Paper short abstract:

The People's Republic of China (PRC) still claims rights over the consular land which was originally bought by the Republic of China (ROC). This 'two Chinas' related issue thoroughly divides the Chinese in French Polynesia. Do they identify within a global geopolitical frame of reference?

Paper long abstract:

Undoubtedly the most divisive subject in the Chinese community in French Polynesia is the fate of the land belonging to the former Chinese consulate. After the first Chinese consul was appointed in 1945 to represent the Chinese residents in this French Overseas Territory, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) acquired a parcel of land on which to build a consular building in June 1946. The fate of the land was raised for the first time after the People's Republic of China (PRC) was recognised by De Gaulle in 1964. A year later, the French government decided to close the consulate. Meanwhile, the consul had set up a "committee to safeguard goods, furniture and property belonging to the Republic of China", made up of representatives from diverse French Polynesian Chinese associations. The civil Tribunal of Papeete later recognised this committee as the owner of the land (Judgment of 19 April 1978). However, that hasn't stopped the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ceaseless claims to rights over the former consulate. In 2001, President Jiang Zemin even paid a visit to Tahiti during which he reclaimed the property of the land in the name of the PRC.

This issue thoroughly divides members of the Chinese community in French Polynesia. That is why, despite the 1978 judgement, various projects for the use of the consular land - Franco-Chinese medical clinic, House of Confucius - have come to nothing. The systematic hostility between partisans and opponents of the restitution of this parcel of land to the PRC hampers any agreement.

The very fact that this community, composed of third and fourth generation descendants of Chinese immigrants, is still divided around questions that are relevant to the "two Chinas" problem (the PRC and the ROC in Taiwan) should lead us to characterize this community as diasporic. Indeed, its members appear to identify "at a distance", within a frame of reference that is not local but that pertains to the global geopolitical sphere. Yet a closer look at each side's motivation for taking these opposed positions reveals a much more complex reality. What is locally called "the affair of the consular land" enables to grasp the stakes underlying the diverging identifications of French citizens with Chinese origins.