From the 1950s to the 1970s, Philippine Chinese were Southeast Asia's most exemplary Cold Warriors among overseas Chinese. During these decades, no Chinese community in the region was more vigilant in identifying and rooting out suspected communists from within its midst; none was as committed to mobilising against the People's Republic of China as the one in the former US colony. Ironically, for all the fears of overseas Chinese communities' ties to the PRC at the time, the example of the Philippines shows that the 'China' that intervened the most extensively in any Southeast Asian Chinese society during the Cold War was the Republic of China on Taiwan. In this book, Kung tells the story of the Philippine Chinese as pro-Taiwan, anticommunist partisans, tracing their evolving relationship with the KMT and successive Philippine governments over the mid-20th century.

Previously issued in print: 2022.