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Birth of the East River Column 2 The Overseas Chinese and the Anti-Japanese Resistance For quite a few years after the Japanese imposed the infamous “21 Demands” on China in 1915, students and workers all over China and Hong Kong waged a campaign to boycott the use and purchase of Japanese goods and Japanese shops. Overseas Chinese communities, particularly those in Southeast Asia, joined in enthusiastically. Such activities outside China had a definite effect on Japan, as Southeast Asia was the dumping ground of Japanese textile and light industrial goods. In Singapore and Malaya alone, there were over 2.3 million overseas Chinese in 1941. Because of their relatively better income than their Chinese counterparts in China and Hong Kong, these overseas Chinese became a source of strong financial support for China, in war preparation. A significant factor in the relative ease and success in mobilizing so many overseas Chinese was the Hakka culture. The Hakka and the people from Fujian and Guangdong in general made up more than half of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asian countries. The Hakka identified as their homeland Meixian, Guangdong and the neighbouring towns and counties such as Huizhou, Bao’an and Huiyang, and most of the other towns in the East River areas, a tributary of the Pearl River Delta. The Hakka, who made up over ninety percent of a number of the guerrilla groups, therefore enjoyed a great advantage in material and kinship support from other Hakka in Southeast Asia and, for that matter from the East River region in south Guangdong. Throughout Chinese history, Hakka have been well known for their independent spirit and hardworking culture. Another distinct characteristic of this ethnic group is they are exceptionally clannish. In countries outside China, one can always find Hakka clan associations, which carry the names of Huizhou or Huiyang Clansmen or Jiaying Clansmen Association.1 10 East River Column In October 1938, when the news of the fall of Guangzhou and other towns in the East River area spread to Southeast Asia, overseas Chinese, particularly those of Hakka origin who lived in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, formed the Nanyang Dutch/British Territories Huizhou Compatriots Relief Association, on 30 October. They sent representatives on an inspection tour to the East River area of the Pearl River Delta. They arranged this through their contact with Lian Guan and Liao Chengzhi, the most senior Chinese Communist cadres in Hong Kong then. Liao was the son of Liao Zhongkai, a contemporary of Dr. SunYat-sen, and a senior member of the left-wing faction of the KMT. Liao Chengzhi had the additional advantage of being Hakka himself. Lian Guan was a Hakka born in a peasant family in a poor village of Dapu, in the mountainous area in east Guangdong. From an early age, he was a casual worker in a tobacco factory near his hometown. He did not start school until he was almost nine, and he was admitted into a teacher training school after he completed primary schooling. Subsequently, he became a primary school teacher himself in Meixian. He came under the influence of a Chinese Communist Party member when the latter was a member of Chiang Kaishek ’s Northern Expedition. He joined the party in 1927. He moved to Hong Kong with the help of his clanspeople. From the 1930s, he was involved in Anti-Japan and Save the Nation activities. Liao Chengzhi was born in Japan, where he went to primary school and secondary school. Subsequently he studied in the missionary-founded Lingnan University in Guangzhou, where he joined the KMT. When the KMT and the Communist Party split in 1927, he joined the Communist Party. Because of his command of foreign languages, he was sent by the party to foment strikes among Chinese seamen in Holland and Germany in 1928. Expelled by the Dutch authorities, he returned to China and did underground work for the party in Shanghai in 1932. He was arrested by the KMT authorities in Shanghai when he was discovered. But due to his parents’ previous standing in the KMT and Soong Ching-ling’s intervention, he was released and went to Hong Kong where his mother had relatives and connections. After the tour, the association met up with other Hakka residents in Hong Kong. Through the encouragement of Liao and Lian, the association joined up with the Hong Kong Huiyang Youth Association, the Hailufeng Residents Association and the Yu Sian Le...

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