Diasporic Cold Warriors: A Review

Editor’s Note: The author of Diasporic Cold Warriors, Chien-Wen Kung, is a Dartmouth ’04 who wrote for The Dartmouth Review during his time at the College. He earned a Ph.D from Columbia University and currently serves as Assistant Professor of History at the National University of Singapore. 

When anti-communism is discussed in academia and even in popular culture, it is often framed as an authoritarian effort by right-wing governments to crack down on political opposition. Today’s communists and socialists blame the United States and its dastardly CIA agents for the failure of the global socialist revolution in the 20th century and accuse capitalist reactionaries of attempting the same skullduggery today. Yet, this top-down view of anti-communism ignores the simple reality that many, dare I say most, people simply oppose communism. To many, the dangers of authoritarian socialism are self-evident, and many more have seen its failures firsthand. Throughout the last century, this sentiment gave rise to a series of popular anti-communist movements around the world. In his book Diasporic Cold Warriors, Chien-Wen Kung examines the anti-communist efforts of the Philippine-Chinese diaspora from the 1940s to the 1970s. Due to the laissez-faire attitude of the Philippine government towards its Chinese minority, the diaspora built an enduring community centered on the principle of anti-communism and helped to defend their islands from the threat of Maoist China. 

Kung begins with an explanation of what it means to be “Chinese.” Chinese communities had existed across the Pacific for centuries before the era of western colonization, and the 19th century only accelerated the flow of migrants from the mainland. By the 20th century, there were millions of overseas Chinese who identified as such even though many had never seen China. Their identity was based on the idea of a common culture, ancestry, and language—although many did speak different dialects. In the Philippines, Chinese immigrants had long since established their own schools, newspapers, and businesses and created a sort of proto-state even as the islands were under US occupation. Kung details how American efforts at restricting Chinese immigration were extended to the Philippine territories and thus kept the population relatively small compared to the Chinese diaspora in nearby Indochina or even Malaysia and Indonesia. This small size enabled the Chinese community to function under the radar of the territorial government, as it did not pose a major threat to the unity or homogeneity of the islands as a whole.

Yet, the community played an important role in funding and supporting the successive rebellions against the Qing dynasty around the turn of the century and the ensuing efforts against Chinese warlords by revolutionary leader Sun-Yat-Sen and the Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT. In many of these efforts, the Philippine-Chinese provided disproportionate levels of funding for Sun’s efforts. The Philippine-Chinese maintained a closer connection to Chinese culture and identity, and so felt more involved in politics at home. This sentiment continued after the Warlord Era and into the Chinese Civil War. 

After Sun’s death, the KMT underwent a power struggle that ended with the ascendancy of Chaing Kai Shek. Until that time, left-wing elements within China including the Communists had actually been working with the KMT against Qing loyalists and warlord factions. However, Chiang turned on the Communists, nearly destroying them and forcing Mao’s band to retreat into the mountains and rural villages. With the official Chinese government turning against Communism, so too did the organs of Chinese civic life abroad. The Philippine KMT turned institutions such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and most major newspapers against Communism. When the KMT lost mainland China to Mao’s resurgent forces, the party only further focused its efforts on securing the loyalty of overseas Chinese. It worked with the Philippine government to arrest Co Pak and other major pro-Communist Philippine Chinese. The Philippine government, abiding by the principle of Jus Sanguinis—by blood—regarding citizenship, tacitly allowed the government in Taiwan a degree of sovereignty over its Chinese residents. In return, the Philippine Chinese provided disproportionate monetary support to Taiwan in the form of donations and material aid. 

However, anti-communism became predominant among the general population not because of state action, but rather due to its role in popular life. Kung describes in great detail how anti-communism served as a bulwark against accusations of corruption or disloyalty, and enabled everyday people to further their ambitions within the established social order. Ironically, it also served as a means of wealth redistribution, as charitable efforts in the name of Chinese solidarity were expected of wealthy business owners. Anti-communism became associated with Chinese culture, language, and traditions, and adhering to it allowed for the preservation of the Philippine Chinese as an independent social group. 

Indeed, in the 1960s it even became dangerous among the Philippine Chinese to hold neutral views on communism. In a long and drawn-out legal proceeding, the heads of the prominent Chinese language newspaper CCN were deported to Taiwan. The paper had reprinted publications from within China that detailed the mainland’s achievements in industrial and military development. Further, it used “pro-communist” words, such as referring to the Communist capital as Beijing—which literally means Northern Capital—and contradicted the KMT narrative that Nanjing was still the capital of the country. Perhaps most scandalously, it refused to refer to the CCP as communist bandits. Such editorial decisions were seen as contradicting the KMT narrative and were therefore politically suspect. Thus the author cannot help but sympathize with such zealous efforts to stamp out selective communist “truth” telling. The decision to publish news stories from within China as if they were factual is in itself naive at best. One simply cannot trust anything that comes out of a palace so overrun with, how should we say, lying Communist bandit-barbarians. To even approach reality, one must alter the “facts” so falsely presented by Mao and his cronies.

Yet, these zealous efforts backfired at a critical time. While anti-communist, the broader Philippine-Chinese population did not see the need to censure a newspaper apparently devoted to factual reporting, and so became disillusioned with the KMT, if still opposed to Chinese communism. 

A great blow to anti-communism arrived in the 1970s, with the Philippine government’s normalization of relations with communist-bandit China. The regime of Ferdinand Marcos, while internally still anti-communist, sought to control the Chinese minority and increase trade with the PRC. He closed down Chinese schools and introduced efforts to naturalize Chinese people and integrate them into Philippine society. In the final chapter of the book, Kung discusses the decline of organized anti-communism. With the destruction of organized Chinese institutions within the Philippines, much of the immigrant population lost its enthusiasm for anti-communism. Further, new immigrants from mainland China supported the Beijing regime rather than the exiles in Taipei. 

Yet, among the original Philippine-Chinese, anti-communism still persists to this day. Many of the old guard still hold onto this sentiment. While the Philippine government may be cynically growing closer to China, much of the public has opposed PRC encroachments on Philippine territory. Perhaps, then, the Philippines could see a return of the anti-communist popular fervor of old, led by those who remember the glory days when men called a spade a spade, and a bandit a bandit.