In an effort to take advantage of Professor Wang's visit, as well as to stimulate a re-thinking of major scholarly issues, the CSCSD also sponsored a day-long 'free-for-all' to discuss how best to approach the study of the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and Australasia - including heated discussion of the propriety of the term 'diaspora'.

Keynote speakers were the writer and television journalist Annette Shun-wah, who discussed what it meant to be 'Chinese' in Australia today, as well as the noted academic Professor Carl Trocki, who recalled his own experiences as a student of the Nanyang Chinese. Both were followed, in the morning and afternoon respectively, by panel discussions.

A selection of papers have been published below.
For quick navigation click onto the author's name:

[John Docker]

[Carl Trocki]

[Christine Inglis]

[Michael Godley]

[Shen Yuan-fang]

[Hara Fujio]

[Eugene Tan]

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John Docker

Humanities Research Centre (HRC)

The Australian National University

Opening remarks of chair for Roundtable Discussion of Christine Inglis, Shen Yuan-fang, Jane Lydon, and Ien Ang.

It is with a feeling of honour and privilege in being asked to chair the following roundtable discussion that I participate today in this colloquium.

In cultural studies in the 1990s the surge of interest in the theory of diaspora cuts across the generalities and totalisings of some postcolonial theory, the postcolonial theory that dominated cultural studies in the 1980s and into the 1990s. As the American anthropologist James Clifford argues in a synoptic essay, now part of his book Routes, diaspora was once a term that referred primarily to the Jewish, Greek, and Armenian dispersions. It now refers as well to contemporary situations that invoke the experiences of the immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guest-worker, exile, and ethnic community. Diaspora usually presupposes a distance and separation from a society of origin that has affinities with exile, where there is a taboo on return, or its postponement to a remote future; though, Clifford feels, diaspora, in its emphasis on maintaining a collectivity, is different from exile, with its frequent individual focus. Diaspora, associated with minority and migrant populations, is involved with experiences of transnational identity, of memory and longing across space and time.

Clifford argues against the view that diasporas are based on an ideal-type, in particular, the Jewish diaspora as guiding model. (Actually, I think in recent postcolonial theory it is the Indian diaspora which has been regarded as normative.) Clifford suggests there is no single model, that diasporas exist and are defined in their individuality and diversity, as the term has been continuously adapted to new situations, for example, to the Chinese diasporas. Diasporas are shaped in specific mappings and histories; in memories and practices of collective identity over long stretches of time.

Diaspora defines itself against, or is in entangled tension with, the claims to autochthonous origins in a particular land and landscape of indigenous peoples. Spatially, diaspora collides with the claims to unity of the nation-state, for diaspora communities maintain allegiances and connections to a homeland or to dispersed communities elsewhere: diasporas continuously cross borders, continually invoke collective identifications and identities that traverse and go beyond the nation-state's desire for narratives of assimilation or self-sufficiency.

The accommodations of diaspora are an alternative to nationalist rebellion and violence. Clifford recognises, nevertheless, that diaspora communities are not necessarily anti-nationalist, indeed they may yearn for or actively support nationalist claims to a homeland somewhere else.

Within a nation-state, however, diasporas are, Clifford argues, necessarily cosmopolitan, combining skills in community maintenance, adaptation, accommodation, with resistance to cooption, assimilation, discrimination, exploitation and exclusion. Diaspora embraces the arts of exile and coexistence, a people maintaining its own distinctiveness in relations of daily converse with others. Diasporas are always gendered, though there is a tendency to talk of travel and displacement in unmarked ways, thus assuming male experience as normative, displacing the specificity of male and female inflections. Experiences of loss, marginality, and exile, mediated by class, are in tension with attachments to visions of other places, other times, ties to forces that surpass the nation-state, like Christianity or Islam or Judaism, or a sense of being African or Chinese as well as English or American - or, we can add, Australian. Diasporas constitute themselves in double or multiple consciousness, of being both here and there, now and then, a state of inbetweenness in relation to a perhaps distant mythological origin and an eschatalogical or messianic future.

In diasporic consciousness, time is a substance, to borrow a term from Spinoza: a substance thick with idea, desire, and fear.

Time is contrapuntal (Clifford calling here on a phrase from Edward Said's well-known essay `Reflections on Exile'), or syncopated, similar to Walter Benjamin's notion of time crossed by prophecy, by messianic visions. In syncopated or discrepant time, belying the homogeneous time of the nation-state's narrative of progress, effaced stories are recovered, different futures are imagined. Diasporas live in the tension of loss and hope, old and new, tradition and novel possibilities, the dystopic and utopic. Diasporas exist in the shadow of suspicion and vulnerability, disaster and cruelty.

In the phenomenology of diaspora, then, displacement and exile can be suffering and loss, and opportunity for adventures of identity and self-fashioning. Diasporas can experience relations of hierarchy, power, and exploitation within themselves. Diasporas can be influenced by societies of origin to perform ideological and political work on their behalf. Diaspora communities can be subject to desires for power by those who wish to control them, with attendant internal relations of majority and minority, centre and margin, othering and exclusion.

The experiences of diaspora have complex relations with the history of colonialism. Since the tumultuous events of 1492, European colonists have exhibited a curious contract with history, that wherever they go in the world, and despite the little time they may have been in a new place, and despite themselves having often been victims of colonial contempt and violence, they are not aliens or outsiders from distant continents but the immediate rightful settlers at home in this their new home with the confidence to do immediate injury to those already there or not from Europe or not from the right part of Europe: people who can be immediately designated by the new settlers as aliens or outsiders or not belonging. In these terms diasporic communities can experience racist hostility, disdain and contempt from a majority society. But in the history of settler-colonies diasporic communities - whether European or Asian - are migrants in a more general sense just like the migrants of the majority society; that is, they are colonizers in relation to the colonised and they can be perceived by the colonised as another set of invaders, not brothers and sisters on the margins, not the fellow oppressed and dispossessed. Yet they can also be perceived as fellow subjects of racism, creating commonalities, the attraction of outsiders to fellow outsiders.

The poetics of diaspora are indeed intricate and tortured.

Copyright © 1999, John Docker.

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Christine Inglis

University of Sydney

(Note: the following paper has been prepared as informal comments. A more detailed discussion of the Chinese in Australia by Dr Inglis is available in her entry on the Chinese in Australia in The Encycopedia of the Chinese Overseas edited by Lynn Pan, 1998/1999).

My comments today actually revolve around questioning the appropriateness of the terms in the title of this colloquium i.e. community & diaspora. Inherently, I would argue that each is a 'problematic' term and that their relevance ultimately depends on their relevance to the 'subjective' experience of the Chinese population. This experience itself is very much influenced by external factors both in Australia and overseas. For the Chinese this may be the PRC or the various other nations, and sections of the China 'core' such as Taiwan and Hong Kong with which Australia's Chinese population has connections. How do other groups such as governments, the local population where they live and academics view the Chinese?

Each of the terms can be seen in a variety of ways:

a) a means of theorising and conceptualising a specific set of phenomenon including the settlement, permanency and identity of the Chinese population in Australia

b) or, as a reflection of specific fashionable modes of analysis/ paradigms-and the term 'diaspora' -with its 'rediscovery' is certainly a good example of the latter. With globalisation there has been a massive increase in the nature and forms of international movement. The technology facilitating contacts furthermore has allowed virtually continuous contacts in spite of space, whether by telephone, internet, flying, video or photos. I.e. whereas for Australia (and many other places) migration once meant dislocation from the settled home for very long periods of time, now the 'absences' are very brief. These have been important considerations leading to an interest in issues such as identity in cultural studies.

c) or, again, as a 'policy' relevant issue i.e. with political implications-such as has been highlighted by the Hanson debate with its focus on issues including 'loyalty' and 'identity'

I am not going to get involved in listing definitions such as the 74 definitions of the term 'community'. These reflect the very different theoretical contexts in which it is used. As to the focus on whether it concerns primordial ties as distinct from whether it is based on associations or constructed via group membership- not to mention other forms based on personal social networks. Rather, I want to highlight certain broad phases or "periods" in the history of Chinese settlement in Australia and, if there is time, comment about their implications for the title of today's theme.

It is useful to distinguish three phases in the settlement of the Chinese in Australia. These periods are not clear-cut and often there is a flow of experiences, practices and patterns of movement from one into the other. However, they do represent certain clusters sufficiently similar to warrant attention.

Phase 1- Sojourner settlement characterises much of the 19th century when large numbers of men came-either direct from China or the Nanyang seeking their fortune in Australia- New Gold Mountain. There was often a very high turnover rate-through death or departure-more often poor than wealthy. The absence of Chinese women in the migration meant that few married here and those that did typically married non-Chinese women. Single Scotswomen seemed to have been a major source of spouses but, also, relationships existed with Aboriginal women, although the lack of legal documentation prevents an accurate picture of their prevalence. The Chinese presence in Australia generated immense hostility and a range of discriminatory laws and measures making immigration, finding work and habitation difficult. Well before Federation and the introduction of the White Australia Policy the total numbers of Chinese had declined significantly from the heady days of the Gold Rushes with the last major ones in Qld in the 1870s. The Depression of the 1890s and the significantly reduced economic opportunities were important contributors to this outcome.

An unwelcoming Australia was not the only reason for their departures. China took a very negative view towards emigration which was legally restricted until after the mid-century and also, socially & culturally disparaged. This is perhaps best epitomised by the desire to be buried 'at home'. Not all the Chinese sojourners achieved this as evidenced by the range of Chinese buried in Australia.

However, can we say, following the title of this workshop, that they were really part of a 'Chinese Community'?

There were Associations set up for the Chinese population-to assist and meet their various needs. There were also the beginnings of an Australian born population-this is the group which dominates in the 2nd phase. Within the population there were also major divisions and conflicts based on linguistic and political differences as well as of other types.

It is extremely difficult, I would argue, to characterise the Chinese population in Australia in the 19th century as constituting a 'community' with all the implications which actually follow from this of being settled and with permanence and the emergence of their own locally developed institutions and sense of identity. True, there were many of the material attributes that go with a 'community' in a spatial sense-shops, temples. But their presence often concealed the movement through them of a predominantly itinerant population-certainly one which, in the concept of a diaspora as a group with strong ties to a homeland to which they planned to return, was a more accurate description.

