The Chinese Question

Over the past few decades, the rise of East Asia and mainland China has spurred the revival of “Chineseness” in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. Defined during the Cold War era as economically dominant, politically disloyal, and culturally different, the “Chinese” are now not only politically integrated into the Filipino imagined community, but also held up as models of entrepreneurship and key players in East Asian regional economic development.

The Chinese Question looks at the evolving meanings of “Chinese” and “Filipino” and explores the cultural implications of the rise of East Asia and mainland China for the Philippines. Focusing on cinematic and literary works, it shows how questions of race, class, ideology, nationality, territory, sovereignty, and mobility shape the discourses of national integration, regional identification, and global cosmopolitanism, while also pointing to resoluble contradictions at the heart of concepts of citizenship and national belonging in the throes of transformation.