ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the spread and the expansion of Asian Communism from the bottom-up and in a wider regional context than the nation-state or even regional strait-jackets like “East” or “Southeast Asia”. It describes a geographical and historical approach in order to track, across a longer stretch of time and a wider spatial swath, that which would connect Chinese and Vietnamese Communisms running between East and Southeast Asia. A rapidly developing sense of nationalism and common opposition to Western domination was at the root of it; military co-operation and the overlapping of early Vietnamese and Chinese Communisms would emerge from it. For twentieth century communism, the violent break between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party in southern China from 1927 was perhaps the crucial turning point. In China, Sun Yat-sen would lead followers in a bid to overthrow the Qing dynasty, modernise the country, and reverse Western imperial encroachments into China.