In Phase 2-the Australian born Chinese (the 'ABCs' to give them their popular name) population grew in numbers which suggested a much more 'settled' population-so often associated with constituting a 'community'. Still experiencing a range of discrimination, Australia and aspects of Australian society and culture were very much part of their upbringing-not surprisingly given intermarraige-debutante balls, Aussie rules football teams etc. Still there were links maintained with China: sometimes children sent back for schooling or for marriage partners; the introduction of relatives and others to work in their businesses; political developments in China, especially after the Japanese invasions led to the growth of involvement in extra national activities such as the KMT and anti-Japanese fund-raising activities.

Were there different groups within the Chinese population involved in both the apparently 'local'/ 'community' activities and the more overtly 'diasporic' activities? I don't know but I have the impression that the answer was often 'no'. An important dimension of the ability to set up a family in Australia, certainly in non-Aboriginal areas, was wealth. This meant that often the wealthy in the community, who worked in conjunction with non-Chinese authorities and groups, also constituted the 'leadership' group within the Chinese population. It was these groups where issues of the home village were being amalgamated into wider concerns about the home 'nation' in the first half of the 20th century.

Phase 3. The new arrivals and the creation of diversity.

Until the 1960s the old ABC community continued, albeit as a community which increasingly was establishing itself as a well-educated, highly skilled population of professionals and others. With third and fourth generations growing up with relatively few links to China itself after 1949, and the deaths of many of the older survivors from the 19^th century, even the surviving material signs of a distinctive Chinese presence were disappearing. Clubs, shops, and temples were closing or falling into disrepair. Even the presence of substantial numbers of ethnic Chinese students from the Nanyang had relatively little impact. Perhaps because many of those who stayed in Australia also married non-Chinese Australians. Considering the Chinese population in the mid-1960s, I seem to remember forecasting the demise of a distinctive Chinese community based on formal associations or spatial groupings-with community reduced largely to a set of social networks which were often very strong and effective.

All of this was to change abruptly with the wittling down and final demise of the White Australia policy AND the increased interest in immigration by those in Asia. Many of those interested were, of course, ethnic Chinese whose minority status was an important impetus for movement at a time when increasing economic and educational resources meant they could meet the requirements of Australian immigration categories. The number of Chinese immigrating from Southeast Asia during the 1970s and subsequently was an important element distinguishing the Australian experience from that of North America where 'Chinese' migration has typically involved Chinese from the 'China core' rather than its periphery.

Just as Australia more generally since the 2nd World War has experienced diverse national 'waves' of migrants, this has also been the case among the ethnic Chinese population. Even in 1986, the presence of 'core' Chinese in Australia was relatively limited. Since, apart from those from Indo-China who often experienced difficulties in English, many of the post-war arrivals were often English speaking, well-educated, often in Australia, there seems to have been little that was problematic in their relations with the existing ABC population, even if there was a tendency to express surprise at the limited Chinese language expertise of the ABC group.

By 1999, the situation has changed considerably, not only have large numbers of individuals come from Hong Kong, Taiwan but, especially, the PRC. These individuals bring with them very different backgrounds and experiences. This was very evident in a recent study David Ip, Chung Tong Wu and I did on a number of recently arrived Asian groups. The patterns of responses from the 3 Chinese groups were very often more distinct than those involving the Vietnamese, Philippine or Japan born groups. An important dimension to explain these differences is not really class/educational level per se since many were very much 'middle class'. Rather, it relates to their country of origin.

Given the diversity within the ethnic Chinese population it is, I argue, open to question as to the extent to which we actually have A Chinese Community [even without going to the US issue of do we have 'an Asian Community']. True, many young Australian born Chinese are extremely interested in rediscovering their 'roots' and family history and background which parents had often sought to submerge in the moves to be accepted, via cultural assimilation even if structural assimilation was more difficult to achieve. There also is an immense set of external pressures pushing individuals and groups together. But even the reemergence of public prejudice and discrimination in the form of Pauline Hanson has been unable to generate a single Chinese 'voice' or umbrella association. Positive pressures relating to the potential to participate in the Asian [read Chinese in many accounts] economic miracle have now declined since the beginnings of the economic crisis.

While such pressures for coming together may have declined, the presence of new immigrants, often with backgrounds in the arts and the areas of knowledge 'construction' may be seen as creating the preconditions for a more unifying form of symbolic experiences for either a 'Chinese' community and/or sections of a 'Chinese ' diaspora. Yet, it is unclear how much either possibility is occurring.

Divisions within the different segments of the ethnic Chinese population continue albeit in new forms. Dialect differences between groups of different Cantonese speakers, so prevalent in the 1800s have now given way in importance to differences between those with a knowledge of Mandarin and Cantonese, not to mention those fluent only in English. In Sydney, over the last decade, Mandarin has made major inroads with the influx of arrivals from the PRC and Taiwan. However, even Chinese community language classes catering for children from Cantonese speaking families are increasingly likely to offer Mandarin, rather than Cantonese classes, to satisfy parental demands.

Despite this symbolic preference for Mandarin, as indicated in the language used for opening important occasions which a few years ago would have used Cantonese, this in itself does not appear as a basis which can unite the Chinese population. Distinct residential patterns and social networks are merely some expressions of the differences separating groups in these different birthplace populations. Strongly held feelings, often involving feelings of superiority, exploitation, fear of loss of status and position and other feelings in a complex but powerful mix divide many groups in the Chinese population.

If these individuals can only by some fairly gross sense of homogenisation be linked together into a single community, what does it say about their ability to constitute a diaspora? Is it, for example, necessary that a diaspora is based on a 'unified' EXTERNAL group [a group which the 'home' government/ society can activate and 'use' for domestic economic and political purposes-as China has done in the past and as, also, have various now restored groups in parts of Eastern Europe]? Is it instead that the diaspora is very much an individual entity with each individual linked to it on a personal basis via either actual social relations or, at a greater distance, some sense of symbolic identity? If the latter is the case, it then raises questions about the nature of ties of this kind maintained by the ethnic Chinese in Australia. Again, I have no hard data on this, but I suggest it could well be the case that for many their major overseas ties are not with 'China' per se but with some other country such as Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia.

Copyright © 1999, Christine Inglis.

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Shen Yuan-fang

The Australian National University

Sojourners or Settlers? Early Chinese Immigrants in Australia

In these 15 minutes, I would like to focus on the self-representations of Chinese immigrants who came to Australia in the 19th century. The question I wish to pose is: 'Are the early Chinese immigrants sojourners or settlers?' The primary sources I am going to use are autobiographical writings by early Chinese immigrants. Specifically, I will discuss, briefly, three autobiographical texts: Jong Ah Sing's diary, which covers the years from 1866 to 1872, Taam Sze Pui's autobiography, My Life and Work, published in 1925, and Tam Sie's unpublished memoir, which was written in the 1920s.

A close reading of these texts reveals that these early Chinese in Australia did not perceive themselves as sojourners, at least at the time they created their life stories. Instead, they represented themselves as either pioneers or settlers. Jong Ah Sing, for instance, seems to portray himself as a Chinese settler. His sense of being a settler is conveyed by the events he chose to record in his diary and the language he chose to recount his lived experiences. The contents of his diary include the author's recollections of life on the goldfields at Avoca, Cochrane and Dunolly and his experiences in Dunolly Jail and hospital after being wounded in a knife fight. The diary also contains plans of Chinese tents and gardens at Avoca; a plan of Dunolly hospital; a map of the diggings near Cochrane and a map of Dunolly and Cochrane townships. The language Jong Ah Sing chose to record his experience is English. The contents of the diary and the language the author chose to use argue strongly that Jong Ah Sing perceived himself as a settler. If not, why did he bother to map out plans of Chinese tents and gardens at Avoca, of Dunolly hospital and Donolly and Cochrane townships? Why was he writing in broken English (English words and expressions but no apparent grammatical structure) rather than in Chinese, his mother tongue?

Both Taam Sze Pui and Tam Sie represent themselves as Chinese pioneers, equals of (rather than superior or inferior to) their European counterparts, whose long, painful and even desperate struggle with the strange new world for the uncreated future offers occasions not only to test their Chineseness but to consider the viability of transplanting their culture to another land. In Tam Sie's memoir, for instance, the author juxtaposes himself with some very old European pioneers at Tiraroo in Queenslan. Although he worked as a contractor for a couple of British colonisers, Tam Sie sees the relationship between himself and the Britishers as predominantly that of business partners. His text recounts, or constructs, several examples to suggest this kind of relationship.

Tam Sie, his text also demonstrates, shares with his European counterparts not only business, but also certain politico-economic rights, or power. 'In 1901', Tam states,

a Fly began to cause trouble to the Bananas, and Melbourne and Sydney refused to accept a shipment of Fruit. The outcome of this was an appeal from the gardeners to the Department of Agricultural and Stock, requesting the Department to appoint an Inspector to examine the Fruit before it left the District, the Department decided to do something, and they wired me to proceed to Brisbane and discuss the matter of appointing an Inspector. On my arrival in Brisbane I met the Officers of the Department, after some discussion, and on my recommendation Mr W. W. Watt was appointed Fruit Inspector for the Geraldton District, and this position he still holds in 1930. (7)

In this passage, the significance of the narrating 'I' to the colonial government is fully conveyed through the expressions 'they wired me' and 'on my recommendation'. The 'I' not only shares responsibility for the economic benefit of the colony with the colonial authorities, but also has a certain power over personnel appointment. The authorities' acceptance of 'my recommendation' implies recognition and respect of the writer ('I') by the colonial authorities, thus confirming his ('my') outstanding pioneering status. By representing himself in this way, Tam Sie claims control over the image of himself, and conveys to his reader the meaning of self as interpreted by himself.

