Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Chinese Diaspora and Mainland China: An Emerging Economic
Synergy by Constance Lever-Tracy, David Ip and Noel Tracy
Review by: David Wank
Source: The China Journal, No. 41 (Jan., 1999), pp. 218-220
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the College of Asia and the
Pacific, The Australian National University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2667617
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218 THE CHINA JOURNAL, ISSUE 41

Tibet and that the majority of prisoners are subjected to some form of phys
and psychological abuse.
In the face of this history, we are presented with a very mixed ba
essays by Chinese dissidents. Some of these essays, such as the opening
by Cao Changching, are well thought out and argued, but most of the o
are simply the ill-informed opinions of people whose views are strongly
enced by PRC propaganda. Some of the authors believe that Chin
actually brought material prosperity to Tibetans, despite the fact that
economic benefits the region has witnessed have largely been enjoyed b
Chinese settlers. In addition, several of the authors cite PRC figures cla
that ethnic Tibetans form 95 per cent of the population of the "T
Autonomous Region", apparently unaware that the PRC governmen
sponsored a massive population transfer of Han settlers into the region.
The book is frustrating reading for anyone familiar with Tibet's his
and its current situation. It demonstrates that even people who are at odds w
the PRC government are still often profoundly influenced by its propa
and by Han chauvinism, which prevent them from making an obje
assessment of the "Tibet problem". One wonders about the purpose in
lishing this volume, since none of the essays contain any new ideas or pr
als, and most of the analysis is superficial at best. Since most of the aut
apparently have little background in the field, and since as dissidents
have no power to influence PRC policy, their opinions reflect neither e
research nor likely trends in future Chinese decision-making.

John Powers
Australian National University

The Chinese Diaspora and Mainland China: An Emerging Economic Synergy,

by Constance Lever-Tracy, David Ip, and Noel Tracy. Macmillan Press,
Houndmills and London, 1996. xii + 337pp. $79.95 (hardcover).

In the 1990s investment from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South-east Asian
entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry has poured into China. Scholars have
coined such terms as "bamboo network" and "transnational guanxi" to evoke
the particularistic relations between the investors and government actors
within China through which this business proceeds. The Chinese Diaspora
and Mainland China, co-authored by two sociologists and a political
economist, enhances our understanding of this phenomenon, which they term
"diaspora capitalism". The book blends broad comparative themes that reflect
the authors' disciplinary groundings in ethnic studies, economic development
and transnational migration, and their prior research on Chinese and Indian
entrepreneurs in Australia, along with rich primary data gleaned through
surveys and interviews among a wide range of diaspora entrepreneurs.

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 REVIEWS, JANUARY 1999 219

The book has two key concerns. One relates to the existence of a g
Chinese business sphere. Most works on the subject "take for granted
which needs demonstrating ? that the Chinese diaspora is indeed a m
ful entity, rather than just a construct of our categories, made by
together dissimilar and unrelated components in different places, on
of an irrelevant criterion of common ethnicity" (p. 16). The authors
strate the existence of Chinese diaspora capitalism by describing its e
characteristics (ongoing control by entrepreneurial families, a prefere
personalized contracting, a strategy of diversifying business un
transnational structures (links among diaspora capitalists, connections
the capitalists and local authorities in China, and the re-activation of
ties of ancestral region and friendship to smooth entry into the China ma
As the primary concern here is to demonstrate the validity of the ca
"diaspora capitalism", the authors pay less attention to variations w
The rationale for including Taiwan and Hong Kong in the diaspora is
explained, while the question of how different historical patterns of emig
from China and varying experiences within different host countrie
investment patterns remains largely unanswered.
The second concern is the "synergy" between China's opening to f
investment and diaspora capitalism. China's decade-long economic up
driven by collective enterprises released from state controls, was slow
the early 1990s, while Western business investment was also in
following the Tiananmen protests of 1989. Chinese leaders accordingly
their assiduous wooing of diaspora capitalists. Meanwhile, these capit
were bumping up against labour shortages and other constraints in the
ations elsewhere in Asia. In need of new opportunities, they responded
siastically, dramatically expanding their hitherto relatively small pre
China's economy. Despite the publicized investments of such tycoon
Ka-shing and Gordon Wu, the authors aver that much of the synergy
from medium and small investors who use personal and ancestral ties t
business links "from below" with local authorities and to find suppl
customers. This has matured Chinese diaspora capitalism beyond tradi
intermediary activities into a sophisticated transnational busines
encompassing research, production and marketing activities. These ar
suited to third-world market economies than American and Japanese
because they emphasize small investments in multiple projects that esc
attention of bureaucratized central authorities.
The main thread tying the book together is the argument that this tra
national investment is embedded in networks of trust. This thread is most
visible in showing the different kinds of actors who are linked by the net?
works. However, the theme remains unsatisfactorily developed. First, there is
analytic fuzziness. The authors claim that guanxi stimulates competition,
reduces uncertainties, and patterns allocations, but they never really explain
how this works. They also pass up golden opportunities to do so. To give just
one example, their data show that younger and female entrepreneurs are most

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220 THE CHINA JOURNAL, ISSUE 41

likely to say that guanxi is important in doing business (p. 142); yet ther
explanation as to why they have greater recourse to guanxi. Second,
some conceptual slippage. At some points it appears that guanxi is a
institution because it patterns competition and allocation, but in oth
the authors aver that "market based" and "reciprocity based relatio
(guanxi) are distinct and that business proceeds through some unex
"combination" of them (p.215). This fuzziness and slippage undermi
impact of their argument. Much of their evidence for embeddedness
interview data in which entrepreneurs testify to the importance of g
their business dealings. Because the authors do not probe very deeply
business operates through guanxi, the only thing their data really demon
is that entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry have a strong cultural ten
talk about business in idioms of guanxi.
The book has other problems as well. First, the authors derive th
from numerous samples, including interviews and surveys of small
Australian Chinese investors, Hong Kong tycoons, and Taiwanese an
investors in China. It becomes increasingly difficult to keep these di
groups straight when the authors discuss variations among diaspora c
linked to their scale of business and migration patterns. Second, wh
middle section on networks is fascinating and unfolds logically, the
section on outcomes is a pot-pourri of concerns including dependency
entrepreneurial motivations and labour relations.
Despite its shortcomings, The Chinese Diaspora and Mainland Ch
one of the most detailed and thoughtful works on the recent interac
China's economy with entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry from out
People's Republic. Its insights and theoretical concerns suggest aven
further inquiry. If you want to read only one bird's-eye view of the
greater Chinese business sphere then this book may fit the bill.
David Wank
Sophia University, Tokyo

The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama, by Melvyn
C. Goldstein. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997. xiii + 152pp.
US$19.95 (hardcover).

No-one can hope to comprehend the Sino-Tibetan impasse without

considering the longstanding feud between Beijing and Dharamsala, the seat
of the Dalai Lama in India for almost forty years. The central argument of this
concise and thorough book on the political status of Tibet is that the rivalry
between China and successive Dalai Lamas has run far deeper than is gener?
ally recognized, making unlikely any serious compromise from either side.
Melvyn Goldstein, a leading authority on Tibet, provides a polished
history of the political relationship between these two ancient civilizations and

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