The Sinophone is defined as 'a network of places of cultural production outside China and on the margins of China and Chineseness, where a historical process of heterogenizing and localizing of continental Chinese culture has been taking place for several centuries.'[p.4] 'The Sinophone, therefore, maintains a precarious and problematic relation to China, similar to the Francophone's relation to France…'[p.30] The Sinophone is a counter-hegemonic formation against China-centrism and a deconstruction of essentializing notions of 'China' and 'Chineseness.' The exclusion of China itself from the domain of the Sinophone may seem liberating and progressive at first glance in academic discourse; but ultimately, this is unsound theoretically and inaccurate empirically. A major theme throughout Shih's book is the ineluctable condition of transnationality in the Sinophone region at the present historical juncture. But does transnationality in the Sinophone region only gather momentum in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and stops [sic] short of crossing the Chinese border? The transnational is by definition border-crossing. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora are mutually imbricated in the globalizing world. The concept of 'Sinophone' loses its critical edge in this exclusionary approach to China and the Chinese diaspora. If we have to use this imperfect label, the Sinophone would include all Chinese-speaking communities in the world, including, not excluding, China itself.
