ABSTRACT
Studies of overseas Chinese have attracted the attention of many researchers since the 1980s because of the high economic growth rates in Southeast Asia and South China. This chapter attempts to overview the role of qiaoxiang ties, with an emphasis on their impact on China's economic modernization. It discusses three issues: Qiaoxiang ties and Chinese societal networks; overseas Chinese remittances and foreign investment; entrepreneurship and China's economic modernization. The chapter provides insights into the future of overseas Chinese studies. Much of the investment is going into the regions of ancestral origin of clan members, using personal connections and cultural mutual understanding. This phenomenon, incidentally, is providing renewed vigour to many clan associations, as the members' old links to China become commercially valuable. It has been argued that the motive of the overseas Chinese investment in China is based on their primordial sentiments and 'Chinese patriotism'.20 This is perhaps the case with the first generation of overseas Chinese.
