Revolutionary Cosmopolitanism and its Limits

This article analyzes the extent and limits of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) revolutionary cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia. Between 1945 and 1949, the CCP intellectuals Hu Yuzhi and Wang Renshu operated a network of leftwing newspapers in Southeast Asia’s major urban centers. They championed the revolution in the homeland, while supporting anti-colonial nationalist movements in the region. Taking a comparative approach, I argue that the CCP’s revolutionary cosmopolitanism developed and diverged on the ground according to the diasporic community’s social structure, the contingency of events in the process of decolonization and initiatives taken by local CCP leaders. While the CCP in Jakarta turned neutral in the face of republican atrocities against Chinese, Singapore and Medan went on to mobilize merchants and youths to take part in local anti-colonial movements. The CCP stood for a moderate, anti-colonial Malayan nationalism in Singapore, in comparison with a more radical, non-assimilationist position in solidarity with Indonesia’s independence struggle in Medan.