The Qiaosheng “Problem”: The United States, Great Britain, and the Mobility of Overseas Chinese Youth in the Early Cold War

The qiaosheng “problem,” as perceived by British authorities and the United States, was the creation of Cold War tensions. While mobility was not new, it was new that governments perceived it as troublesome. Indeed, until the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ethnic Chinese living in Southeast Asia had habitually moved to and from their ancestral homeland in a pattern of “circular migration,” one that historian Sunil Amrith describes as a “fundamental feature” of Asian migration until the mid-twentieth century.¹² Moreover, families with means often sent their children to China to receive a traditional Chinese education. Going to the mainland, however, became taboo in the new postwar geopolitical environment as the world divided into Communist and anti-Communist spheres of influence.

The exact number of qiaosheng who went to mainland China in the 1950s is not readily available. Glen Peterson estimated that 60,000 students, mostly from Southeast Asia, went to the mainland during this period. In 1956, the TAF representative in Hong Kong surmised that about 35,000 students, with 6,210 from Southeast Asia, had returned to Communist China since 1949, although he included those from Hong Kong and Macau in the latter tally.¹³

Reports from Singapore and interviews conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s with a group of expatriate Indonesian Chinese in Hong Kong supply anecdotal evidence about the PRC-bound qiaosheng. Zheng Tianren, who “returned” to the PRC in 1957, was a third-generation Indonesia-born ethnic Chinese who considered Bahasa Indonesia to be his native tongue and learned Mandarin only after he entered school. Unlike Zheng, China-born Lin Shuqing was brought to Indonesia when he turned six in 1948. Within four years, his parents and two siblings had returned permanently to mainland China while he remained behind to complete his secondary schooling before leaving for the PRC in 1957.¹⁴ Others simply departed without informing their families. In June 1951, a Singapore Special Branch officer flew to Hong Kong to intercept a group of six runaway schoolgirls, ages fifteen to nineteen. In another case, the parents of eight young schoolboys from the Federation discovered their sons’ plans only when they received letters mailed two days before the boys had set sail from Singapore.¹⁵

Qiaosheng who went to the mainland came from a variety of different backgrounds. For example, Zheng Tianren came from a lower middle-class family, while Guo Hong’s more prosperous parents were able to provide her and two of her siblings with RMB10,000 each when they left for China. Of the six young women who ran away from Singapore, Chen Peiying was an orphan who had been living in a temple with a family friend, and Huang Feng Ping was the daughter of a prominent community leader in Singapore and Johore.¹⁶

The runaway young women from Singapore confessed their desire to seek higher education in Communist China. They believed that the standard of education was higher in the PRC. Their interrogation reports suggest they were questioned repeatedly by Special Branch personnel about the teachers and peers who had influenced or encouraged them to seek out education in the PRC. While they consistently denied any such influence, the schoolgirls clearly had access to an informal information network that showed them how to go about securing passage to China via Hong Kong and provided information about available assistance for newly arrived qiaosheng in the PRC.¹⁷

Aside from educational opportunities on the mainland, several of the expatriate Indonesian Chinese confessed that they were drawn to the “New China.” Motivated by a sense of patriotism, Indonesia-born Qiu Guangda wanted to help build the New China. Pan Zhiqiang, despite being born in Indonesia to a father who was a leader of the pro-Nationalist faction in town, remembered having been swept up in the “return fervor” (huiguoxuechao). He suggested that qiaosheng could be classified in two groups: those who loved China and wanted to contribute to building the socialist PRC, and those who wanted to further their education. Pan believed that those who attended “leftist” schools went to the mainland, while those from “rightist” schools left for Taiwan.¹⁸

A myriad of studies commissioned by government agencies and private organizations reiterated similar reasons for these young people’s decisions. Most prominent was the more hospitable environment on the mainland which featured reception centers, preparatory schools, and hostels built to accommodate the influx, as well as the assurance of a job upon graduation, and existing familial ties in mainland China. These contrasted with the less desirable conditions in their countries of residence, particularly anti-Chinese discrimination, and the absence of Chinese-language tertiary institutions. In addition, a sense of “racial nationalism” led some of these ethnic Chinese youth to regard the PRC as an emerging power and the center of Chinese culture. Finally, local pro-Communist individuals and organizations, including family members, peers, and schools they attended, could also influence these young people’s decisions.¹⁹

Those overseas Chinese students who pursued higher education opportunities in Taiwan in the 1950s were generally not perceived as part of the “problem” by British and U.S. authorities.²⁰ In Southeast Asia, Nationalist Chinese consulates, pro-Kuomintang (KMT/Guomindang) civic organizations, alumni and other groups seem to have formed a network that informed students about opportunities in the ROC. The best example is in the Philippines, where Chien-Wen Kung shows that the KMT, with the cooperation of successive pro-ROC Philippine governments, successfully built a network that nurtured anti-Communist and pro-KMT/ROC sentiment among local Chinese.²¹ In Singapore, where the colonial authorities had banned the KMT, organized social gatherings nonetheless allowed prospective students to mingle with those who had returned home from Taiwan on vacation.²²