Tam Sie's sense of being a pioneer is also expressed in his describing himself as a participant in the development of Australia. In 1903, Tam writes, 'I spent [a] considerable amount of money in experimenting as to the suitability of the Climate as to the growing of Rubber and Cotton, on a Farm I had about twelve miles out on the Nerada line' (7). In 1908, the published text continues,

I arranged with the council to build about 8 miles of wooden tram line to connect up with the council's main line, from Harvie and Casey's selection, mainly for the purpose of bringing the bananas to town for shipment. The council were to repay me at a later date. This line cost me in hard cash the sum of 1,500 pounds and, I may add, the council has never repaid me to this day.1

In both of these anecdotes, the narrator 'I' is depicted as an actor, a contributor to the development of this new country. Indeed, Tam's frontier experience involves accumulation of wealth. For instance, his business turnover in 1898, he reveals, was over £3,000 pounds per month (7). But what makes him significant, his narrative suggests, is his contribution to this land, which has earned him respect from both the Chinese and the non-Chinese communities, especially from the latter, and won trust from the colonial authorities.

These anecdotes, as recounted by the author, reflect the autobiographer's own sense, or own interpretation, of his pivotal role in building this country and his value to colonialists. By emphasising his own worth, Tam Sie consciously, or unconsciously, places himself in the same position as his European Other, thus establishing a new cultural identity: Chinese as Australian pioneers. This kind of representation contrasts sharply with the enduring 'aliens' or 'sojourners' images of the Chinese abroad in general and the 'Chinaman' image in Australia in particular.² Tam Sie's self-image in fact offers a counter-balance to Australian stereotypes about Chinese. It also differs from the politically or ideologically orientated self-representations of some later Chinese Australians who, while depicting themselves as victims of the White Australia policy, relegate their European Other to the status of 'barbarians' or 'foreigners'.

Taam Sze Pui's narrative constructs him as a pioneer by exploring his self through its relation with colonial Australia where hardships coincided with potential threats from the aborigines, whom his Chinese text calls yeren (savage). A large part of Taam's narrative (pp. 10-26) focuses on depicting the New World as an uncultivated realm, or in Chinese chunüdi (virgin land). This land, which, as 'virgin', appears to beg for the benefit of both Eastern and Western penetration and mastery, consists, as Taam describes it, of steep cliffs, torrential streams, great plains and high mountains, without roads, shelter, and lacking in food. Facing such a primitive world, every step forward, Taam wishes his readers to believe, is a trial, embodying great difficulties. One paragraph of his narrative particularly vividly portrays the landscape of colonial Australia against which hardships are suffered:

Proceeding to the 72nd mile, we reached a place called 'The Foot of the Great Mountain'. Behold, before us was a great mountain with the peak projecting high up into the clouds and whose height was beyond my calculation. We made our climb at a slow pace and zigzagged down on the other side. Inquiring of some companions I was told we had travelled eighty two miles. Completely worn out and weary, some discarded part of their supplies to lighten the burden, and some were in tears. Our limbs were numb; our shoulders were bruised and bleeding. When attempts were made to change our clothes, it was necessary to forcibly pull the clothes from the coagulated blood, the pain was unendurable. (15-16)

In this passage, the 'Great Mountain', whose height is 'beyond my calculation', serves as a background against which pioneering nature is described. And expressions such as 'bruised and bleeding' shoulders, 'coagulated blood' indicate what kind of hardships Taam has suffered as a pioneer. Because of the primitive nature of the New World, it 'took us fully three months to cover one hundred miles in our journey', the narrator relates (17).

Apart from hardships caused by the land, Taam's narrative details the danger to the Chinese colonisers posed by the 'barbaric natives'. 'Early on the third morning', the author writes,

we resumed our journey. Walking sometimes slowly and sometimes briskly, we kept close to the group not daring to detach ourselves lest we should be set upon by the black natives and probably be devoured by them. The fear of such a fate kept one and all together and no one dared tarry behind to rest or to regain his breath. (12)

In this quote, the indigenous people are imagined as cannibals, whose existence presents great threats to the colonisers. Aboriginals in this case are viewed by Taam as unintelligible and irrelevant impediments to his frontier experience. This kind of representation suggests Aboriginal resistance to the colonisers' invasion of this land on the one hand, and indicates the existence of racial prejudices against the Aborigines on the other. By representing the 'black natives' as 'savage', unintelligible and irrelevant, the colonisers' exercise of power over the land and its people is justified.

Taam Sze Pui's sense of being a pioneer is also conveyed in the fact that he and the white colonisers, the Englishmen, share the same responses to the uncultivated land, its 'barrenness' and wilderness, and to the development of it. 'In March 1882', Taam writes,

some Englishmen advertised for labourers to go to Johnson River Valley to develop the barren land into a sugar plantation. Mr. Lum Leung and I immediately set out for Cooktown together and accepted the call. We reached Johnson River on April the 5th. Such barrenness met our gaze that we felt we were dwelling in an age of universal wilderness. There were neither roads nor means of navigation or transportation. (27)

Here, a sense of the primitive nature of the world is vividly conveyed through the word 'barren' and 'our' reaction, 'gaze', to this barrenness. Consequently, it is 'we' who learned to 'use wood to make boats to navigate the harbour and to get our provisions' and laboured to clear the thorns and cut the shrubs' (28). There was no lack of danger and adventure during the frontier expansion days. 'At one time', Taam Sze Pui recalls,

while I was chopping a big tree, it suddenly fell on me. It was a miracle that some branches supported it well above the ground and thus I was saved from being crushed to death. (28)

It is his labour and the danger involved in the cultivation of wilderness, we are given to understand, that accord him rights to this land.

By constructing themselves as pioneers, these early Chinese immigrants recreate their own histories.

Endnotes
1. This episode is from the published version of Tam Sie's memoir. The manuscript of Tam Sie's memoir kept in the Mitchell Library goes to 1906, while this version records Tam's life until 1918.[Return to text]

2. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese abroad have been viewed by host countries as 'aliens' or 'sojourners'. L. Ling-chi Wang, writing of 'Roots and the Changing Identity of the Chinese in the United States', notes that words 'most frequently used to characterise Chinese living in countries outside China include foreigners, outsiders, strangers, pariahs, outcasts, visitors, temporary residents, and nonnatives'. In the predominantly Christian countries of Europe, Australia, and the Americas, he adds, 'the sojourner image is reinforced by the perception that Chinese are `heathen' and onassimilable.' ('Roots and the Changing Identity of the Chinese in the United States' in The Living Tree, 198). [Return to text]

Copyright © 1999, Shen Yuan-fang.

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Carl Trocki

Queensland University of Technology

The Fall and Rise of the Study of the Chinese in Southeast Asia

Introduction
I would like to do three things with this discussion. The first is to look briefly at the history of the fall and rise of Overseas Chinese studies. The second will be to discuss some of the problems that have concerned me in my own work regarding periodization. The third is to discuss the continuing problem of myths, cliches and stereotypes.

First of all, while I realize that Professor Wang Gungwu took us over some of this ground in his introductory speech last night, I would like to revisit some of his points briefly from my own perspective. I was introduced to the situation of Chinese in Southeast Asia in 1964 when I was teaching in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah as a Peace Corps volunteer. I spent a year teaching English to a class of sixth graders. The school was associated with the Basel Missionary group and was supported by a congregation of Hakka Chinese, most of whom traced their roots to a group which had migrated from China around the turn of the century. It also received significant financial aid from a Presbyterian group in the United States and from the Sabah state government.

One of the costs of taking state aid was the admission of non-Christians and non-Chinese to some of the classes. The `Bridge Class', which I taught, was one of these. The students had already passed their Primary Six exams in Malay and Chinese medium and were trying to make the transition to English-medium Secondary One. They spent a year with me to learn enough English to pass the Primary Six English exam and in the process taught me most of what I would ever know about ethnic relations in Malaysia. The teachers and the school community with whom I lived also gave me the opportunity to understand the importance of speech groups and community networks in Southeast Asian Chinese communities. The recent establishment of Malaysia, incorporating Sabah and Sarawak, also presented an opportunity to observe the first stresses and events of the nation-building process.

As I began to get my first tastes and experiences of Southeast Asia, the academic enterprise of studying the Chinese in Southeast Asia seemed to be an important presence area of study. The post-war years had seen the first appearance of a number of serious scholarly works by historians, anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists on the Overseas Chinese, as they were then called. Victor Purcell, who had written his first edition of The Chinese in Southeast Asia, (Purcell 1965) had just published the second edition of the book. The years before the mid-1960s had also seen important contributions by Wong Lin Ken, Maurice Freedman, G. William Skinner, Edgar Wickberg, Lea Williams, Mary Somers- Heidhues, and Wang Gungwu, (Freedman, 1960; Somers, 1965; Wang, 1959; Wong 1960; Wong 1964-5; Wickberg 1965; Wong 1965) to name just a few. When I began graduate study in Southeast Asian history a few years later, I initially felt that this would be an interesting area to begin my studies.

Within those few years, however, things both inside Southeast Asia and in the academic world underwent some significant changes that were to affect my plans. By the late 1960s, studies of the Chinese in Southeast Asia were no longer in fashion. With few exceptions, the scholars who had made so many contributions in the previous two decades had ceased to publish in the field. Some, like G. William Skinner, whose work on the Chinese in Thailand remains a classic study, had left Cornell and gone to the University of California at Berkeley and had also shifted to the study of the `real' Chinese inside of China. Others died or went on to other things and by the early 1970s, only Wang Gungwu here in Australia and Leo Suryadinata in Singapore continued to publish studies on the Chinese in Southeast Asia. (Suryadinata, 1978)

For myself, already having embarked upon a study involving the Chinese settlements in nineteenth-century Johor, there was little I could do to reverse or change course, had I even realized the state of the field, which I did not. It was not until I had completed my work that I began to understand how marginal it seemed to what others were doing then. It seemed a blessing at that point that I had followed the advice of my supervisor, O.W. Wolters, and abandoned the opportunity to take a break from graduate work at Cornell and go to Taiwan and spend a year improving my Chinese. He urged me to focus on my Southeast Asian language and to forget the Chinese. At the time, his understanding of the field was far more astute than my own. The focus of Southeast Asian studies had shifted more firmly than ever to the consideration of the phenomenon of nationalism, the importance of indigenous peoples and cultures, and to the controversies over the Vietnam War. It was thus fortunate for me that I could frame my dissertation research not so much as on the Chinese, but on the state of Johor and on its political economy during the nineteenth century. The experience also gave me the opportunity to examine more closely the historical relations that had existed between Malays and Chinese.

