The transpacific reform and revolution of the Chinese in North America, 1898-1918

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the turbulent end of China's imperial system, violent revolutionary movements, and the fraught establishment of a republican government. During these decades of reform and revolution, millions of far-flung "overseas Chinese" remained connected to Chinese domestic movements. This book uses rich archival sources and a new network approach to examine how reform and revolution in North American Chinatowns influenced political change in China and the transpacific Chinese diaspora from 1898 to 1918. Historian Zhongping Chen focuses on the transnational activities of Kang Youwei, Sun Yat-sen, and other politicians, especially their mobilization of the Chinese in North America to join reformist or revolutionary parties in patriotic fights for a Western-style constitutional monarchy or republic in China. These new reformist and revolutionary parties, including the first Chinese women's political organization, led transpacific movements against American anti-Chinese racism in 1905 and supported constitutional reform and the Republican Revolution in China around 1911, achieving transpacific expansion through innovative use of cross-cultural political ideologies and intertwined institutional and interpersonal networks. Through network analysis of the origins, interrelations, and influences of Chinese reform and revolution in North America, this book makes a significant contribution to modern Chinese history, Asian American and Asian Canadian history, and Chinese diasporic scholarship. "The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the turbulent end of China's imperial system, violent national revolution, and the fraught establishment of a republican government. During these decades of revolution and reform, millions of far-flung "overseas Chinese" remained connected to Chinese domestic movements. This book uses rich archival sources and a new network approach to examine how political transformations taking place in China impacted and were influenced by Chinese communities on the west coast of the U.S. and Canada. In these North American Chinatowns, individuals participated in Chinese reformist and revolutionary movements in a variety of ways: they raised money, circulated ideas, housed exiled and traveling political dissidents and revolutionaries, and influenced the views of 'host' governments and societies. Focusing on the transpacific Chinese political reforms under Kang Youwei's leadership in 1899-1909 and the revolutionary activities of the "father of Republican China" Sun Yat-sen in the years before and after the 1911 Revolution, Zhongping Chen tells the story of these and other Chinese reformers and revolutionaries as well as their personal ties, political parties, and collective actions in the Pacific Rim. Through its broad examination of the origins, interrelations, and influences of Chinese reform and revolution in North America, Chen's work makes a significant contribution to modern Chinese history, migration studies, and Asian American history"-- Provided by publisher Contents Maps and Figures Preface: In Pursuit of a New Network Approach to Overseas Chinese Political History Acknowledgments Abbreviations Notes on Romanization and Currencies Introduction Chapter 1 Kang Youwei and the Rise of Overseas Chinese Political Reforms from North America Chapter 2 The Crest and Ebb of Chinese Reform Politics from North America to the Pacific Rim Chapter 3 Transpacific Interactions between Chinese Reformers and Revolutionaries Chapter 4 Sun Yat-sen and the Unfinished Chinese Republican Revolution across the Pacific Conclusion: Toward a Network Revolution in the Transpacific Chinese Diaspora Notes Bibliography Index