A mix of practical and ideological reasons—desire to seek higher education and/or a sense of ethnic nationalism—similarly motivated these ROC-bound students just as it did their counterparts who went to the mainland. Taomo Zhou’s examination of “communal battles” for influence between pro-PRC and pro-ROC forces in Indonesia shows that the political orientation of the Chinese schools these students attended influenced their choices. A U.S. Embassy official in Taipei suggested that most qiaosheng graduates who studied in the ROC left with “the generally pro-GRC [government of ROC] attitude they had when they arrived,” while a small group returned “tremendously impressed” with Taiwan and “almost fanatically devoted” to the ROC. Nevertheless, as this study shows, the travel restrictions adopted by Southeast Asian countries, while not necessarily directed against this group, also hampered their plans to study in Taiwan.²³

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, British authorities devised policies to avert the possibility, however remote, that students could return after a period of indoctrination in mainland schools and serve as the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party. High Commissioner Henry Gurney likened Communist indoctrination to a “disease” and recommended preventing their re-entry unless the authorities could be satisfied that they did not “carry the infection.”²⁴

Curbing the return of Chinese youth was part of a larger policy to restrict immigration to Malaya and Singapore during the Malayan Emergency and beyond. Discussions among British officials reveal the economic, political, and security concerns underlying the issue of immigration. Meeting with British colonial officials in August 1948, MacDonald repeatedly stressed that Chinese immigration ought to be “very firmly restricted.” He echoed the recommendation of the British Defense Coordinating Committee (Far East) (BDCC-FE) to stem “further infiltration of Chinese” into British territories in Asia.²⁵ A few months later, he reiterated the position of the BDCC-FE that there were “already too many Chinese” in these territories. Although both the Federation and Singapore governments had already limited the categories of migrants allowed to disembark and remain in their territories, the authorities agreed to reduce further the numbers admitted in each category.²⁶

In July 1950, the Singapore Intelligence Committee (SIC) reviewed options for handling local-born and foreign-born students. It dismissed attempts to deprive the former of their right of return. Committee members also found a system of exit permits to be both “politically undesirable” and “cumbersome.” While the SIC pointed out that the only “real solution” lay in expanding local educational opportunities, its immediate proposals focused on travel restrictions. One was to demand stringent proof of local birth before issuing a passport to any prospective traveler. Another was to use the Emergency Regulations to refuse entry/landing permits to China-born aliens, to deport those who made it back to the shores of the colony, and to cancel any Certificates of Admission previously issued to such persons. Many alien Chinese did not travel with a passport, relying instead on a Certificate of Admission, issued since the 1933 Aliens Ordinance, for re-entry. The SIC recommendations became the interim policy concerning the alien-born even though the Colonial Secretary doubted whether the Emergency Regulations and the Alien Ordinance could be used to justify those measures.²⁷ Eventually, the CO instructed the Commissioner-General to pursue an amendment to the 1948 Emergency (Travel Restrictions) Regulations that would require all travelers to possess an entry/landing permit in order to be admitted to the Federation or to Singapore.²⁸

By 1953, both Singapore and the Federation had tightened administrative measures and permanently amended laws governing travel of the foreign-born. Among the latter were the Passport (Amendment) Regulations, introduced in October 1950, which required non-British residents to secure a re-entry permit/visa before their return. Valid for a three-month period, such permits were good for only a single journey; those who made numerous journeys for business reasons could apply for a multiple-use entry visa valid for six months. These regulations added another layer of bureaucratic control and, in the eyes of some Chinese community leaders, additional hardship.²⁹

Colonial authorities, however, could not unilaterally decide policy. Vocal opposition from Chinese community leaders, most clearly expressed in petitions to the Governor and to London, led to concessions. Those who had left before the new regulation took effect could return using their Certificates of Admission if they did so prior to June 30, 1951. Eventually, the Select Committee working on new comprehensive immigration regulations also allowed residents who had lived in British Malaya for fifteen out of the preceding twenty years to apply for Certificates of Residence that would obviate the need for re-entry visas.³⁰

The local-born who left for China remained a problem. Until the mid-1950s, the PRC continued to accept the jus sanguinis (“right of blood”) principle of nationality law. As dual nationals considered Chinese by the PRC, these Chinese did not require passports to enter the PRC, thus limiting British options in their attempts to prevent local-born Chinese from traveling to the mainland. British colonial authorities particularly worried about a group of 7,000 to 8,000 local-born children who had been sent to China prior to 1949 and would likely have spent a few years in Communist schools by the time they sought re-entry to the region. Since their families had submitted proof of local birth to the appropriate immigration authorities prior to their departure, they could not be barred from returning.³¹

One way to prevent the return of local-born Chinese from the mainland was by amending the 1949 British Nationality Act to strip British status from those dual nationals who displayed “superior loyalty” to their other nationality. British officials, however, conceded this measure would involve a long and cumbersome process. Further discussions in Singapore yielded other suggestions which included the deportation of those who demonstrated “superior loyalty” to the PRC, or withholding passports from or limiting the validity of passports and ultimately, new legislation that would include a “public security” exclusion order for specific individuals.³²