The reason for the falling off in studies of the Chinese seem to have been in the world conditions of the time. New nations in Southeast Asia were emerging from colonial rule, or were still fighting it off in some way or other. The influence of Cold War priorities, while still strong had reached a point where the locally-resident Chinese were no longer seen as a threat. In Indonesia, the PKI had been wiped out in the massacres of 1965 and 1966, and along with the party a large number of Chinese were also killed. The Malayan Emergency had seen the destruction of the Malayan Communist Party and essentially clouded the political horizon of left-wing Chinese activism in Malaysia. In 1969, at attempt to assert a measure of a Chinese identity was met with rioting and attacks by Malay mobs. The Burmese government had expelled most of the Chinese in the metropolitan areas of Burma for fear of influences coming from Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Academic inquiry that would call attention to Chinese identity was generally discouraged.

Even in Singapore, where one might have expected some level of interest in Southeast Asian Chinese affairs to survive, every tendency seemed to go in the opposite direction. Parents were allowed to select the language in which they wished their children to be educated and they largely chose English. Within a decade after 1965, Chinese-medium schools were attracting only a small proportion of the students and English-medium enrollments were burgeoning. Chinese-medium middle schools, once a hotbed of anti-government agitation, had all but disappeared and Nanyang University was merged with the University of Singapore to form the National University of Singapore (NUS), but in the process the former was virtually disestablished. The government of Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party did not, at the time, see these as negative developments. In fact, the whole temper of the era was to de-emphasize the Chinese identity as much as possible.

Despite these discouraging signs, I remained interested, for my own reasons in the study of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. I soon came to realize that there were not many who felt as I did. In 1974, I attempted to solicit support from a number of granting agencies for a workshop or conference on the Southeast Asian Chinese. While I admit my shortcomings as a grantsman, this project in particular attracted very little interest. Looking back, I can see I was not completely alone, but that my sense of isolation was shared by others such as Michael Godley, Lee Poh Ping and Cheah Boon Kheng, (Lee 1978; Godley 1981; Cheah 1983) who like me, after publishing a book on the Chinese in Southeast Asia found that few were ready to encourage them to undertake a second research project in that topic area. Thus, during the 1970s and early 1980s I felt there were few besides myself, Jennifer Cushman (Cushman 1986; Cushman 1989; Cushman 1993), Professor Wang (Wang 1988) and Peter Gosling and Linda Lim (Gosling 1983) who were continuing to research and publish on the Chinese in Southeast Asia.

By the mid-1980s things had begun to turn around. Both within the field and in the world at large, interest in the Southeast Asian Chinese was being rekindled. I found it possible to get a small grant to launch my study of the Singapore revenue farms which ultimately led to my second book. Linda Lim and Peter Gosling published their important anthology on the Chinese in Southeast Asia. As that developed Jennifer Cushman, John Butcher and a few other scholars were moving in similar directions. In 1988, Cushman was able to put together a conference on revenue farming in Southeast Asia which, in many respects, strikes me as an important landmark in the reawakening of academic work on the Chinese in Southeast Asia. This led to the publication of a volume by John Butcher and Howard Dick after Jennifer's untimely death. (Butcher 1993)

While I would like to think that scholarly interest and the quality of our work alerted others to the importance of these Chinese, it seems clear that changes in the world around us were of far greater significance. The rise and fall of areas of interest in academic life were only a reflection of the larger historical forces at play in the world around us. Emerging nationalisms in Southeast Asia and the total withdrawal and isolation of China itself were major factors in leading scholars away from the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. By the late 1980s, the rapid economic advances made first by Japan and then by the so-called New Industrial Countries (NICs), seemed to herald a new age of Asian development. Moreover, the economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping in China had led to a complete reversal of attitudes about the Chinese, both in China and outside of it. Many now began to believe that the twenty-first century would be an age influenced largely by the Chinese. It was also clear that the rapid development of the economies of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia was in no small part made possible by the activities of their Chinese citizens.

By the early 1990s the bookshops were filling up with studies of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. The Chinese were now seen as the wave of the future. They were the creators of the economic boom and their business acumen, their entrepreneurship and their relationship to China now all became matters of vital interest. As I began to read some of these studies, typified by Sterling Seagrave' Lords of the Rim, I discovered that not only had many of them not been inspired by the recent researches of my colleagues and myself, but that many of them seemed entirely innocent of the recent scholarly work, particularly that done on the history of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. (Seagrave, 1995)

The manner in which the field had changed set me thinking about priorities and influences and a couple of thoughts began to form. One was that we need to look more carefully at the `big changes' in history. By this I mean those `blind historical forces' that no one can really control with any degree of predictability. Things like the weather, long-term population growth, major migrations, extensive economic growth or structural economic change can certainly be affected by human activity, but can rarely be directed by conscious human intention. As Karl Marx said, we make our own history, but not as we like. We also need to look carefully at questions of chronology and causation. For the historian, these are tied issues. Cause and effect occur, we assume, in chronological order. These experiences remind me that the migration and development of the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia is, in fact, one of these long-term trends over which we have no control. It is one of those `blind historical forces' and it has been largely driven by other blind forces. Our scholarship is often merely a response to our perception of these forces. Thus, as the Southeast Asian Chinese have once more emerged as an important area of study, we have lots of books about them, but no guarantee that the authors of these new books have mastered the newly discovered historical background that has been pieced together over the past couple of decades.

It has struck me that many of the old cliches about the Chinese in Southeast Asia, long ago dismissed as `orientalist', `colonialist' and simply as racist by scholars, have re-emerged as elements of the culturist or essentialist explanations for the economic success of the overseas Chinese. I went to a conference on Chinese business history last year in Kuala Lumpur and we spent the entire morning of the first day of the conference debunking a laundry list of stenotypes and cliches such as: Chinese never assimilate and are therefore unreliable as citizens of other states; Chinese are secretive, devious and stubborn; Chinese are good at making money and are natural-born businessmen and traders; Chinese naturally form organizations and combinations; Chinese are loyal to their families and always build their businesses and enterprises around the family; Chinese have a natural tendency to create networks; Chinese are motivated by personal relationships and guanxi and not by `objective' criteria. To this list we added some colonial perceptions from the nineteenth century: Chinese are physical cowards; Chinese are addicted to gambling and opium-smoking; Chinese are hard-working; and Chinese are unfit for governmental positions because they are inherently corrupt. It was refreshing to see these issues systematically killed off at the beginning of the session. It was, however, quite disappointing to hear some of our colleagues who had sat through that session immediately fall back upon those stereotypes when they read their papers. Clearly these people had not read the things written by the historians and anthropologists over the past two decades.

One thing that I found lacking in much of this work and in much of the contemporary writing on the Chinese in Southeast Asia was the absence of a historical dimension in their work. In particular, there seemed to be no real sense of `blind historical forces' which had shaped the diaspora over time. Nor was there a clear sense that there had been a process of change. Chinese were always making money and Chinese were always outsiders. I feel that the work of a number of scholars have, in a cumulative sense, supplied us with enough data to rework and re-evaluate much of the accepted picture of the history of the diaspora. If I may recycle a few other stereotypes, it may be that we are now in a position to debunk these, or at least to understand them in a different light.

One cliche about the history of the Chinese in Southeast Asia is that they were `brought by the colonial powers'. While it is true that many Chinese did serve colonial powers, it is arguable that any more or less did so than did indigenous peoples. But, that is a relatively small matter. Certainly, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thousands of Chinese were coming to Southeast Asia, often under contract, to work in European enterprises, but was it always that way?

It seems to me that we now have information to understand the early stages of the migration in a new way. Tony Reid (Reid 1995), Prof. Wang Gungwu, Jennifer Cushman, Mike Godley, Leonard Blussé, Claudine Salmon, myself and several others have rearranged the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A couple of things that emerge from their studies, particularly clear in Reid's Settlers and Soujourners (Reid, 1996) and in the Autonomous States (Reid, 1997) volumes is that there was considerable movement of Chinese into Southeast Asia well before colonialism got much of a hold on the region.

Elsewhere, I have offered a chronology of the migration in which it is clear that the eighteenth century was a crucial watershed (Trocki 1990). It seems to me that the character of China's overall relationship with Southeast Asia changed dramatically between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the end of the nineteenth. At the beginning of this period, China was still one of the leading economic and cultural forces in the world. In terms of international trade, China had a very favourable balance of payments. Chinese goods, mostly the type of value-added manufactures that all nations aspire to export, were in demand throughout the world and especially in Southeast Asia. This meant that Southeast Asians as well as Europeans trading in Southeast Asia were always willing to pay in silver for Chinese exports. While exact figures for China are difficult to establish, Dutch scholars have calculated that Spanish shipments via the annual galleons from Acapulco to Manila over three hundred years, totalled around 400 million guilders, and Dutch exports were even greater. For just over 200 years, the period between 1570 and 1780, they sent 590 million guilders to Asia.¹

The constant importation of Asian products into the European markets caused a permanent drain of gold and silver from Europe towards Asia. Only a small trickle of precious metals must have re-entered Europe...The greater part of gold and silver remained in Asia never to return to Europe. (Schoffer 1977, pp 230-2)

Clearly an enormous portion of this silver went to China, particularly in the eighteenth century.

This inflow of wealth had an important impact on Chinese society itself. On the one hand, it probably encouraged the population explosion that was already underway. Generally accepted figures indicate that China's population doubled between 1650 and 1850, while the amount of land under cultivation only increase by about thirty percent. This wealth and population also gave China considerable purchasing power, and while there were few things that the Chinese desired from outside sources, particularly from Europe, there were certain goods from India and Southeast Asia that had good markets in China. These included rice, cotton cloth, pepper, tin, and the conglomeration of products generally termed `Straits Produce' in the parlance of the day.

