The rise of China has reconstituted the regional identity in Asia as well as the lens through which understanding of China and self-understanding are no longer separate processes intellectually. China scholarship in South and Southeast Asia necessarily highlights meanings of encountering China that Western social sciences fail to reflect because academics in many places, being migrants, navigate and combine more than one civilization forces. With China in itself undergoing transformation, it is unlikely that one can simply speak of China without multiple qualifications of what one actually refers to. The book gathers authors who come from different scholarly traditions to reflect upon how the presentation of China in academic writings as well as think tank analyses can engender different identity possibilities. The book therefore complicates the category "China" to enable mutual empathy between everything that in one way or another relies on Chineseness as object or subject in accordance with the identity strategies of the China experts.

Introduction (Chih-yu Shih); Biographical Perspectives: Odysseys in China Watching: Comparative Look at the Philippines and Nepal (Tina S Clemente and Pamela G Combinido); Malaysia, Nanyang, and the "Inner China" of Three Hong Kong Scholars: Huang Chih-Lien, Chang Chak Yan and Kueh Yik Yaw (Ngeow Chow Bing); Indonesian Intellectuals' Experiences and China: Peranakan Benny Gatot Setiono in Balance between Indonesian Nationalism and Chineseness (Matsumura Toshio); A Long Journey from Chinese-language Newspaperman to Chinese Specialist: The Oral History from Two Senior Chinese Intellectuals in Thailand (Apiradee Charoensenee); National Perspectives: Sourcing Contemporary Vietnam's Intellectual History in Russia: Sciences, Arts, and Sinology (Cong Tuan DINH); Scholarship and Friendship: How Pakistani Academics View Pakistan-China Relations (Pervaiz Ali Mahesar); Vietnam's Composite Agenda on the Rise of China: Power, Peace, and Party (Quang Minh PHAM & Hoang Giang LE); Comparative Perspectives: China Studies in South and Southeast Asia: A Comparative Perspective through Sri Lanka and Thailand (Reena Marwah); Crafting a Bridge Role through Chinese Studies without Sinology: Lessons of South Asian Think Tanks for Singapore (Chih-yu Shih); South Asia's China Outlook: Reminiscing through the Lens of Bangladesh and Nepal (Sharad K Soni); External Perspectives: An American Perspective on Vietnam's Sinology (James A Anderson); Understanding the Vietnamese Scholars and Scholarship of China: The Chinese Perspectives (Yu Xiangdong & Cheng Sijia); Post-Chineseness, Sinology, and Vietnam's Approach to China (Chih-yu Shih); Appendix: On the Two Academic Styles of Sinology in Vietnam: From 1945 To Present Day (Doan Le Giang);