Differences appeared between the Federation and Singapore in their approaches to the problem. The former, wary of the return of China-educated students during the Malayan Emergency, appeared eager to deploy extraordinary measures to prevent this eventuality. The latter, concerned about the implications any draconian policy could have for relations with its majority ethnic Chinese community, hesitated to adopt harsher restrictions. Despite Commissioner-General Malcolm MacDonald’s efforts, Singapore remained leery of any regulation that would prevent local-born persons from returning. The Colonial Secretary expected that the entire local-born community, not just the Chinese, would oppose such a measure.³³ Foot-dragging on the part of the Singapore authorities angered Malayan High Commissioner Henry Gurney, who attributed the delay to “a few people” in Singapore who “cannot be expected to understand the real dangers.”³⁴

An investigative committee comprising the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (SCA), J.P. Biddulph, Director of Immigration, S.E. King, and two members of the Singapore LegCo, Tan Chin Tuan and C.C. Tan, met in 1951 to explore the issue. Members of what became known as the Biddulph Committee affirmed the “fundamental principle” of British subjects’ right to return to the region. Any added burden imposed on the locally born, they believed, would not only upset the community, but would discourage the foreign-born from seeking naturalization. Consequently, the committee settled on the threat of possible detention as a deterrent. It proposed warning those traveling to Communist nations, particularly those who could be of age to attend a school or university, that they could be detained under Emergency Regulations if they had been “indoctrinated” and chose to return to Singapore or the Federation. Detainees could appeal their cases to an Advisory Committee. While the Singapore Colonial Secretary, the Commissioner-General, and the Federation authorities remained partial to amending the Emergency Regulations, they eventually endorsed the Biddulph Committee’s suggestions. Both the Federation and Singapore governments duly issued the proposed warning.³⁵

In theory, detention upon arrival allowed the authorities to isolate individuals deemed to be security risks, but the practical steps of policy implementation proved more complicated. How would authorities identify those who had been “indoctrinated”? Soon after the policy went into effect, the Assistant Commissioner of Special Branch in Singapore suggested that perhaps “age” (i.e., school-going age) or “long period of residence in China” were sufficient indicators of indoctrination. In practice, possession of “Communist” material—books, a songbook, or a photograph—could become evidence of indoctrination and result in detention. A Federation-born Chinese man, who had been resident in Singapore, was detained because a photograph showed him “fraternizing” with Communist Chinese soldiers. SCA Webb, however, predicted that the man would be released once the Advisory Committee heard his appeal. Only three individuals were subject to prolonged detention between May 1951 and January 1952. A shortage of segregated facilities for different categories of detainees in Singapore also led officials to worry about the possibility that a detainee could potentially become a Communist after exposure to subversive ideas in the detention facility on St. John’s Island, then a penal settlement to the south of Singapore island. Not quite six months after the public warning recommended by the Biddulph Committee was issued, the Singapore authorities called for the committee to review the implementation of its recommendations.³⁶

Exchanges among British colonial officials reveal the anticipatory nature of their fears about the return of indoctrinated Chinese youth. SCA Webb, for instance, believed that returning students were likely to attend Chinese schools and could “strengthen…any China patriotic feeling, and any frankly Communist leanings” in those schools, but also pointed out that very few of those students were returning to British territories. Should those numbers increase, he suggested organizing some form of “re-indoctrination class” for the returning students, although he admitted that “this would be going a long way towards a police state.” Preemptive actions, then, were meant to prevent, rather than solve, an existing problem. Indeed, it was because of such preventative measures that J. F. Brewis, an official in the Commissioner-General’s Office, felt the problem was “worth watching” but should not “cause very much concern.” He claimed that “everything was being done” to prevent such Chinese youth who had spent time in China from returning to British territories.³⁷

The colonial authorities resorted to other measures to curb the movement of local-born Chinese youth. In mid-1953, the British Government reversed its original stance by giving colonial governments greater leeway in exercising their authority to issue and endorse passports. Two years earlier, the Biddulph Committee’s recommendation to withhold passports from those traveling to a Communist country had prompted the then Attorney-General to declare that “H.M.G. [Her Majesty’s Government] would not listen to this; passports must be issued.” By July 1953, the Foreign Office informed colonial authorities that they could use their discretion to reject passport applications from those traveling to a Communist country on the grounds that “Communist indoctrination of their citizens” represented “a danger to national security.…” Later in that year, J.F. Brewis observed that passports valid for Hong Kong and the PRC were “practically never issued” to Chinese between the ages of sixteen and thirty.³⁸

In early 1954, Federation authorities, spooked by an increase in the number of those leaving for China, once again raised the alarm about the return of indoctrinated students. Of the estimated 12,000 Chinese who had left for China in 1953, 1,468 were in the student age group. Federation authorities believed that none of them had the necessary documentation to facilitate their return to Malaya, therefore making the traffic largely “one way.” Focusing on the fact that 100 persons of school-going age had returned from China, Home Affairs Member Dato Onn bin Jaafer expected the problem to grow in another few years. His office initially suggested re-issuing a joint warning to those who left for Communist China, but the Director of Special Branch (A. E. G. Blades) and the Acting Colonial Secretary (W.C. Taylor) in Singapore both discounted its efficacy. The authorities on both sides formed another committee to explore the matter, and over the next three years, tried intermittently to find a mutually agreeable solution.³⁹