It was, in fact, the trade in these goods that brought many Europeans to China. Finding they had little to offer in the way of European manufactures to the Chinese market, a class of European `country traders', particularly British and Portuguese, tried to offset their silver outlay by supplementing their cargoes to China with goods from other parts of Asia. Europeans, however, were not the only ones to engage in the trade between Southeast Asia and China. This branch of commerce was, in fact, dominated by the Chinese themselves. For centuries the junk traders of the South China coast had been visiting the Nanyang and bringing Western, Indian and Southeast Asian goods and products back to China. We should probably assume that this trade was probably much larger and more far-reaching than any of the European efforts until the mid-nineteenth century.

The growth of this junk trade appears to have promoted another form of Chinese activity in Southeast Asia, and this was the real watershed in relations between China and the Nanyang. Within the Nanyang, labor was a perennial problem. It seems that by the latter part of the seventeenth century, labor in Southeast Asia to produce goods for the China trade had become insufficient. Ultimately the solution was to bring Chinese labour to Southeast Asia to produce goods such as tin, pepper and gold for the China market. This labor migration was begun largely as a result of cooperation between the junk traders, who need the goods and brought the labor and the local Southeast Asian princes, who controlled the land and hoped to profit from the exports.

I have shown in my earlier work that by the late eighteenth century island Southeast Asia was dotted with colonies of Chinese labourers producing tin in Bangka, pepper in Brunei, gold in Sambas and Pontianak, tin in Phuket and pepper and gambier in Riau, to name just a few of these settlements. This development was the true beginning of the economic transformation that we so often associate with colonialism: the production and export of large quantities of raw materials by specialized labor forces, in this case Chinese. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, these colonies, many of them either under some from of loose indigenous control, or under their own autonomous management were shipping significant quantities of goods to China. If Europeans participated in this production regime, it was only to purchose some of these products in the Southeast Asian ports so that they themselves could carry them to China. The system was a totally Asian one, built essentially on a partnership between enterprising junk traders and local, usually Malay rulers and chiefs.

Things began to change in the nineteenth century, particularly after the foundation of Singapore, but not immediately. Until about 1870, the system remained largely a `native' preserve. European participation was limited largely to investment and provision of capital, usually in kind. And, even with this, it was a slow process developing markets for these products in Europe and the West. A significant portion of their purchases went other Asian destinations in the early part of the century, and it was only after mid-century, with the decline of the junk trade, that European markets began to absorb the bulk of Southeast Asian primary produce.

The British did not initiate the process of `bringing in the Chinese', and despite their best efforts to gain some control over the process of recruiting, despatching and employing - not to mention governing - populations of Chinese laborers, they were never as successful as they wished to be. Chinese certainly came to European settlements and indeed found it possible to live in these places with greater security than in `native' states, but very often places like the Straits Settlements were no more than staging areas for Chinese enterprises in the Malayan, Sumatran, Bornean and Siamese states. In fact, if we look at the actual chronology of events, we could argue that it was not the British who brought the Chinese to Malaya, but it was the Chinese and the Malays who brought the British.

This is my little contribution toward reinterpreting the history of the Chinese diaspora. I do not want to downplay the importance of the British and European contribution however. If the migration began as a response to Chinese affluence and market demand, it was maintained as a result of increasing poverty and declining economic and political conditions in their homeland. A principal factor in these developments was the Chinese market demand for one particular product, and that was opium. The British opium trade from India to China expanded dramatically after the foundation of Singapore. This process transformed what had been a chronic, but minor social problem, affecting only a portion of the elite, to a nationwide economic and political catastrophe. Between 1820 and 1840, the annual amount of British Indian opium exported to China increased tenfold, jumping from about 4,000 chests in 1820 to 40,000 chests (2800 Tons) in 1839, on the eve of the Opium War. During these same years China experienced a net outflow of $150,000,000 (Spanish). The economic conditions created by the opium trade were very likely one of the factors in pushing the emigration of thousands of Chinese laborers. (Trocki, 1999)

The picture is full of ironies. Once they arrived in Southeast Asia, Chinese laborers found that they were expected to be the major consumers of opium. Since they were now able to earn cash for their efforts, both local Chinese capitalists and colonial governments saw them as the most likely source of a tax revenue. Elsewhere I have argued that the major revenue resources for Southeast Asian colonial states, including Siam, Johor and other `semi-colonized' regions, were the opium revenue farms. Thus, opium pushed them out of China and pulled them into Southeast Asia, often trapping them there for good, or ill, as the case may be.

Conclusion
I would hope that a more complex, refined and nuanced picture of the past of the Southeast Asian Chinese and a deeper understanding of the rythms of their history will help to dispell some of the stereotypical sound bites and cliches, but I don't think we can guarantee that. If our work is too complex, no one will read it. If it is too slick, we may end up producing newer cliches, but perhaps Professor Wang is correct when he says that politicians and the media do not pay much attention to scholars in any case.

Nonetheless, a more accurate understanding of the processes that shaped the Chinese diaspora might help us to grasp the significance of the present situation a bit better. Under the colonial surface, it is clear that a big piece of the economies that were created were created by Chinese, often in partnership with local chiefs or rulers. It should come as no surprise then that we see the sort of relations that existed between the Indonesian generals and their Chinese allies in the recent decades. This has happened before. So too, has economic growth been built up in Southeast Asia through the strategic alliances formed between indigenes and immigrants. A third factor is the importance of China itself. It should come as no surprise that China itself is now coming to play a larger role in the economic and political life of the region. This, too, was a well-established situation prior to the nineteenth century.

As China and Vietnam open up to the world, a great deal more evidence about the early history of the region and its inter-relationships is coming to light. This means that even the best picture we now have of the region's past should only be considered as tentative. As new information comes to light and is digested by scholars, I am sure that even greater changes will occur in our understanding of the history of the Chinese diaspora.

Bibliography
Butcher, John & Dick, Howard (eds.). The Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming: Business Elites and the Emergence of the Modern State in Southeast Asia. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.

Cheah, Boon Kheng. Red Star Over Malaya: Resistance and Social Conflict During and After the Japanese Occupation of Malaya, 1941-1946. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983.

Cushman, J. W. `The Khaw Group: Chinese Business in Early Twentieth Century Penang.' Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 17(March, 1986): 58-79.

Cushman, J. W. `The Chinese in Thailand'. The Ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN States: Bibliographical Essays. L. Suryadinata (ed.). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989. 221-259.

Cushman, J. W. Fields from the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade with Siam during the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993.

Freedman, Maurice. `Immigrants and Associations in Nineteenth Century Singapore'. Comparative Studies in Society and History (1960) v. 3, no. 1: 24-48.

Furber, Holden. Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1976.

Purcell, Victor. The Chinese in Southeast Asia. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Godley, M. R. Mandarin Capitalists from Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in the Modernization of china, 1893-1911. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Gosling, L. A. Peter . Lim, Linda Y.C. (eds.). The Chinese in Southeast ASia, Vol 2, Identity, Culture and Politics. Singapore: Maruzen, 1983.

Lee, Poh Ping. Chinese Society in Nienteenth Century Singapore: A Socioeconomic Analysis. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Reid, A. `Flows and Seepages in the Long-Term Chinese Interaction with Southeast Asia'. Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese. A. Reid (ed.). Sydney: Allen & Unwin for ASAA, 1995. 1: 48-49:

Reid, Anthony & Kristine Alilunas Rodgers (eds.). Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, Sydney: Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen & Unwin, (1996).

Reid, Anthony (eds.). The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750-1900. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.

Seagrave, Sterling. Lords of the Rim. London: Bantam, 1995.

Schoffer, Ivo and. F. S. Gaastra. `The import of bullion and coin into Asia by the Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries'. Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism, Capitalisme hollandais et capitalisme mondail. M. Aymard. Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1977. 1: 215-235.

Skinner, G. William. Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957.

Somers-Heidhues, Mary. `Peranakan Chinese Politics in Indonesia', Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1965.

Suryadinata, Leo. Pribumi Indonesians, The Chinese Minority, and China: A Study of Perceptions And Policies, Kuala Lumpur : Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), 1978.

Suryadinata, Leo. Chinese and nation-building in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 1997.

Trocki, C. A. Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore 1800-1910. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Trocki, Carl A. Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy. London: Routledge, 1999.

Wang, G. W. & C. Jennifer (eds.). Changing Identities of Souteast Asian Chinse Since World War II. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1988.

Wang, Gungwu. A Short History of the Nanyang Chinese. Singapore: Eastern University Press, 1959.

Wickberg, E. The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1965.

Williams, Lea. Overseas Chinese Nationalism: The Genesis of the Pan Chinese Movement in Indonesia, 1908-1916. Glencoe, Ill, The Free Press, 1960.

Wong, Lin Ken. `The Trade of Singapore, 1819-1869.' JMBRAS 33.4 (December, 1960): 1-135.

Wong, Lin Ken `The Revenue Farms of Prince of Wales Island.' Journal of the South Seas Society 1964-65: 56-127.

Wong, Lin Ken. The Malayan Tin Industry. Tuscon, Arizona: Association of Asian Studies, 1965.

Endnotes
1. The Dutch guilder (florin) was worth roughly half a Spanish dollar and about 2 shillings, sterling at this time. Thus, 400 million guilders was equivalent to about Spanish $200 million or £40 million and 590 million guilders equalled about $295 million or £59 million. (Further, 1976 pp 386-87). [Return to Text]

Copyright © 1999, Carl Trocki.

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Michael Godley

The Australian National University

The China Factor

China obviously means different things to different Chinese. For genuine 'overseas Chinese' (huaqiao), dare I say 'real Chinese', who are citizens of the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China on Taiwan, China is the 'motherland' to which they owe political loyalty. For the China-born, those who now live permanently abroad having often adopted foreign citizenship, China can still be considered the 'cultural homeland'. For those born overseas (of whatever generation), more assimilated into local cultures, China will always be the 'ancestral land' although with perhaps little, if any, relevance to how they conduct their daily lives.

[I am certainly more 'Chinese' in a cultural sense than many of the ABCs (Australian-born Chinese) I have taught over the years.] In all cases, China - and more to the point, China's own attitudes, perceptions and policies toward ethnic Chinese around the world - is critical, not only for our understanding of the term diaspora but for what happens to the Chinese overseas.

