The identity of Chinese communities who reside outside of China has long been the focus of study, with scholars having focused on the historical struggle of these Chinese communities to develop a self-identity that removes their association with China. The rise of China has once again put the spotlight on these issues of Chinese identity; China’s increasing assertiveness and global prominence in the past decade having sparked a renewed sense of contestation around the conceptualisation of Chineseness as Beijing has begun to dictate a narrative of a singular Chinese identity. As such, this contest is no longer restricted to the simple issue of “what is Chineseness”, but rather, has expanded to include the more salient questions of “how is Chineseness constructed” and who gets to decide that.

Given the large number of Chinese communities that exist in the East Asia region, this renewed contestation of Chineseness is seen as an attempt to blur the lines between Chinese nationals and foreign nationals of Chinese descent, and also to orientate the loyalty of these communities to serve Beijing’s interests. As a result of this, there has been an observable pushback from the ethnic Chinese communities, especially from the youth who claim a hybrid state-ethnic identity that rejects Beijing’s narrative. This raises the question of how such a hybrid state-ethnic identity is formed in contemporary times, and how are these identities affected by the contestation of Chineseness.

This thesis aims to address these questions by providing a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of how identity formation takes place for ethnic Chinese communities outside of China by examining the experiences of identity formation of Chinese youth from Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. It is hoped that in doing so, this thesis not only addresses the questions raised, but also provides an analysis of contemporary Chinese identity formation that takes into consideration the impact that a revisionist China has on the struggle to define Chineseness, and the different environment in which these Chinese youth live in as compared to previous studies. Additionally, this thesis seeks to build an “Asian-centric” model of Chinese identity formation which recognises the uniqueness of the experiences of the various ethnic Chinese communities, thereby plugging existing gaps.

In order to do so, I propose a theory for political identity formation which borrows from Social Identity Theory. I then build a theoretical framework for contemporary Chinese identity that defines the contestation of Chineseness as a duality of identities, where contemporary Chinese identity sits along a spectrum between a Chinese Political Identity and a Chinese Cultural Identity. This model incorporates existing literature to suggest factors that influence the positioning of Chinese identity along the spectrum. Thereafter, using Q methodology as the core of a mixed-method comparative research design, I analyse the influence of constructivist, symbolists, and external factors on the formation of identity for the Chinese youth from Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. In using Q-method, I am able to tell the stories of these Chinese youth by drawing out major viewpoints that reflect how the identity of these Chinese youths are affected by the nation-building policies of their respective states, the impact of their agency in choosing loyalty to their state, the influence of ethno- symbolism and class-symbolism, and also the impact of external events involving China.

This thesis concludes by arguing that the data suggested that constructivist factors are the key drivers of identity formation for the Chinese youth from these states, where nation-building policies have been successful in creating a social imaginary where national identities are ranked and valued above all, and this is reinforced by the agency of these Chinese youth in “choosing” loyalty to their nations, which helps to position the hybrid state-ethnic identity of the youth towards the Chinese Cultural Identity. Furthermore, the data also suggested that external factors play an important role in helping to crystallize the position of their identity on the spectrum, as these factors contribute to a sense of contestation between nations that triggers nationalistic responses from the youth.

Additionally, the thesis argues that the data seems to suggest a differing impact of symbolist factors across the four countries. It was observed that class-symbolism was a factor for identity formation in Malaysia and the Philippines, but not in Singapore and Taiwan, which was attributed to the difference in demographic size of the respective ethnic Chinese communities, and the resultant impact of class-symbolism was to draw the Chinese identity away from the Chinese Political Identity. Ethno-symbolism, on the other hand, was observed to have little influence on majority of the Chinese youth in the four countries, with only a small minority per country seemingly being influenced by it, which suggested that China’s ethno-nationalist messaging has limited influence on the positioning of the youth’s hybrid identity on the spectrum.

In presenting these conclusions, I hope that this thesis has shown how a multitude of Chinese identities exists, and that these identities sit along the spectrum as a result of a combination of influences from the various factors. It also emphasises the agency of the individual in forming identity and calls into question the usage of terms like Overseas Chinese and Chinese diaspora when referring to these ethnic Chinese communities, which reinforces the sentiment of the Chinese youth to be identified first and foremost by their nationality.