Onn bin Jaafer’s office acknowledged that the warning issued in May 1951 had had little deterrent impact, a conclusion Singapore officials had already arrived at six months after that policy took effect. Exit permits remained a less attractive choice. Again, the Home Affairs office settled on amending the Emergency (Travel Restrictions) Regulations to prevent local-born persons with dual nationality from returning to the place of their birth should they travel without valid documents issued by the local governments or the British government or if their documents were no longer valid.⁴⁰

Representatives from both territories considered potential solutions to the return migration issue in late August. Two of the four options discussed related to travel restrictions: a system of exit permits to make it difficult to travel to China and a system of entry permits that would cover persons born in British Malaya who wished to return from China. The latter proved to be contentious. While representatives from the Federation unanimously supported this measure, two LegCo members from Singapore objected to it. C.C. Tan, who had rejected a similar proposal in 1950, adamantly opposed any measure that would interfere with a local-born person’s right to return to Singapore or the Federation. High Commissioner MacGillivray later attributed Tan’s stance to “local political reasons.”⁴¹

MacGillivray pushed for a quick resolution to prevent the entry of what he described as “a Trojan horse.” Even though the numbers of departing students in the last quarter of 1954 had declined, he framed the matter as a “very serious threat” to “future security.” The Federation was eager to adopt new exit regulations that would, in effect, bar from re-entry those under the age of thirty who traveled to China without a locally issued travel document or an exit permit. In addition, it supported proposed amendments to the Emergency (Travel Restrictions) Regulations that would make it difficult for British subjects and Federal citizens who were dual nationals to return to Malaya.⁴²

Once again, Singapore thwarted the desire of the Federation authorities. A small committee, comprising the Colonial Secretary (William Goode), and three others (Tan Chin Tuan, C. C. Tan, and M. J. Namazie), decided to fall back on administrative changes rather than comply with the Federation’s preference. Committee members also rejected a system of exit permits by claiming that it was up to the “the parents and not the two Governments” to dissuade their children from leaving; they saw no value in forcing these young people to remain.⁴³

The two sides remained divided on whether a government could deprive British subjects and Federal citizens of their right to return to the country of their birth. For some members in the LegCo, this was a fundamental right that should not be abrogated. Of course, the Chinese members were likely also swayed by the interests of the Chinese community they represented. For those in the Federation Government, this right could be overridden by security concerns. As Onn bin Jaafer pointed out, if such individuals persisted in their actions despite being warned of the consequences, they would have no grounds for complaint.⁴⁴ In anticipation of a new political landscape after the election of 1955 in Singapore, the Controller of Immigration suggested postponing any new decisions until a Council of Ministers was assembled.⁴⁵

The new Singapore Chief Minister in 1955, David Marshall, favored permanent changes to the Immigration Ordinance to prevent the local-born from returning. He professed a willingness to weather any “political storm” that resulted from such action, a stance surely welcomed by the Federation Chief Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. But nothing seems to have come of David Marshall’s bravado. The Singapore government drafted and then abandoned a corresponding bill to amend the Immigration Ordinance. After Marshall’s resignation in June 1956, the Singapore Government now believed that it was “politically unwise” to move forward with changes but urged the Federation to pass its own amending legislation, which it did the following year. Prompted by the fact that the 1956 school-age (fifteen- to twenty-five-year-old) returnees from China exceeded the departures, the Singapore Controller of Immigration recommended parallel legislation in Singapore, but no action resulted.⁴⁶

In both Singapore and the Federation, British colonial authorities turned to a familiar tool to manage young people’s travel to and from the PRC. Local Chinese leaders, however, tried to moderate those measures to protect the rights of their community. In Singapore, the two Chinese LegCo members’ consistent opposition to draconian measures that effectively targeted the Chinese community underscores the extent to which local community leaders and politicians were now part of the colonial decision-making process. Born into local Straits Chinese families and educated in English-medium schools, their professions as lawyer (C.C. Tan) and banker (Tan Chin Tuan) placed them among the local elite which favored a more conciliatory attitude towards the colonial authorities. Yet these men consistently opposed new travel restrictions that affected the Chinese community. C.C. Tan won an elected seat in the LegCo (1948–1955), whereas Tan Chin Tuan, as Vice President (1948–1950) of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce (SCCC), gained one of three seats reserved for representatives chosen by each of the chambers of commerce. For Tan Chin Tuan especially, both elite business interests and those of the wider Chinese community likely shaped his stance.⁴⁷

Developments through the mid-1950s in Singapore highlight the active political engagement of the Chinese community as it increasingly focused on local developments, while elite-oriented politics gave way to mass-based participation. G. Sikko Visscher’s study shows that the SCCC, despite internal dissent between moderate elements who favored cooperation with the British and more radical voices who believed in mobilizing mass participation to secure greater local political control, was a vocal representative of the Chinese community in the political arena. Through the 1950s, it involved itself in issues such as franchise rights, local citizenship, and Chinese-language education as policies governing such issues took shape. The SCCC was joined by labor and student activists as the mid-1950s heralded the emergence of mass politics. In May and June 1954, for instance, Chinese middle school students protested a newly enacted National Service Ordinance, resulting in a clash with police and a subsequent “sit-in” in two Chinese high schools.⁴⁸ Such developments likely explain the government’s reluctance to introduce additional immigration controls that could fuel additional “public controversy.”⁴⁹

