On the Same River: Sino-Southeast Asian Cinematic Exchanges in the Early PRC

Abstract The years between 1949 and 1966 were a key phase in modern Chinese cultural and diplomatic history, including cinema. One important axis of the PRC’s relations in Asia was with the new states of Southeast Asia, and cinema was an integral part of that relationship, expanding further in the years after the Bandung Conference in 1955. This article proposes adjustments to the conventional historiography of the period’s cultural relations: 1) Sino-Southeast Asian exchange in the immediate postcolonial period continued on the Communist and non-aligned side of the “Bamboo Curtain,” and was energised by new state links 2) The intra-Asian exchanges of the PRC were among the most important aspects of the new republic’s cultural diplomacy, a fact that must not be obscured among the academic tendency to focus on Sino-Soviet and Sino-Western contacts. This article therefore argues for the substantial role of cinema in both the nation-building projects of Southeast Asia and the cultural diplomacy of the early PRC.