"Diaspora Party": the origins, characteristics and development of the Southeast Asian branch of the Chinese Communist Party before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident

Abstract

 In the first half of the 20th century, overseas branches of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) existed not only in Europe, Soviet Russia and Japan, but also in Thailand, Singapore and Malaya, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. These Southeast Asian branches of the CCP, generally referred to as "Diaspora Party(侨党)"/"Overseas Chinese Party(华侨党)" by those involved, are generally limited in size and have difficulty operating openly in overseas Chinese communities across Southeast Asia. After the failed revolution of 1927, a large number of CCP members or members of the Communist Youth League from southern Chinese provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan scattered across the Nanyang(南洋) to escape the pressure of the Kuomintang. This was the main basis for the origin of the CCP’ "Diaspora Party" in Southeast Asia. In the context of the international communist movement, the CCP diaspora parties generally had a special organisational and operational relationship with the local communist parties and communist movement, showing the characteristics of mutual integration. According to the changing situation and the needs of the overseas Chinese, under the leadership of the core cadres of the party, the members of Overseas Chinese Party would use Chinese schools, Chinese newspapers, reading clubs and other tools to mobilise a group of overseas Chinese, especially overseas Chinese students and youths, and then form a unified mass organisation such as "Anti-Imperialist Grand League" to unite all sectors of the overseas Chinese community; before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the most remarkable achievement of the Overseas Chinese Party in Southeast Asia in terms of Overseas Chinese Movement Work(侨运工作) was the unification of a group of students and young political activists, and after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, these leftist Chinese youths were mobilised to return to China and became active cadres in various CCP systems.