Similar dynamics were at work in the Federation as ethnic Chinese increasingly focused on local social and political developments, but the reality of a counterinsurgency against the Malayan Communist Party reduced the flexibility of British authorities and elite Malay leaders in the matter of immigration controls. Low Choo Chin has detailed the fierce opposition from ethnic Chinese in the Federation, led by the Malayan Chinese Association and its leader Tan Cheng Lock (Chen Zhenlu) in the Federal LegCo, to immigration ordinances that prevented the re-entry of alien residents. Elite Straits-born and English-speaking Chinese leaders such as Tan and China-born leaders connected to the Chinese speaking masses such as Lim Lian Geok (Lin Lianyu) defended ethnic Chinese interests in citizenship, language, and education policies. The United Chinese School Teachers’ Association (UCSTA or jiaozhong), under Lim’s leadership, became a “loud and irrepressible critic” of Federation education policies and pushed to defend Chinese interests in a Malayan nation that he envisioned would embrace its “multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multicultural characteristics.”⁵⁰

If the Federation and Singapore governments focused on travel restrictions to manage the qiaosheng problem, the United States and the ROC tried to manage the transnational mobility of overseas Chinese youth by re-directing them to Taiwan.⁵¹ This second example differs from the state-centered policies of the British colonial authorities. Instead, it represents the type of transnational programs that the United States initiated to achieve its goals in both Europe and Asia in the early Cold War.

In November 1953, during his tour of Asia, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon expressed dismay that overseas Chinese students were flocking to the mainland. Nixon claimed that the Chinese Communists “were playing a long-range game” since these educated young people could eventually return to fill important civil service positions. To counter this, he suggested that the United States set up a student exchange program. Ward Smith, TAF representative in Taipei, reported to his superiors that the Vice President’s executive assistant, Christian Herter, expressed “a strong, and to me, unexpected interest in the question of overseas Chinese education.”⁵²

While the Vice President’s interest may have been a catalyst, PRC efforts in the early 1950s to exploit the presence of Chinese overseas also prompted increased U.S. and Taiwanese ROC efforts to reach this target population. U.S. and ROC officials noted changes in PRC election law that provided for representation in the National People’s Congress for Chinese nationals living abroad. Repeated stories of shiploads of students taken to the PRC to attend college also contributed to growing concern.⁵³

Official U.S. interest, which Smith described as essentially reaching “a fever pitch,” proved a boon to TAF. Since the early 1950s, TAF officials had been cobbling together a program to influence overseas Chinese. One way was to provide an alternative to the mainland for those Southeast Asian students who wanted to pursue a Chinese-language tertiary education. In January 1953, Smith recommended support for the expansion of dormitory and classroom space in a select number of universities and colleges in Taiwan. When U.S. agencies began to intensify their work related to overseas Chinese, TAF was well-positioned to help.⁵⁴

For the ROC, U.S. interest could not have come at a better time. Qiaosheng education had been a mainstay of government policy since the Republican era. From 1951, the government, through the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (OCAC), implemented plans to encourage Chinese students overseas to seek higher education in Taiwan. This effort remained modest in the beginning; only sixty overseas Chinese students were admitted to tertiary institutions in the 1951–1952 school year.⁵⁵ President Chiang Kai-shek raised the matter with Vice President Nixon during his visit.⁵⁶

Within two months of Nixon’s trip, ROC Premier Chen Cheng (Chen Cheng) assembled top ROC and U.S. representatives to follow up on the vice president’s suggestion to counter Beijing’s action. A working committee, consisting of, among others, the Minister of Education Cheng Tien-fong (Cheng Tianfang) and OCAC Chair Zheng Yanfen on the Chinese side, as well as Foreign Operations Administration (FOA) and Embassy representatives on the U.S. side, assembled to make recommendations. The TAF representative later joined this committee at U.S. Ambassador Karl Rankin’s request. The OCSP emerged from this collaboration.⁵⁷

From the outset, the ROC capitalized on U.S. interest in order to position Taiwan as a regional center of influence among the overseas Chinese. Foreign Minister George Yeh (Ye Gongchao) believed the ROC could assist overseas Chinese with “community education problems.”⁵⁸ His government hoped to secure U.S. support for its own efforts to reach overseas Chinese communities. Its wish list included a separate university and middle school in Taiwan for overseas Chinese students, teacher training and educational materials for Chinese schools overseas, as well as myriad educational and informational activities in overseas Chinese communities.⁵⁹

