Sydney's Chinatown and the rise of China

Considering the rise of China and the evolution of Chinatowns together will serve to clarify what profound impact the rise of China has on both the reality and the idea of Chinatowns. It will also high­light the contested nature of Chineseness as a category of diasporic identity in today’s global modernity. While my focus will be primarily on Sydney’s Chinatown. and Australia more generally, many of the processes encountered here apply in similar ways elsewhere in the world, illuminating the generic meanings associated with "Chinatown" as a symbolic and affective construct of diasporic Chineseness.