Whether one likes it or not, what takes place in China matters. Political unrest such as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (to my mind perhaps the best thing that could have happened for the Chinese in Southeast Asia since it encouraged more-rapid assimilation) will inevitably have an impact. So will natural disaster; the next flood or earthquake has always had a way of bringing the diaspora together and accentuating Chinese identity. And economic growth, as we are witnessing today, has encouraged not just investments and the growth of trading networks linking the greatly dispersed communities to China and each other, but also a resurgence of pride in things Chinese. Who knows what economic depression (which may lie around the corner) or political repression will produce. Here I am attempted to agree with my friend Carl Trocki and draw your attention to the blind historical forces which are beyond the control of individuals.

From a historical perspective, war has already had a dramatic impact on the Chinese living overseas. The first Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) prompted the first feelings of pan-Chinese nationalism in Southeast Asia. The second (1937-1945) accelerated the process but also slowed ssimilation. Eventually, when that conflict came to the region, there was no escape from its consequences. Even in the far off United States, China's heroic struggle boosted the social status of Chinese-Americans and make them acceptable as 'allies' rather than 'aliens'. But the Korean conflict reintroduced negative stereotypes. Without wishing to seem misanthropic, we must not forget the border war with Vietnam, which prompted the first wave of boat people. Who knows how severely Chinese communities might be divided by war in the Taiwan Straits or the impact that even a small battle over the Spratley Islands could have in the Philippines. And the coming war with the United States (if the doom sayers are right) would be catastrophic for Chinese all around the world, regardless of their political loyalties. Call it fate or destiny, the Chinese - wherever they may reside - can never escape China for the simple reason that they look 'Chinese'.

Ethnic identity is terribly complex as we all appreciate. But, unfortunately, it is not purely an internal matter, the consequence of individual choice, but also something that is ascribed by others: as many peranakan, who would love to be considered Indonesian, have learnt the hard way. Whereas there was no political homeland for the Jews until the establishment of Israel, China has long been a REALITY (in bold capital letters) for the neighbouring states of Southeast Asia (even Australia is not that far away) and the position the People's Republic takes today and in the future - escalating efforts to attract investment capital at a time of regional economic difficulty, for example, or bellicosity in the South China Sea - will affect how ethnic Chinese (even those with long residence abroad) will be perceived and treated. There is no need to go on at length about the dangers irrational, intemperate, or ill-conceived behaviour by the People's Republic poses to the Chinese in Southeast Asia, especially in the current climate in Indonesia. We don't, of course, need war, international conflict, or a great depression to expose ethnic Chinese to popular hostility. As we have seen in the case of Geoffrey Blainey and Pauline Hanson or the recent Congressional Inquiry into illegal campaign contributions in the United States, it is easy enough to mobilise anti-Chinese prejudice in the West. Even a mild recession can prompt anti-migrant and anti-Asian sentiments.The good news is that, at a central and provincial governmental level, China has shown signs of recognising the sensitive situation in Southeast Asia and accepts that the vast majority are now Huaren (ethnic Chinese) rather that Huaqiao - though the major publication Huaqiao yu [and] Huaren does seem to encourage a degree of ambiguity. One certainly finds a more sophisticated tone in scholarly publications. Perhaps Professor Wang Gungwu has had an influence here. The bad news is that this enlightened view has not spread downward to the county and village level where local authorities, including the so-called 'organs responsible for overseas Chinese affairs' are under increased pressure to attract ever-increasing amounts of diaspora capital for socio-economic development: not just for new factories but also for roads, schools and the tourist industry. I became acutely aware of the problem last year when I became involved with the lucratively-funded 'Qiaoxiang Ties' program at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands. Qiao is the same character used in 'overseas' Chinese and xiang refers to the villages (and more generally to the regions) in South China which were the original 'hometowns' of the emigrants. In conjunction with several Chinese universities and a number of leading academics, this project has been studying the ways in which linkages (economic and emotional) have been revived since the reopening of the country after the Cultural Revolution. Although I have written extensively about Sino-Southeast Asian relations, I was shocked by the way ethnic Chinese living abroad are now being manipulated. Local cadres search for famous, or economically successful, people of Chinese ancestry to invite home. Corrie Aquino comes immediately to mind. Indeed ancestor worship has already become a village industry in Fujian attracting large groups of Singapore Chinese. Moreover hundreds (it is hard to keep count) of Qiaokan, as the genre of publications aimed at ethic Chinese overseas is known, have appeared ranging from mimeographed newsletters to the glossiest sort of magazines. All are designed to re-establish, in a very competitive market, diaspora loyalty. Please don't get me wrong, all 'Chinese' (and I include myself here) have reason to take pride in the country's long civilisation and economic revival. The danger is that institutions are now in place which can be used for more-overtly political purposes. Because this colloquium is about how we, academics, approach (even conceptualise) the Chinese diaspora, I would like to address my final remarks to our profession. Whilst we might not think that we are responsible for what Sterling Seagrave had to say about an 'invisible empire' of overseas Chinese, we do need to be more activist, since we better understand the real damage that can be done. How many of us volunteered to review that muck-raking book in the popular press? We also allowed the business school gurus to 'essentialise' the Chinese experience and write about a 'bamboo network', about 'Chinese capitalism' and 'Chinese economic culture', and uniquely 'Chinese' ways of doing business. Thanks to judicious warnings from Wang Gungwu, the provocative term 'Greater China' has faded from use. But I share his fear that diaspora might be the same sort of wolf, albeit disguised in sheep's clothing. Since I am now working for the Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora (and am not about to bite the hand that feeds me), let me turn my sights on the term 'transnationalism', which is currently in the vogue. It too, I fear, may (perhaps it already has) become a code word for ethnic ties which cross national boundaries: ones that might, in certain contexts, be held economically suspect and politically disloyal. Perhaps, as Professor Wang said the other evening, we social scientists don't have enough words to describe the complexity of ethnicity and identity. But what is wrong with the old, and essentially neutral, term 'international' (international banking, international relations, international capital flows, and international migration, for example)? In using words, we must be extremely careful not to fan the flames of prejudice or make the situation worse for those we study.

Copyright © 1999, Michael Godley.

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Hara Fujio

Institute for Developing Economics, Tokyo

Conversion in Identity Consciousness of Malayan Chinese

Before commencing my main topic, I would like to express my assumption briefly how Malaysian Chinese conceive 'diaspora' presently.

An authentic Chinese language magazine in Malaysia, Rosa Sinesis (Ziliao yu Yanjiu) published in its No. 34 issue (July 1998) several articles on the terminology of overseas Chinese. In one of the articles, 'diaspora', which Professor Wang Gung-wu referred to in Singapore in January, 1994, is translated as 'Haiwai Sanju Zuqun'. Here at the CSCSD, it is translated as 'Yiqun'. It seems that neither of the terms is prevailing or commonly known among Malaysian Chinese yet. 'Malaysian Chinese' is still the most commonly accepted word. This situation has something to do with the present circumstances in which Malaysian Chinese are living.

In another article, a word of 'Huayi Malaisiaren' (Chinese Malaysian), which is said to have been proposed by the Minister of Culture, Arts and Tourism, is strongly denounced because, according to the author, it implies deprivation of Chineseness and imposition of forced assimilation. 'Bangsa Malaysia', which was proposed by Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir in 1991, is also frightened by a portion of Malaysian Chinese in the same context. At the end of the issue, the editor concludes that as they have well been accustomed to 'Malaisia Huaren' (Malaysian Chinese), it is not necessary to use other words.

Diaspora can be perceived as relating to Huayi mentioned above. In my narrow view, this might be one of the reasons why Malaysian Chinese are reluctant to use 'diaspora' now.

Then my main theme.

In terms of a time frame for the conversion of consciousness, all of the major developments as below that indicate the firm establishment of a Malaya-oriented identity consciousness within the Malayan Chinese community centered around the mid-1950s, on the eve of Merdeka which came in 1957: the disappearance of the Double Tenth celebrations in the Federation of Malaya (1957) and Singapore (1958), the complete disappearance of CCP-affiliated organizations or their transformation into Malaya-oriented groups (mid-1950s); convening the Grand Rally of Literators Responding to the Independence Movement (1956); holding the Representatives' Congress of All Malayan Registered Guilds and Associations (1956); the change in reference of the Chinese terms for 'fatherland', 'homeland' and 'our country' from China to Malaya that took place in the local Chinese-language newspapers (in and around 1957); the blurring and eventual end of Chinese factors in determining Chinese-language newspaper publication holidays (latter half of the 1950s); the disappearance of foreign correspondents hired by Chinese-language newspapers to work in China (first half of the 1950s); the substitution of the MCA for Chinese consulates in the task of protecting the rights of local Chinese (first half of the 1950s); the Malayanization of Chinese school textbooks (mid-1950s); and the Malayanization of local Chinese Olympic athletes (1956). The process of forming an independent, sovereign nation-state in any region is deeply connected to the fomentation and promotion of a national consciousness among its people. In the case of Malaya, such a phenomenon occurred among its Chinese residents who realized in just ten years a tremendous reduction in the passionate sense of belonging they had felt toward China immediately after the end of the war.

This conversion was not totally voluntary, for the repressive measures, such as mass deportation, that the British implemented cannot be brushed aside as insignificant. There is no denying that the process had its painful aspect. Furthermore, to assume that Malaya-oriented identity consciousness of Malayan Chinese had already been well established at the end of the war, without trying to analyze the conversion of their identity consciousness after the war, is equivalent to ignoring the pain and anguish experienced in the process. This is an important reason why examining this China connection has been necessary.

Copyright © 1999, Hara Fujio.

[Return to the list of authors]

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Eugene Tan

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

The Self-Reconceptualising Dilemma of the Citizen-Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore

(The following views are mine alone and do not reflect those of the Institute.)

The current resurfacing of the idea of diaspora reminds us how shallow the roots of nationalism are in comparison with the long history of diasporas. But, at the same time, we should not underestimate the unprecedented power of the modern nation-state.1

A. FEAR IN ETHNIC CONFLICT

Ethnic conflict is very often driven by fear - real or imagined - of a community's future in the realms of physical security, political, economic and cultural. Where states are unable to or do not provide adequate protection for the ethnic group under siege, fear drives an ethnic group into developing a sense of exclusiveness and taking their own unilateral measures to ensure their security. In the context of Chinese in the Malayo-Muslim world, fear hinders the reconceptualising of the ethnic Chinese in the context of their being citizens of their respective home countries.