U.S. officials tried to rein in the ambitions of the MOE and OCAC. Instead of a separate university in Taiwan for overseas Chinese students, they convinced their Chinese counterparts to expand facilities in existing institutions. Then they persuaded ROC officials to offer travel and maintenance aid only to those overseas Chinese students with demonstrable need. They also managed to defer discussion of cultural work in Southeast Asian countries by arguing that local governments would not respond well to such initiatives.⁶⁰ Dorothy Whipple, a USIS official in Taipei, found some of the Chinese suggestions to be of “dubious value.” Among themselves, U.S. officials characterized the ROC proposals as “lacking any understanding” of the different situations in Southeast Asian countries. The U.S. Embassy in Taipei cautioned against involvement in any program that appeared to be an “intervention in the local affairs of a sovereign country in which the Chinese are one of the peoples.…”⁶¹

Between 1954 and 1965, a joint U.S.-ROC Overseas Students Advisory Committee assumed oversight of the OCSP, although both TAF and the U.S. government tried not to publicize their involvement. U.S. aid came from two sources: TAF as well as FOA and its successor agencies, the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) and the Agency for International Development (USAID). In the first year, TAF provided support for building additional facilities to accommodate the projected additional five hundred students at the University of Taiwan. From fiscal year 1955 onwards, ICA funds financed the construction of needed facilities, whereas TAF funds supported maintenance and travel grants for students. The ROC assumed the costs for administering the program. Responsibilities for day-to-day operation fell to the MOE and the OCAC. The former oversaw the admission of students to various institutions, construction of facilities, and counseling and other education-related services. The latter publicized the program overseas and supervised the selection of suitable recipients of travel and maintenance grants.⁶²

At its inception, the OCSP aimed primarily to bring overseas Chinese students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia to Taiwan for postsecondary education. In 1956, after some debate, the program included a limited number of students seeking admission to senior middle schools. An exception was made for some students from Thailand who gained admission to junior middle schools because schools in Thailand did not offer Chinese-medium education beyond the elementary level.⁶³

To be admitted to institutions in Taiwan, qiaosheng from Southeast Asia had to receive recommendations from the ROC legation or consulate, or in countries with no diplomatic ties with Taiwan, from any local “loyal overseas Chinese school.” In 1951, other requirements included an average scholastic record of 80 percent and an A grade for conduct. By 1953, academic qualifications were lowered to an average of 70 percent, and conduct to grade B, with an additional emphasis on “right thinking” [xixiangzhengque]. That last criterion likely involved some expression of anti-Communist sentiment and/or loyalty to the ROC.⁶⁴

The operation of the OCSP highlights the complexities in administering a transnational multi-agency program that singled out the ethnic Chinese in newly independent or soon-to-be independent states in Southeast Asia. U.S. sponsors had to consider not only their own goals, but also the interests of the overseas Chinese students themselves, the goals of the multiple partners, and more importantly, the preferences and sensitivities of governments in Southeast Asia.

The students themselves lodged the usual complaints about facilities and excessive coursework, but they also criticized the “attitudes and behavior” of the comparatively large group of students from Hong Kong and Macau, who tended to stick to themselves and organize their own activities. Others complained about the delay, likely caused by bureaucratic inertia, in getting travel permits to Taiwan. In one instance, an ROC consulate officer in Thailand reported that a number of students had abandoned plans for traveling to Taiwan and gone to the PRC instead because of the delay in securing the necessary travel documents.⁶⁵

The smaller numbers of students from Southeast Asia who went to Taiwan in the early years of the program led U.S. Embassy and USIS officials in Taipei to question its fundamental purpose and target population. Students from Hong Kong and Macau constituted the majority of those who received support in 1954–55 and of those admitted for 1955–56. Since the OCSP was meant as a “political move” to prevent young Chinese students from going to the mainland and “not as an educational program,” these officials argued, it should focus on students from the “critical areas”; i.e., Southeast Asia. In their view, students from the Hong Kong/Macau region, many of whom were children of refugees from the mainland, were not likely to go to the PRC and did not constitute the target group.⁶⁶

The goals of local Southeast Asian governments and their sensitivity to perceived outside interference also surfaced in the disagreements among U.S. officials. U.S. embassy officials in Burma, Indonesia, Malaya, and Singapore warned that overt U.S. involvement in the OCSP risked “arousing the animosity” of local governments.⁶⁷ While these governments may not have lodged specific complaints about the OCSP, U.S. officials had reason to worry that local governments would frown upon Chinese programs. Regarding its operations in the Malay Federation, the TAF president referred to complaints about the Chinese-run Malayan Public Library Association, a TAF project. Apparently, the “Malays were fearful” that the MPLA “might try to occupy a predominant role in Malay activities.” In a similar vein, the TAF representative in Singapore cautioned against a proposed scholarship program for graduates of the newly established Nanyang University as “[b]oth governments, Singapore and Malaya, are talking integrating and [TAF] gives a grant entirely to Chinese???”⁶⁸ In Indonesia, TAF found itself operating in an increasingly hostile environment. Left-leaning ministers pushed for its “immediate expulsion” at a Cabinet meeting. CIA handlers instructed TAF to withdraw its operations before it could be expelled.⁶⁹

Embassy and USIS officials in Taipei believed there was “no justification” for “drawing students from their home community” and “violating the policy of assimilation” in those countries that offered opportunities for Chinese secondary education. To them, wooing a small number of these students to Taiwan was not worth the risk of alienating Southeast Asian governments.⁷⁰

