China Off Center

SOUTHWEST AND THE DIASPORA

SOUTHWEST AND THE DIASPORA The southwest includes the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Hunan, covering an area of approximately 1.1 million square kilometers. The first two provinces are known for their ethnic diversity as well as their historic poverty and marginality. Sichuan is a unique province, a central humid basin (the Red basin) with a population of 100 million (larger than that of Mexico!). Historically, it housed the Shu and Ba cultures but has often been isolated from the rest of China by its mountains. Hunan was historically part of the south, the site of ancient Chu culture (as mentioned by Friedman in chap. 3). Yunnan is especially remote and was only loosely joined to China for many centuries. It was traditionally considered a place of “malarial vapors” and primitive barbarians, and the Han people sent there were reluctant exiles, prisoners, soldiers, or desperate civilians. Today, Yunnan is home to twenty-six ethnic minorities, constituting about 30 percent of its population. Ethnogeographically quite closely linked to Southeast Asia, many of the peoples of southwest China are virtually identical to people across the border in Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Rivers known for their importance in Southeast Asia—the Mekong, Salween, and Red rivers— begin in Yunnan as the Lancang, Nu, and Hong rivers. (The Chang Jiang [Yangzi river] and the Huang He [Yellow river] also begin in Yunnan’s western mountains as the Jinsha and the Dadu (one of the contributing streams). Economic ties across national borders are increasingly important now, and the region is developing rapidly. Tobacco and tea are major crops in Yunnan; Sichuan is very fertile and produces a wide range of grains, fruits, and vegetables . Along with Hunan, Sichuan is known for its peppers and—according to popular stereotypes—fiery revolutionaries. Diaspora is a term commonly used for the forced migration of the Jews from a central homeland out into the world, but, with time, it has acquired a broader significance as a term for any substantial movement of a people away from their natal home. The Chinese diaspora refers to the great and steady migration of Chinese beyond the national borders of their homeland from the nineteenth century to the present. The causes for this migration are complex, 127 but a significant political consequence is the global character of contemporary Chinese identity. And so it is that the definition of Chineseness has broadened considerably, as has the network of sentiment that draws substantial investment by wealthy overseas Chinese to the Mainland, while this same investment pulls Chinese consciousness out beyond the limits of an authoritarian state.—Eds. 128 Yunnan. ...