A Positioning of China in the Global Space: Reflecting the Overseas Debate on Chineseness and Sinophone

Abstract

Abstract: This paper tries to reveal the ideological structure and cultural manipulation behind those discussions around the recent debate on Chineseness in the overseas world. It points out that intentional misuse should be further distinguished from the misuse in the discourse of Chineseness, and that the refinement of Chineseness should not be confined in the political field but be opened to include the cultural inheritance and renovation in the native land as well as the cultural progress through the dialogue between worldwide Chinese and Western. With the dialogue seeped through the debate, Chineseness may then be curbed from degenerating into a unilateral ethnocentrism or nationalism. It must be acknowledged that there should be adulterations in and different versions of the concept of Chineseness. Thus, the concept of orthodox Chinese essence can be used to track the trajectory and locate the position of diasporic literature and Sinophone so that it may supplement and expand our understanding of Chineseness.

Key words: Chineseness, diaspora, Sinophone, identity

Yu Xiayun. A Positioning of China in the Global Space: Reflecting the Overseas Debate on Chineseness and Sinophone[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2013, 33(1): 46-52.

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