Among U.S. officials, those in ICA-Taipei initially sympathized more with the challenges facing the OCAC and wanted to give their Chinese counterparts more time to produce results. They also detected a contradiction in their embassy and USIS colleagues’ arguments. “To recruit students of any level,” ICA-Taipei argued, “is to interfere in some degree with the process of assimilation of Chinese with local peoples.” Whether these were middle school or college students made little difference.⁷¹ ICA-Taipei officials’ attitudes seemed to have changed by 1957. TAF representative Earl Swisher detected an eagerness on the part of ICA-Taipei to remove itself from the project as “they feel that they were more or less dragged into this…and would like to hand it back to us.”⁷²

The other partner in this project, TAF, appears initially to have sided with the ICA and the ROC. Its Taipei representative, David Rowe, complained in 1955 that Dorothy Whipple of USIS risked “water[ing] down the program” by lobbying the U.S. government to limit it only to college-age students, and to those outside the Hong Kong-Macau area. Without any sense of irony, Rowe complained that excluding those from the Hong Kong/Macau area would reduce the OCSP to one of “sheer expediency and political consideration.”⁷³ But the TAF could not escape the new realities in Southeast Asia either. In their internal debates about their overall overseas Chinese program, TAF officials consistently returned to two questions. By singling out the ethnic Chinese as a group, was the program hampering their integration into local societies, and did the program risk damaging TAF relations with local governments?⁷⁴

Like their British counterparts, U.S. officials and TAF personnel found that growing nationalism and independence movements in Southeast Asian countries throughout the 1950s, together with changes taking place within the most populous ethnic Chinese communities, created new realities for their policies and programs. To begin with, many countries designed new travel restrictions that inadvertently hampered recruitment efforts. For instance, Burma, Thailand, and South Vietnam required students to return home each year to renew their visas. Students from Indonesia who did not travel on Indonesian passports also had to renew their re-entry permit annually, while those from Singapore and Malaya had to do so every six months.⁷⁵

Under such circumstances, a program that singled out the ethnic Chinese and directed them toward the other China became far less relevant by the early 1960s, especially since the PRC was no longer actively recruiting those students. U.S. diplomats stationed in Southeast Asia pointed out that any shrinking of the OCSP would not push overseas Chinese students toward mainland China or result in “notable enhancement of Communist influence” among Southeast Asian Chinese communities. U.S. attention, they felt, should focus on encouraging those groups to identify with their countries of residence. Consequently, U.S. officials in Taipei recommended that the program be “sharply curtailed” and suggested that only five hundred college students should be admitted annually while ending the secondary school program. They reasoned that there was no longer “a contest” with the PRC for students.⁷⁶ TAF followed suit by phasing out support for travel grants and maintenance support. Between June 1954 and June 1958, TAF contributed $215,000 to the program, with a supplementary grant of $4,000 in July 1958. In later years, TAF contributions were reduced. C.C. Yin, its Chinese Program officer, worried that Taipei would accuse the organization of acting “under ICA pressure or [on] U.S. government direction.”⁷⁷

Of the three major partners, ROC officials appear to have been slowest, or perhaps just the least willing, to recognize the new realities in Southeast Asia. For instance, the ROC routinely expected resident overseas Chinese students in Taiwan to take part in paramilitary-style camps during the winter vacation that appear designed to nurture a sense of Chinese (ROC) nationalism. They organized similar activities for non-resident qiaosheng invited to Taiwan. Even the pro-ROC government in the Philippines objected to such activity.⁷⁸

TAF and ROC sources reveal that Chinese officials overseeing the program made some adjustments based on the criticisms received. By the late 1950s, they had reduced the number of students admitted from Hong Kong/Macau. According to a 1958 report, students from that region made up 35.6 percent of the total. They also improved selection criteria to ensure a better caliber of students. But tinkering with individual aspects of the program could not allay U.S. concerns about the priorities of Southeast Asian governments.⁷⁹

In general, ROC officials felt that their American colleagues were unwilling to wait long enough for the program to produce results. They also understood that any substantial cuts in official U.S. and TAF funding would severely limit their ability to sponsor the education of overseas Chinese youth in Taiwan, which could in turn reduce the prestige of Free China in overseas Chinese communities. Li Pu-sheng, vice chair of the OCAC, pointed out that ICA and TAF withdrawal from the project would make it “extremely difficult to carry on the job we have already started.…” He stressed that the program was now beginning to show results, since the first two graduating classes had only recently returned home.⁸⁰ OCAC officials urged their own Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intervene with the Americans in this matter. From 1959 onwards, Chinese officials repeatedly tried to persuade TAF not to reduce or end funding. Despite these efforts, TAF reduced funding to $30,000 in 1960, and in 1965 officially withdrew from the project.⁸¹

