Rescuing Businesses through Transnationalism: Embedded Chinese Enterprise and Nationalist Activities in Singapore in the 1930s Great Depression

摘要

This article argues that the embeddedness of Chinese enterprises in Singapore society explains the limited success of the nationalist movement in Singapore. To respond to the economic crisis in the 1930s, Chinese business elites employed nationalist rhetoric to appeal to their compatriots in the British colony to support Chinese “national products.” With dual allegiance to both British rule and Chinese national identity, Chinese business nationalists took a transnational approach. Because Chinese business communities in Singapore were organized along subethnic lines, Chinese transnationalism failed to surmount these social divisions.