marina and McDonogh, Gary W.. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 273–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mok, Tze Ming. 2005. ‘A Chinatown State of Mind’. Public Address Weblog. https://publicaddress.net/yellowperil/a-chinatown-state-of-mind/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Pan, Chengxin. 2012. Knowledge, Desire and Power in Global Politics: Western Representations of China's Rise. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Dallas, Lee, Chyi Lin and Yan, Ding. 2015. ‘The Politics of Foreign Investment in Australian Housing: Chinese Investors, Translocal Sales Agents and Local Resistance’. Housing Studies 30 (5), pp. 730–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roubini, Nouriel. 2014. ‘Keeping China's Rise Peaceful is our Biggest Geopolitical Challenge’. The Guardian, 1 May. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/30/project-syndicate-china-peaceful-rise-biggest-geopolitical-challenge, [accessed 30 September 2019].Google Scholar
Rudman, Brian. 2011. ‘Chinatown Idea Misses the Point’. The Chronicle, 25 June. https://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/chinatown-idea-misses-point/887508/, [accessed 25 October 2019].Google Scholar
Sabin, Samantha. 2015. ‘Plans for Chinatown in Morrisville Slowed’. The News and Observer, 30 September. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article37121538.html, [accessed 1 October 2019].Google Scholar
Santos, Paula Mota. 2013. ‘Chinatown—Lisbon? Portrait of a Globalizing Present over a National Background’. In Chinatowns Around the World: Gilded Ghetto, Ethnopolis, and Cultural Diaspora, edited by Wong, Bernard P. and Chee-Beng, Tan. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 215–245.Google Scholar
Schuman, Michael. 2011. ‘Why do we Fear a Rising China?’. Time, 7 June.Google Scholar
Shambaugh, David. 2013. China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Geoffrey. 2015. ‘A Weakened Britain Finally Learns how to Kowtow to Beijing’. Fortune, 22 October. https://fortune.com/2015/10/21/britain-china-uk-xi-jinping-visit/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Spoonley, Paul and Meares, Carina. 2011. ‘Laissez-Faire Multiculturalism and Relational Embeddedness: Ethnic Precincts in Auckland’. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal 3 (1). https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/mcs/article/view/1590, [accessed 25 October 2019].Google Scholar
Tan, Chee-Beng. 2013. ‘Chinatowns: A Reflection’. In Chinatowns Around the World: Gilded Ghetto, Ethnopolis and Cultural Diaspora, edited by Wong, Bernard P. and Chee-Beng, Tan. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 263–284.Google Scholar
Thompson, Sean. 2016. ‘Sydney Chinese New Year Festival: Tourism Boom Tipped to Inject $200m into Local Economy’. Daily Telegraph, 9 February. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/city-east/sydney-chinese-new-year-festival-tourism-boom-tipped-to-inject-200m-into-local-economy/news-story/6bcc4357f2a0f2336f969f57d843b6a5, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Time. 2018. ‘U.S. and China Halt Trade War with 90-Day Cease-Fire’. 2 December. https://time.com/5468842/united-states-china-trade-war-cease-fire/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Tsui, Bonnie. 2009. American Chinatown. A People's History of Five Neighbourhoods. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Tsui, Bonnie. 2011. ‘The End of Chinatown’. The Atlantic, 28 October. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-end-of-chinatown/308732/, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Tsui, Bonnie. 2014. ‘Chinatown Revisited’. New York Times, 24 January. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/travel/chinatown-revisited.html?_r=3, [accessed 16 September 2019].Google Scholar
Umbach, Greg (‘Fritz’) and Wishnoff, Dan. 2008. ‘Strategic Self-Orientalism: Urban Planning Policies and the Shaping of New York City's Chinatown, 1950–2005’. Journal of Planning History 7 (3), pp. 214–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vukovich, Daniel F. 2012. China and Orientalism: Western Knowledge Production and the P.R.C. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yamashita, Kiyomi. 2003. ‘Formation and Development of Chinatown in Japan: Chinatowns as Tourist Spots in Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki’. Geographical Review of Japan 76 (12), pp. 910–923.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamashita, Kiyomi. 2011. ‘Ikebukuro Chinatown in Tokyo: The First “New Chinatown” in Japan’. Journal of Chinese Overseas 7, pp. 114–129.Google Scholar
Yarwood, A. T. 1968. Attitudes to Non-European Immigration. North Melbourne: Cassell Australia.Google Scholar
Yee, Herbert S. (ed.). 2011. China's Rise: Threat or Opportunity? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yeoh, Brenda S. A. and Kong, Lily. 2012. ‘Singapore's Chinatown: Nation Building and Heritage Tourism in a Multiracial City’. Localities 2, pp. 117–159.Google Scholar
Zhang, Longxi. 1988. ‘The Myth of the Other: China in the Eyes of the West’. Critical Inquiry 15 (1), pp. 108–131.Google Scholar