Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War

    As Migration in the Time of Revolution demonstrates, the answers to such questions about “ordinary” migrants are crucial to a deeper understanding of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Based on evidence from newly declassified documents from the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives and oral history interviews, Zhou 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. She 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 responded 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.