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This chapter analyses the evolution of Xiamen and the undertakings of overseas Chinese in the treaty port after they returned. It unravels the reason why Xiamen did not develop into an industrial and trading center a la Shanghai after its opening as a treaty port, then explores how it facilitated the mass movement of people in and out of the country. By examining the development of Xiamen, the mobility and identity of the emigrants, and the intricate relationships between the two — the chapter narrates the reason for the emigrants' return to Xiamen, and how the foreign experience affected their views of and relationships with the city. The chapter also pushes the boundary of Chinese history beyond China to incorporate a transnational perspective — that is, paying attention to how processes and relationships that have transcended the borders of China shaped the history of Xiamen — and complicates the familiar narrative of Chinese history by demonstrating the subjectivity of the emigrants and including the contributions of these traditionally marginalized people to China. In a way, Xiamen forces us to examine Chinese history and modernity beyond the boundaries of geopolitical China.

This chapter addresses the history and development of Xiamen. It presents a general overview of trade and migration through the port of Xiamen from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, culminating with its opening as a treaty port after the Opium War. The chapter then shifts to examine the interplay between trade and migration in South Fujian and the migration routes of the Fujianese before the mid-1800s. As the chapter shows, Xiamen and the Fujianese were well positioned to take advantage of the conditions and mechanisms that the treaty port era offered. The chapter then unveils how the continuation and expansion of migration through Xiamen deeply affected the port city's commercial activities and determined its development in ways that were unforeseen by the British.

This chapter explains the challenges foreign merchants faced in Xiamen. It narrates the intensified trading activities of Western merchants after the Opium War and its huge impact on the commerce of China, especially in the treaty ports themselves. The chapter then details how the Opium sale to China; foreign steamers; and new items like kerosene, flour, and matchsticks became essential parts of Chinese everyday life. It also explains the reasons behind the treaty port's lackluster foreign trade. The chapter recounts Western merchants' dismay that their profits had been seriously undermined by Chinese competitors. In Xiamen especially, Western merchants had found it to be a “particularly tough” market.

This chapter dissects Xiamen transformation into the in-between place of Minnan and explains the migration mechanisms and processes through the port city. The chapter looks at the economic impacts migration had on the emigrants themselves and the families they left behind in China as well as the transformative effects migration had on a city, especially one that witnessed the coming and going of a large number of people. Xiamen became known to the world as the depot for cheap Chinese hands when it was designated the first center in China for the disreputable trade in Chinese “coolies,” that is, indentured laborers under contract to foreigners. With such awareness, the chapter highlights Xiamen's role in the coolie trade until 1850. It unravels how the coolie trade — initiated and determined by European firms — left a particularly bad mark on the Chinese minds as it was perceived to be another form of imperialist exploitation of China. The chapter then investigates the development and evolvement of Xiamen as it catered to the needs of the emigrants: as a funnel city, as a budding financial center, and as a regional metropolis.

This chapter analyses the multifaceted identities of returned emigrants in Xiamen during its treaty port era through the lens of different power regimes — the Qing, Great Britain, Japan, and the Republic of China. It examines how they manipulated their identities for their own benefits. For those emigrants who had acquired foreign nationality, they had literally returned home to China as a “foreign” country. But for returned overseas Chinese in general, Xiamen was “foreign” also, because it was not entirely Chinese. In a sense, the chapter explains how Xiamen was situated “in-between” China and the world beyond after various contending political powers created a fluid environment in Xiamen. While the various states tried to identify, win over, and discipline the emigrants, the chapter reveals the chameleonic nature of the overseas Chinese and their conspicuous lack of deep ideological commitment to any one particular state.

This chapter explores how returned overseas Chinese investors used their money, knowledge, and vision to influence the urban reconstruction and cityscape of Xiamen in the early twentieth century. The chapter then proceeds to describe the transformation and modernization of the city brought about by the returned Chinese emigrants. Overseas financiers worked in tandem with city administrators to champion developmental projects, and they also speculated in real estate for personal profits, pushing land prices up three to four times. The chapter also reveals how the infusion of money from abroad allowed Xiamen's municipal government to push forth the construction of new roads and the reclamation of marshlands, ponds, and even graveyards. The chapter highlights the public utility companies set up by the overseas Chinese investors and the introduction of modern life, including telephone, electricity, and running water.

This chapter glances at the decisions and purposes of two overseas Chinese to return to Xiamen — a first-generation emigrant to the Philippines, Li Qingquan (1888–1940), and a third-generation overseas Chinese emigrant from Singapore, Lim Boon Keng (Lin Wenqing, 1869–1957). It illustrates their experiences and shows that the overseas Chinese relationship with the homeland was not natural nor guaranteed, and they were not always successful in settling back in China. Chinese emigrants were in a constant struggle to make sense of their socioeconomic and political environments and to settle, and foreign circumstances were as important if not more so than native-place connections in informing their decisions to return to China. More importantly, they did not assume a natural affinity with the place they returned to; rather, their choice to make home in Xiamen was a deliberate one. The chapter further discusses how emigrants are no longer bound to a given place once they began their journeys. Hence, home is not about returning to from where they originated but where they go that is most comfortable and familiar, and where they could create a sense of belonging, that is, a place that feels most like home.

This chapter recalls the book's dual focus: Xiamen and the returned overseas Chinese. The chapter recounts the story of how individuals and businesses in Xiamen, and the mechanisms and connections they engendered through the port, facilitated the movements of Hokkiens overseas, and how returned overseas Chinese in turn helped determine the urban landscape and the development of the port city. Through an analysis of the relationships between returned emigrants and the port city, the chapter emphasizes the transformative impact of the migration process, which not only affected those who moved but also affected the place that they moved through. The chapter asserts that we cannot fully comprehend the activities of returned overseas Chinese in Xiamen unless we allow the emigrants to leave home. It argues that that the choice of whether or not to return was a conscious decision and was guided more by the emigrants' pragmatic and political concerns and their desire for personal and even selfish gains.

This concluding chapter discusses the significance of the 1684 trade policy in Chinese maritime history. The economic and commercial prosperity resulting from the 1684 open-door policy greatly contributed to the emergence of the treaty ports, the best example of which is Shanghai. Becoming the headquarters of the Jiangsu customs, Shanghai's elaborate trade networks connected the Chinese heartland, Manchuria, the rest of East Asia, and Southeast Asia. As early as 1830s, Western travelers were so impressed by the thriving center that they judged it a suitable base for commercial expansion in China. And indeed, with the Nanjing Treaty, Shanghai became one of five treaty ports. Moreover, three of the other four treaty ports—Guangzhou, Xiamen, and Ningbo—had been chosen by the Qing court in 1684 to serve as headquarters of imperial customs. All three cities grew rich from trade with Japan, Southeast Asia, and the West.

Chapter 1 provides the historical background to Chinese migration and the spread of Buddhism to maritime Southeast Asia between the nineteenth century and the 1940s to set the stage for the discussion of the three monks in this study. In rough chronological order, this chapter tells the history of Chinese migration to colonial Southeast Asian states, arrival of Chinese Buddhism, and the South China Sea Buddhist networks that connected China and Southeast Asia. During this period, Buddhist monks came to the Malay Archipelago and propagated ideas of Buddhist modernism to the overseas Chinese communities. By the end of the 1940s, communist victory in the Chinese civil war led to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and the evacuation of the Kuomintang government to Taiwan; this period also marked the beginning of decolonization in maritime Southeast Asia.