At the formation of new nation-states, many Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia thought of themselves as Indonesian-Chinese and Malaysian-Chinese respectively. This emphasised their Chineseness. However, today we can observe the same citizen-Chinese who consider themselves as Chinese-Indonesians and Chinese-Malaysians. This reconceptualising emphasises their national, rather than ethnic, identity. The ultimate reconceptualising, heralding their acceptance as equal citizens, would be when they can reconceptualise themselves as Indonesians and Malaysians without the need for an ethnic adjective. However, fear is the big determinant that prevents any meaningful reconceptualising towards such an identity.

China and the Chinese Southern Diaspora

One of the 'informational gaps' driving the fear is the uncertain relationship between China and the Chinese diaspora. Notions such as a 'Greater China', 'a Chinese Commonwealth', 'Sons of the Yellow Emperor' tend to overstate the ethnic affinity between the mainland Chinese and the Chinese overseas. The Chinese overseas by and large are now citizens in their host countries. Notwithstanding this, China demonstrated, after the May 1998 riots, rapes and looting against the Chinese-Indonesians, its concern at various levels (from the Foreign Minister level to Head of State/Government level). This concern, I would argue, stems not from humanitarian grounds but rather ethnic ones. The thrust of the Chinese concern is that the rights and interests of Chinese-Indonesian should enjoy equal treatment as the indigenous Indonesians.

Although it is careful to emphasise that matters involving Chinese- Indonesians are internal matters of Indonesia, it is clear that any demonising of the ethnic Chinese is bound to be a concern of China. But the danger in such an active policy towards the Chinese overseas, by virtue of an ethnic affinity, is that the state élites and man in the street would take it as foreign interference and be reinforced in the view that the citizen-Chinese loyalty lay elsewhere. Benedict Anderson has described such motherland 'involvement' in the diaspora affairs in host countries as 'politics without accountability'.

It is my submission that China is no longer the motherland for the Chinese diaspora. It also cannot be the putative cultural motherland. At best, China is a historical reference point. What Milton Esman wrote in 1986 is relevant:

It would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the sentimental ties and ethnocentric obligations that continue to bind the responsible leaders of any regime in China to its co-ethnics abroad, especially when they are victimised or in distress. As a great power and the guardians of the culture of the `Middle Kingdom', China's élites must be sensitive to the needs of overseas Chinese although they may not, in every case, be willing or able to intervene, even verbally, on their behalf. These continuing links may, as the leaders of Southeast Asian countries fear, be available as instruments of PRC's foreign policy, for intelligence collection, for propaganda, for market penetration, and for exercising influence in political and economic decision making in host countries'.2

National Security & Ethnic Insecurity

Observers have noted that with the rise of China as a regional political and economic power, Southeast Asian Chinese have been asserting their Chinese identities more confidently. Here, the flagging of Chineseness has its problems. Ethnic conflict in Southeast Asia involving ethnic Chinese also has its nascent beginnings in perceptions and impressions. Certainly, the perception and impression was that the Chinese would dominate the indigenous people, economically and/or politically. The granting of citizenship rights on jus soli principles; the fear of being overwhelmed numerically; the prominence in key aspects of modern life such as the economy; the ethnic Chinese past linkage with communism; the relative wealth of the Chinese and the rise of China greatly threaten the comfort level of the bumiputera security and hegemony.

B. 'DIASPORA' - A DANGEROUS LABEL?

It is also my submission that in Indonesia and Malaysia, the notion of the Chinese as a diaspora is to their detriment rather than advantage. Indeed, the diaspora characteristic of the citizen-Chinese has not disappeared but instead continually emphasised in Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia. This only contributes to their stereotypical depiction as alien and outsiders, whose loyalties lie elsewhere. In Singapore where the ethnic Chinese form 77 per cent of the population, the diaspora connection with China can be argued to be carefully harnessed as part of its efforts in plugging into the economic opportunities offered by China and the Chinese communities overseas. Chineseness is also promoted as part of the government's agenda of cultural fortification for the Chinese. This is juxtaposed with a nervous assertion of Chineseness due to her delicate geopolitical position.

A vexing issue in relation to the Chinese overseas is whether they should be described as a diaspora. Perceptions, attitudes and stereotypes are important from the perspective of ethnic conflict management. The continued use of 'diaspora' to describe the ethnic Chinese citizenry in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore is more detrimental than good, especially at a time when national identity takes a more prominent position in Southeast Asia. This is the case despite the trend of globalisation.³ Globalisation is not a fait accompli in Malaysia and Indonesia. In light of the economic crisis, the concern with being plugged into the international economy is more debated than appreciated. So while the Chinese diaspora - through its learned adaptability, resourcefulness and international networked community - is valued for its economic skills in knowledge arbitrage across cultures and the comparative advantage in moving between modes of production, their footlooseness and dexterity in moving between the interstices of production and society are often look upon with suspicion.

Next, the lowest common denominator of the Chinese diaspora is perhaps based on race/descent. One would be hard-pressed to find commonalties in 'Chineseness' of the Chinese in Southeast Asia.⁴ They are by no means homogenous although they have been made out to be a singular entity. Yet, the notion of a diaspora connotes homogeneity in religious, cultural and political inclinations. Further, the caricaturising of the Chinese as 'Jews of the East', although less common in Southeast Asia today, has meant that being labelled a diaspora inevitably draws comparisons with the Jews, the quintessential diaspora. This is certainly not an association that is to be taken lightly in Indonesia and Malaysia where the spectre of radical Islam in the wake of the current Islamic revivalism is ever present.

Such an argument is not one of semantics. 'Diaspora' brings with it connotations of extra-territoriality, multinationality, and worse, of being alien/foreign. It also has connotations of race, by which sensitivities are heightened, which leads to boundary creation. Worse, in terms of national security, diaspora has implications of the citizen-Chinese being a fifth column for Communist China. Disloyalty is perceived when the Chinese invest in China rather than in their home countries. Dropping the use of 'diaspora' can help focus the ethnic Chinese populations in Indonesia, Malaysia and even Singapore that home is not in the putative motherland and regional hegemon, China, but in these respective countries where they are now citizens. No doubt the ethnic Chinese links with the 'ungrounded empire' will continue in areas of trade and investments as well as cultural interactions. But the point is to reduce the emphasis on ungrounded transnational affinity to co-ethnics. It is importance to note that such the enjoyment of economic benefits flowing from such transnational affinity is only enjoyed by a select group in any case. It would be better to focus the ethnic Chinese citizenry to a grounded entity in their not-so-new home countries. As Cohen bluntly observes,

Now, it cannot be denied, many diasporas want to have their cake and eat it. They want not only the security and opportunities available in their countries of settlement, but also a continuing relationship with their country of origin and co-ethnic members in other countries. For such diasporas the nation-state is being used instrumentally, rather than revered affectively.5

No doubt, the citizen-Chinese faces a dilemma of pledging loyalty to a nation-state that marginalises them and fails to offer adequate protection and support for cultural reproduction. Re-migrating is a possible option but such an option is restricted to the well educated, the rich and the well connected. For the vast majority, their future lies in their respective countries. Indeed, for the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, their future is intimately connected with nation-states rather than the nebulous concept of globalisation.⁶

C. RECONCEPTUALISING THE CHINESE - RECENT TRENDS

For the Chinese to effectively reconceptualise themselves in any meaningful manner requires a supportive environment in Southeast Asia. By supportive is meant a less threatening environment. So long as the Chinese are marginalised, they are unlikely to reconceptualise their identities so as enable them to be successfully integrated and be accepted as equal citizens. In looking at Indonesia and Malaysia, I would argue that it is difficult for the Chinese there to reconceptualise themselves given the persistence of marginalisation and domination. I must emphasise that the observations are but a quick survey of recent developments. One needs to track the ebbs and flows in the security perceptions of the citizen-Chinese and the putative indigenous people in this regard.

Indonesia

The Habibie regime has declared an end to the Soeharto-era ethnic policies as practised. These declarations include dropping the use of terms such as 'pribumi' and 'non-pribumi'. But it remains to be seen whether they are pious aspirations. Such declarations have yet to inspire confidence in the Chinese community who left in the thousands aftermath of the May 1998 riots.⁷ The Habibie government is still ambivalent on the role of Chinese-Indonesian business and this has not engendered confidence even among international investors.⁸ The Chinese-Indonesians would want to bring their assets and wealth back but the government needs to rebuild their trust and confidence as a condition precedent.⁹

The response to the riots in May 1998 is indicative of the ambiguity with which the Habibie government is pursuing the 'Chinese problem'. It was only after international pressure was exerted that led Habibie to condemn the violence and direct an investigation. Even then, the fact that the citizen-Chinese were the main targets was conveniently ignored. It is evident that the riots have both spontaneous and organised elements. Agents provocateurs are the organised part of the riots but they play on the dissatisfaction and anger towards the relatively well off and apparently linked to the corrupt regime. In short, organisation of a riot requires a certain critical mass of passion as a prerequisite. Once a riot has taken place, it is easy for the agent provocateurs to instigate more rioting. The Chinese identity became the hallmark of all that was wrong with Indonesia - of corruption, collusion and nepotism. Furthermore, the follow-up to the findings of the May violence has not inspired confidence that the Chinese will not be scapegoated for any national ill in the future.

