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Abstract
The contribution of overseas Chinese to their ancestral homeland in China is an important topic for research. This article uses the concept of diaspora philanthropy to analyze the patterns and mechanisms of philanthropic giving by overseas Chinese to their ancestral hometowns or villages, also known as qiaoxiang. Based on an ethnographic study in Shunde, Guangdong Province, this article argues that Chinese diaspora philanthropy is not just based on a tradition based on the donors' affinity, emotional ties, and personal relations to their hometowns, but is involved in the historical process organized and strategically orchestrated by multiple actors, including individuals, organizations, and the state. In this process, the associations of overseas Chinese and local governments in China, especial through the cooperation between local "qiao cadres" and leaders of oversea Chinese communities, play important roles in promoting philanthropy and bringing about desirable outcomes. The intersection of push and pull mechanisms in stimulating donor giving constitutes the basic dynamics of contemporary Chinese diaspora philanthropy. This is the reason why philanthropic giving from overseas Chinese continues to rise even as qiaoxiang have been already well developed.

The largest diasporic exodus fanning out of mainland China took place in the context of the immense turmoil, turbulence, suffering, and pauperization of the masses from late 19th to early 20th centuries. Today, over 24 million diasporic Chinese and ethnic Chinese are spread across Southeast Asia in Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, Indonesia, and Timor-Lester. The first generation (G1) diasporic Chinese came to Southeast Asia with the mentality of sojourners because their emigration was self-imposed and for survival, fueled by the astounding historical, social, political, and economic circumstances of the times. Giving and generosity naturally follows back to motherland; it was focused on "giving back to China and loyalty to motherland". The longstanding heritage in these cultures holds strength in the ethos of the "heart" when it comes to beneficence and philanthropy.The next generation (G2 now born outside of China) began to recognize that the success of their family businesses was dependent on resources, access to networks, and social norms of these local communities, outside of China. We begin to see flexibility in identifying with local communities since their stakes as Nationals are now becoming evident. After WWII, and the realities of a closed-door policy in China from 1949-1978, their vision of retiring back in China became less and less viable. It forced many already outside of China to shed their sojourner mentality.Impulses of the "heart" are soon quickly checked by rational prudence of the "head". In the lands they have just adopted as their new homes, they quickly assimilate, advocate, and find resources for their own survival – including continued re-migration until families found the most suitable location to settle. Naturally, this leads to multiple loyalties over a lifetime. To assimilate and optically appear to be "local", their philanthropy is often used as a platform to affirm their identity as Nationals. Without the "motherland memory" to fall back on, future generations will likely reduce their giving to their parents' country of origin.More recently, globalization, information/digital age, social media have all converged to redefine human connectivity, ease of travel, social-political dynamics, and more. Entities in the diasporic world are now hybridized – thriving on flexible identities and multiple loyalties. Current generations from the original diasporic Chinese are now more "transnational" Chinese than diasporic.However, this hybridity is contextual or versatile in different social settings. As they become westernized or secular in lifestyle, education, ethos, and religion, there will come the time when they cease to "give back" to their parents' or grandparents' homeland. Their choices in philanthropy follows the contextual mutation of their own Chineseness and evolution of flexible identities and multiple loyalties through religion, lifestyles, ethics, worldviews, and localized social norms.

Abstract
This article considers the pathbreaking developments that are quickly changing the field of Chinese diaspora studies. China's rise and its ongoing integration in the world and the concomitantly changing international position of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan launched a wave of Chinese elite students studying abroad, of nouveau riche emigrating to the West, and of returning Chinese recent emigrants. This brought forth a new discourse on the Chineseness and the Sinophone world that reshaped the meaning of how an ancestral hometown and host countries connect, and of the imagery and meaning of being Chinese, including being Chinese Overseas. Ironically, the new discourse, however sophisticated, global, and multidisciplinary, is primarily produced by non-Chinese and expatriate Chinese scholars. The challenge here is that, for many decades, political and ideological considerations worldwide have motivated the scholarship on Chinese diaspora, by both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. A holistic approach, which frames Chinese diaspora as an integral part of world history, may help to meet this challenge.

This book brings together works by specialists from various areas of the social sciences to reflect on the presence of China in Portugal and in Portuguese-speaking territories. From the first Chinese coolies that migrated to the former Portuguese colonies more than 100 years ago, to the current investments along the Belt and Road Initiative, we take the pulse of this historic, social, political and economic presence and flows, that continues to renew and reinvent itself in the face of the challenges of contemporaneity

In the dialogue, Professor Wanning Sun, an internationally renowned scholar on media and communication in the Chinese diaspora, first introduces her new book co-authored with Professor Haiqing Yu titled Digital Transnationalism: Chinese-language Media in Australia (Brill, 2023). Professor Sun then responds to a few misconceptions that have been dominant in public discourses in the global West on the diasporic Chinese media. She argues that diasporic Chinese people's transnational citizenship practices will become increasingly bound up with geopolitics that has significantly impacted the operation, regulation and use of Chinese social media platforms in the West. She points out that future research in 'digital transnationalism' of the Chinese diaspora could further explore the changing relations between Chinese digital/social media and the formation of a new kind of transnational Chinese subjectivities with a comparative approach.

Chinese in Australia have grown into a variegated diaspora with a mainland-born majority. Diasporas are channels of cultural, economic and political influence; and seen as such by sending and receiving countries. They interact in international cultural relations between sending and receiving countries, as expressions of civic virtue oriented to either or both. Cooperative interactions between the respective countries can bring prosperity to all; but when security considerations cast clouds over relations between countries, the concerned countries and communities have careful paths to tread. This input visits the Chinese diaspora past and present. It emphasises the rules of friendship and hospitality as guiding principles for healthy international cultural relations.

This article examines the controversy over the Beijing Olympics–themed float for the 2008 Pasadena Rose Parade in the broad context of China's public diplomacy and contentious international politics involving the Chinese community in Los Angeles, human rights activists, the City of Pasadena, and other players. It aims to understand the ways in which a nation's public diplomacy strategy can be contested in a local setting and how different players mobilized their resources to strategically frame their messages. It explores three questions: (1) How did different parties draw on the repertoire of contentious politics to frame the controversy? (2) What role did the Chinese diaspora play in the development of the controversy? How does the controversy clarify the function of Chinese immigrants in China's public diplomacy? (3) What did this controversy imply for China's soft power and international communication? This article draws on materials from media reports, official records, videotaped meeting records, personal observations, and semi-structured interviews with the float sponsors, organizers, officials in Pasadena, and human rights activists.

The first Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the 1820s and initially their presence did not result in improving the American perception of China. On the contrary – intense immigration from China led to the development of racist and xenophobic attitudes towards the Chinese (Yellow Peril), which culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. During the Second World War, China became an important ally of the United States, which triggered a succession of changes to laws barring Chinese immigration (Magnuson Act). Contemporary Chinese Americans – particularly Taiwanese Americans – can be located in the upper spheres of immigrant population: they are considered to be a well-educated and affluent group. This paper presents the historical and contemporary socio-economic characteristics of the Sino-American population set against a historical and legal background.