The Mandarin-Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernisation of China 1893-1911

The contribution of the overseas Chinese, particularly from Southeast Asia (Nanyang), to China's early modernization constitutes an important and neglected chapter in Chinese history. During the same years which saw the emergence of the Reform and Revolutionary movements, the ruling Manchu government also turned to the overseas Chinese for needed capital and expertise. Exposed to Western values and often successful in capitalist ventures, leading overseas entrepreneurs were in a special position to introduce new concepts into China. Dr Michael R. Godley's study traces the rise of overseas Chinese capitalism together with the emergence of an aggressive campaign on the part of the Ch'ing dynasty to attract overseas support. The ways in which Southeast Asian Chinese capitalists were ultimately recruited into the Chinese bureaucracy and the conditions under which they were permitted to begin new enterprises cast light upon many socio-economic problems while revealing much about the acculturation process.