Collaboration as an alternative mode of anti-colonialist resistance: A postcolonial rethinking of the Asia-West Binarism inscribed in the Asian theological movement (China)

Hong Kong is an important Asian city. However, she seems too rich economically, too Western culturally, and too secular religiously to attract the attention of the Asian theological movement. The reverse is also true---Hong Kong people seem rather indifferent to the Asian theological discourse. To Hong Kong people, Asian theologies speak only for the Third World, of which they do not think Hong Kong is a part.; This thesis tries to take up the role of a matchmaker, arguing that the decolonization experience of Hong Kong and the anti-colonial struggle of the Asian theological movement could find one another relevant. It contends that inscribed in both is a kind of anti-colonialist resistance, though the strategies take very different forms. With a postcolonial framework, in chapter one, I show that the anti-colonialist resistant strategy adopted by Hong Kong has been constituted out of the site of its colonial hybridity. The resistance thus takes the form of collaboration. On the other hand, the resistance as inscribed in the Asian theological movement is of the type of antagonism. The theological language that it relies on is thus binaristic. This is discussed in the second chapter. The discussion also proceeds to reveal that the adoption of this type of resistant strategy is historically contingent, and when this goes to its extreme, the movement can become as oppressive as its colonial master. This is argued in chapter three. In view of this, I endeavor to demonstrate that it is not necessary for theological language to be binaristic and resistance to be antagonistic in order to exert anti-colonialist resistance. Resistance can be in the form of collaboration, I argue this by relying on some postcolonial theories. For illustrative purpose, in the second part of the present effort, I cite the examples of Yaotsung Wu, Leichuan Wu and Tzuchen Chao. All these three are prominent Chinese Christian thinkers and social activists during the first several decades of this century. I show that inscribed in their collaboration with the Western missionaries in search for an importable/exportable Christianity and Christian theology there is a kind of formidable anti-colonialist resistance. This echoes the postcolonial experience as found in Hong Kong.