Institutions and Divisions

Chinese commentators identify voluntary associations, newspapers, and schools as the backbone institutions of ethnic-Chinese society. In the conventional and official view, they are the ‘three pillars that support Chinese communities in alien settings’, their ‘core and epitome’, the secret of their strength and unity, the bridge by which they engage in cultural exchange with their non-Chinese hosts, the repository and transmitter of ‘traditional Chinese culture’, and the ‘emissaries promoting friendship and peace between the ancestral country and the government and people of the countries in which [ethnic Chinese] reside’.1 This chapter analyses the role played by these institutions in the United Kingdom. It also looks at community divisions and the changing face of Britain’s Chinatown over the years.