By the early 1960s, under pressure from their American counterparts and perhaps worried about losing the substantial U.S. financial assistance, ROC officials showed an “evolution in their thinking” about the overseas Chinese. OCAC Chair Chow Shu-kai agreed that the original goal of preventing young overseas Chinese from returning to the mainland was less pressing. Instead, he suggested that Taiwan tailor the education of Southeast Asian students to meet the needs of their countries. Likewise, TAF noted that some OCAC officials appeared more inclined to emphasize training “foreign students of Chinese ancestry” to contribute to the development of their countries of residence. In 1960, Li Pu-sheng suggested limiting preference for admission to those college students who were already citizens in their host countries.⁸² The TAF representative in Taiwan observed a new trend of stressing “local assimilation” in contrast to the old practice of encouraging the overseas Chinese to remain tied to their “motherland.” Such reappraisals may have been too little, too late. One TAF officer in the head office doubted that the sporadic evidence reflected any “substantive evolution towards a more ‘liberal’ attitude.” He found Chow’s views “inadequate to meet the changing situation in Southeast Asia,” and pointed out that even those views still met with resistance among OCAC officials.⁸³

Ting-Hong Wong estimates that between 1954 and 1965, the OCSP created places in ROC educational facilities for 26,828 students, with 18,950 of them eventually enrolling in various programs. By 1967, about 70 percent of the 10,164 graduates had returned to their countries of origin. In 1960, the OCAC collected 600 responses to questionnaires sent to over a thousand of these graduates. Most of the students, the OCAC reported, had found “good jobs,” and were placed in “key positions.” Within these limits, the OCSP had succeeded in its original goal of ensuring that overseas Chinese youth were educated in “Free China.” How many of these young people would otherwise have gone to mainland China is impossible to ascertain. Undeniably, the program groomed a group of educated young people who returned to their countries of domicile, where their talents may have supported nation-building and other development efforts. As Wong points out, the program “helped plant many Taiwan-educated alumni in various professional fields” across Asia. L.Z. Yuan (Yuan Lunren) of TAF also stressed that one of the program’s achievements was “the new generation of non-leftist teachers for Chinese schools in Asia.” Although conceived with a political, not educational goal, the latter is a key achievement of the OCSP.⁸⁴

This consideration of the OCSP reveals the problems inherent in this type of transnational project and the difficulties associated with programs that privileged a specific ethnic group in multiethnic societies. As this study has shown, the priorities of the U.S. government and those of the ROC were not always aligned. Repeatedly, U.S. officials found that their Chinese counterparts were more interested in securing the loyalty of the larger overseas Chinese communities, despite the preferences of the host countries.

Existing studies about overseas ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia during this period highlight the changes that accompanied their transition from a China-focused identity to one associated with their local countries of domicile. The aforementioned work of Visscher shows that the SCCC, rather than remaining focused on the PRC or ROC, astutely maneuvered through the minefields of local debates about socio-political developments in Southeast Asia. More broadly, Liu Hong and Wong Sin Keong have examined how ethnic Chinese organizations in Singapore, from voluntary associations (huiguan) and Chinese schools to student groups and labor organizations, stepped forward to debate policies that would affect their futures in the new city-state. Tan Lark Sye (Chen Liushi), yet another foreign-born ethnic Chinese businessman active in the SCCC and myriad Chinese civic associations, led the drive to establish Nanyang University (Nantah) for students educated in Chinese schools. In the Federation, Tan Cheng Lock’s political leadership and Lim Lian Geok’s activism on behalf of Chinese education show ethnic Chinese leaders leading their communities in carving out a place for themselves in emerging Southeast Asian nations. Taken together, such actions show that while they wanted to preserve their ethnic Chinese cultural identity, these communities increasingly identified with their respective Southeast Asian states. Ironically, both Tan Lark Sye and Lim Lian Geok would be rendered stateless when their respective governments stripped them of their naturalized status.⁸⁵

The changes in ethnic Chinese communities paralleled government policies to integrate the Chinese with other groups in Southeast Asian societies. In particular, new education policies, although controversial and often contested by segments of the Chinese population, incrementally absorbed previously independent Chinese schools into national systems or created new bodies to regulate such schools. In Thailand, for instance, the government closed Chinese secondary schools and absorbed primary schools into a national school system, although it kept the teaching of Chinese language in those schools. Indonesia restricted the number of Chinese schools from 1957 and barred those who had opted for local citizenship from attending these “alien” schools, whereas Burma severely limited the hours devoted to teaching in Chinese even in Chinese schools. Singapore and Malaya too adopted measures to nurture a Malayan identity, and both governments increasingly brought Chinese schools under state supervision.⁸⁶

British and U.S. measures to manage the transnational mobility of overseas Chinese youth were products of a particular geopolitical moment. With hindsight, such measures appear as a stopgap to what the United States and its allies considered a nefarious PRC strategy to lure young ethnic Chinese back to the mainland. Although working through different channels, both powers found that activist community leaders and the agendas of more assertive local governments affected their decision-making processes and, in the case of the OCSP, its implementation and outcome. By the late 1950s, that geopolitical moment had passed. The PRC, faced with mounting problems associated with the Great Leap Forward, no longer posed an attractive destination for overseas Chinese students seeking an education.⁸⁷ By then, Southeast Asian governments had established themselves and adopted policies to facilitate their nation-building projects. Ethnic Chinese communities too adapted to the new political realities and increasingly identified with these new nations instead of their ancestral homeland. Programs such as the OCSP became far less relevant and more difficult to justify.