Tan Kah Kee's Awakening after the Failure of Chinese Businessmen due to the European War
During the European War,Malaya was in the Asian war zone and served as the rear area of the Allied war resources.The war required a large number of raw products,which once drove the Nanyang economy to a temporary prosperity.However,the Nanyang Chinese also invited a future disaster for themselves while they dispersed too much funds and manpower to concentrated a large number of raw materials for the supporting of wartime economy.Once there was an oversupply of rubber after the war,Chinese were lack of influence on the international market.And because of their inability to cope with losses,they were repeatedly oppressed by colonial policies that repeatedly passing the losses on to them,and suffered from repeated global recessions in the long term.As a result,Chinese were forced to accept foreign mergers and acquisitions.At the same time,Japan had expand its Southeast Asian territories since World War I,also victimized the Nanyang Chinese as their target of expulsion in commercial war,which further made the Nanyang Chinese economy worse.Even if national capitalists like Tan Kah Kee,who originally was a British subject who enjoyed colonial comprador relationship and were engaged in raw products on a large scale,tried to set up their own cross-border rubber products market,he still could not escape from colonial capitalism and eventually being identified as an important merging target by the British capital scheming plan.The reason why Tan Kah Kee's thoughts are valuable lies in his judgment of reality.He could objectively and emotionally experience the tragedy that national capital and workers and peasants were suffering,and thus chose the socialist path of criticizing colonial powers,reflecting on the capital system,and supporting the anti-colonial movements of Asian nations.
patriotismTan Kah Kee spiritNanyang Chinese businessmenanti-colonial campaign
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