Impacts of Empire: British Chinese Writers and Their Writing Codes

Abstract

Britain's colonial history has exerted a profound and enduring influence on both world history and global literary production—a legacy from which British Chinese literature, situated at the intersection of British and world literature, is by no means exempt. This article critically examines the impact of British colonialism on British Chinese literature, focusing on three interrelated dimensions: the formation and composition of British Chinese writers, the shaping role of the imperial gaze and racial hierarchy rooted in British colonialism, and the resulting literary constraints that manifest as writing codes. It argues that the legacy of British colonialism fundamentally shaped the demographic and diasporic composition of British Chinese writers, leading to a rich diversity in both authorial backgrounds and literary output. Furthermore, the entrenched racial hierarchy of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, Britain's historiographic preference, and market-driven demands for ethnic exoticism—each intimately linked to Britain's imperial past—have decisively determined the thematic interests, genre preferences and stylistic characteristics of British Chinese writings. The complex identities and diasporic trajectories of British Chinese writers, shaped by layered experiences of migration and belonging, as well as the historically and politically entangled relationship between China and Britain, have collectively forged a distinct literary field. As such, British Chinese literature emerges as a distinctive and essential domain within the broader spectrum of world literature, continuously shaped and reshaped by the enduring legacies of empire.