A Foreign Affairs "Best Books of 2020"
Honorable mention for the Harry J. Benda Prize (Southeast Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies)

The book is a delightful read and will be of great interest to scholars of Chinese migration, PRC history, Indonesian history, and the history of the international communist movement. South East Asia Research

Migration in the Time of Revolution examines how two of the world's most populous countries interacted between 1945 and 1967, when the concept of citizenship was contested, political loyalty was in question, identity was fluid, and the boundaries of political mobilization were blurred. Taomo Zhou asks probing questions of this important period in the histories of the People's Republic of China and Indonesia. What was it like to be a youth in search of an ancestral homeland that one had never set foot in, or an economic refugee whose expertise in private business became undesirable in one's new home in the socialist state? What ideological beliefs or practical calculations motivated individuals to commit to one particular nationality while forsaking another?

As Zhou demonstrates, the answers to such questions about "ordinary" migrants are crucial to a deeper understanding of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Through newly declassified documents from the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives and oral history interviews, Migration in the Time of Revolution argues that migration and the political activism of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were important historical forces in the making of governmental relations between Beijing and Jakarta after World War II. Zhou highlights the agency and autonomy of individuals whose life experiences were shaped by but also helped shape the trajectory of bilateral diplomacy. These ethnic Chinese migrants and settlers were, Zhou contends, not passively acted upon but actively responding to the developing events of the Cold War.

This book bridges the fields of diplomatic history and migration studies by reconstructing the Cold War in Asia as social processes from the ground up.

About the Author

Taomo Zhou is Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University. Follow her on X @taomo_zhou.

Reviews

Impressively researched.

* Foreign Affairs *

The book is a delightful read and will be of great interest to scholars of Chinese migration, PRC history, Indonesian history, and the history of the international communist movement.

* South East Asia Research *

Zhou has produced a stunning synthesis of migration and diplomatic history to demonstrate how international diplomacy is deeply intertwined with the global movement of peoples across borders.

* Inside Indonesia *

Zhou makes important contributions to the fields of Chinese studies, Asian and Cold War history and migration studies. Migration in the Time of Revolution will likely remain an authoritative work for years to come.

* China Quarterly *

In its two-decade sweep from the 1940s to 1960s, Migration in the Time of Revolution disentangles a knotty diplomatic relationship and analyzes its connections to Cold War strategies, tense domestic politics, and population movements. As a result, the book will appeal to scholars interested broadly in Asia, regional foreign relations, and Cold War hot spots as well as to specialists in mid-twentieth-century Southeast Asia, political violence in Indonesia, and the Chinese diaspora.

* H-Asia *

Migration in the Time of Revolution is a truly remarkable achievement that fuses diplomatic and social history. It sets new standards for the study of Chinese in Southeast Asia and models the possibly for research that is truly inter-Asian in scope while contributing to and remaining grounded in Southeast Asian Studies.

* 2021 Harry J. Benda Book Prize Committee, Association for Asian Studies *

Meticulously researched, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War by Taomo Zhou explores the fluid and multidimensional connections between the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia and their homeland, examining how the latter affected China's geostrategic position in the early Cold War period. Zhou's book makes important contributions to the study of diplomacy in general, and Chinese foreign policy history in particular

* Pacific Affairs *


Awards
Winner of Foreign Affairs "Best Book" 2020 (United States). Runner-up for Harry J. Benda Prize 2020 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501739934
Author Taomo Zhou
Format Hardback
Page Count 318
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 28mm