Another disturbing trend is the call for an affirmative action policy along the lines of Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP). Although Cooperatives Minister Adi Sasono has said that Indonesia will not adopt KL's NEP policy in revamping its battered economy,¹⁰ the calls for wealth distribution and the reduction of inequalities between the Chinese and pribumis are becoming pervasive. Sasono has argued that a democratic government has to be populist. In this regard, the argument is premised on the need for proportional representation in politics and economy. Sasono's 'economic democracy' or 'people's economy' (ekonomi kerakyatan) captures the desire for economic empowerment of the people. While it is recognised that there is a need for some degree of economic upliftment of the pribumis, it is disturbing that there is no concomitant drive towards the political enfranchisement of the Chinese to wean them off being focused on trade and commerce. The possibility of increasing marginalisation in the political and economic spheres post-Soeharto era is a cause of concern. The economic dominance of the Chinese has been a bargaining chip, which if lost would only imperil the Chinese existence. In a way, the people's economy can be likened to nationalisation in another guise, which harks back to Soekarno's nationalisation in the 1950s and 1960s. This proposed indigenisation economic policy also seeks to characterise Indonesia pribumis as the true national ethnicity from which the ethnic Chinese, not all of whom are rich, is excluded.¹¹

There has also been the unusual call for the Chinese-Indonesians to buy 'social insurance'. It is a strange case of the state being unable to afford protection for an embattled minority-citizenry and the need for self-help. Social insurance, according to Dewi Fortuna, can be achieved by the Chinese-Indonesians taking 'full part in the social, political spheres of Indonesian life, not just the economic field'.¹² However, the subtext is clear: the Chinese have to be more like the pribumi. The clear implication is the need to assimilate so that they would not suffer the wrath of have-nots. At the same time, Habibie has described Singapore as a racist state for its treatment of the Malays. Asiaweek has described the 'outburst' as 'resentment against ethnic Chinese wealth at home transposed internationally'.¹³ This followed a retracted ruling that banned Indonesians below 16 from studying abroad, most of whom are Chinese-Indonesians studying and residing in Singapore.

Malaysia

The current political crisis in Malaysia has also taken racial dimensions. The constant practice of the Mahathir leadership to point the finger at external parties makes one wonder whether the time will come when the scapegoat would be the 'internal outsiders'. For instance, Mahathir has blamed the financial crisis on a Jewish conspiracy led by George Soros. Furthermore, in the current Anwar saga, the Chinese-Malaysians have been told in no uncertain terms that they should continue to support the Mahathir government and that the issue is a Malay issue, not a Malaysian one. To withhold support for the Mahathir government and to participate in the Anwar issue would only risk the spectre of extremism, riots and instability.¹⁴ Thus, despite 40 years of state building and the pronouncement of the vision of a bangsa Malaysia in the new millennium, the Chinese have no proprietary stake in national issues. It remains to be seen whether the competition for Malay support in the aftermath of the Anwar trial(s) would see more anti-Chinese rhetoric as a means of canvassing support by the Malay politicians.

It was Manuel Castells who said, 'Communities may be imagined, but not necessarily believed'.¹⁵ The modalities of Vision 2020 of a bangsa Malaysia are still vague. In particular, how does bumiputera hegemony stand in the scheme of things? Furthermore, what does 'Malaysian' mean has not been fleshed out. From the perspective of reconceptualising, the 'legitimising identity' of Malay dominance and precedence would engender 'resistance identity' of the Chinese.¹⁶ The issue ultimately is how do the Chinese-Malaysians reconceptualise their identities when communalism and communal politics persist?

Singapore

Singapore stands in stark contrast to Indonesia and Malaysia for being the only state in Southeast Asia where the ethnic Chinese are a majority. Indeed, it has always been regarded as being ethnic Chinese in substance. About three-quarters of its three million population are ethnic Chinese. Malays constitute about 14% and Indians 6%. The geopolitical realities have made the Singapore leadership conscious of its treatment towards its multiethnic citizenry, especially the Malays. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong recently emphasised that:]

More importantly, the outlook of the Chinese community in Singapore has been attuned to its geo-political environment. The Singaporean Chinese recognise and accept that Chinese culture and Mandarin must be advanced within the multiracial context of Singapore and the political and social milieu of Southeast Asia. They know the destiny of Singapore is in Southeast Asia. They preserve their heritage but subsume its display under the broader complexion of Singapore nationalism. They leave Singaporeans of all races in no doubt that their political standpoint is solidly based on the national interest of an independent Singapore in Southeast Asia.17

In any case, Singapore's adoption of a policy of multiculturalism buttressed with meritocracy has been the most successful in managing the ethnic cleavages. Singapore citizens of all races think of themselves as Singaporeans rather than hyphenated Singaporeans.¹⁸ A cardinal principle of Singapore's ethnic policy is the need to maintain the present ratios among the three main ethnic groups. As the ethnic Chinese has a declining birth rate, the need to augment the ethnic Chinese numbers is achieved through immigration. The Singapore leadership is conscious of its Chinese identity in a Malayo-Muslim world. Because of its close historical ties with Malaysia, race riots in Malaysia in 1969 also led to ethnic tensions in the island-republic. Only recently, Habibie described Singapore as a 'red dot in a sea of green'. Malaysia, its closest neighbour, and Singapore have profoundly conflicting understandings of each other's legitimacy as a result of the tumultuous separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965.

Conscious that it would be labelled the third China, Singapore and mainland China assumed diplomatic relations only after its neighbors had done so. Since then, Singapore has invested aggressively in China and the number of Chinese nationals working or studying in Singapore has increased. Singapore has been the most vocal advocate of 'Asian Values' which critics have denounced as self-serving. Lee Kuan Yew has recently clarified that the Asian way he has championed is Confucianist values and not 'Asian values'. The point here is that the Singapore leadership regards the importance of language and culture as the cultural ballast in a rapidly changing world wherein values associated with the West are not always good. Over the last few years, Singapore has been more confident of dealing with the race issue - in particular, the relative lack of achievement of the Malay community and, earlier on, the loyalty of the Malays to Singapore - and have discussed these issues openly.

At the same time, we also see a confident assertion of its Chinese identity. One needs to look at the effort to make Singapore a resource centre on Chinese overseas. This range from the establishment of the Chinese Heritage Centre ('help Singapore develop into an important centre of Sinic studies in the Pacific Rim'); a National Chinese Internet Programme (to 'develop Singapore into a cyber-hub for Chinese Internet'); and the National Library Board's virtual resource centre on Chinese overseas. These complement the annual Speak Mandarin campaign.

But like Chinese in Southeast Asia, Chinese-Singaporeans are not homogenous and the government constantly needs to balance of the interests of the Chinese-educated/speaking and English-educated/speaking Chinese. This was demonstrated at the recent announcement on the government's new policy on the teaching of Chinese language. The starting point in Singapore's policy of bilingualism and learning of mother tongues in schools is:

. . . the mother tongue gives us a crucial part of our values, roots and identity. It gives us direct access to our cultural heritage, and a world-view that complements the perspective of the English-speaking world. It provides us the ballast to face adversity and challenges with fortitude, and a sense of quiet confidence about our place in the world. Maintaining our distinctiveness and identity as an Asian society will help us endure as a nation. This applies to all ethnic groups.19

One of the aims of the new Chinese language policy is to nurture a 'Chinese cultural elite'. This is a bold statement given the ethnic sensitivities in Singapore although it should be mentioned that the approach behind the Chinese language policy framework 'also applies, with suitable modifications, to the teaching and learning of other Mother Tongue Languages'.

D. BY WAY OF A CONCLUSION

With the Asian Crisis and the possibility of a new regime in Indonesia, the future of Chinese in Indonesia can be refashioned. But the tentative signs are not positive. In Malaysia, with the persistence of communal politics, it remains to be seen whether a prolonged economic and political crisis would see the Chinese being increasingly marginalised too. In Singapore, the geopolitical realities have made heightened the security consciousness of the city-state. Will the Chinese community in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore be 'diasporised' again in the new millennium? Are the Chinese still sojourners rather than settlers?²⁰ But the fact cannot be ignored that the exit option is not available to the vast majority of the Chinese in Southeast Asia.

Some questions that are pertinent at this juncture include: (1) Is the transnational identity of diaspora compatible with nationalist identity demanded by the majority? (2) How will the impact of the Asian Crisis affect the outlook of these nationalists? (3) Will they embrace globalisation or renounce and all associated with it? (4) Is the idea that the diasporas can serve as mediators between various states by facilitating peaceful cultural, political, trade and commercial exchanges too far fetched?²¹

It is ironic that about a hundred years ago, Chinese from China were flocking to the Nanyang and that a hundred years on the prognosis is not all that optimistic and that the settled Chinese in the Malayo-Muslim world might once again travel the path of their forebears as sojourners. The Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia are characterised by stereotypes varying from being greedy, rich, corrupt and disloyal. Indeed, the whole notion of being a diaspora is a negative trait. It connotes transnational loyalty to the putative motherland, or in the words of Ong Aihwa and Donald Nonini, an 'ungrounded empire'. It is not surprising that with such invidious stereotypes, which even positive commonalties such as citizenship and integration cannot counteract, that ethnic conflict will persist. Ethnic conflict will be severe within institutional set-ups that are willing to play one ethnic group against another as a method of regime sustenance. Chinese-Indonesians are the most precarious even with their relatively high degree of integration and assimilation. The Chinese-Malaysians are secure and would likely to remain so as long as bumiputera hegemony is not threatened. Chinese-Singapore are the most secure of the three ethnic Chinese communities but their security and identity are intimately twined with the geo-political developments.

The thrust of this paper has been to show that ethnic conflict involving ethnic Chinese is not simply about ethnic and cultural stereotypes. It is also about how history and international politics impinge upon the moulding of ethnic identities, accurate or otherwise, and creates fear for the ethnic groups' security. This is compounded by the economic turmoil, which highlights class differentials. Certainly, ethnic conflict is also about the state being a party to the ethnic conflict playing on the ethnocentrism and hostility to the internal outsiders.²² The notion of the Chinese being a diaspora is characterised by their mobility, transnational links to the wider diaspora community and of apparent disloyalty to the nation-state. This is a dangerous myth and such a perception should be challenged vigorously.

The resolution of the ethnic conflict involving ethnic Chinese will take time and will require the state and the citizen-Chinese to work together. The state has a larger and more decisive role to play in developing an inclusive nationalism that transcends ethnicity. With independence, the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia are no longer migrants but were in Wang Gungwu's words, upgraded to citizens. It is in this spirit that the citizen-Chinese should be accepted into the nation-state culminating in more than tokenism in terms of political participation.

Citizenship is not just of form (a passport) but must be unequivocally demonstrated to carry substantive rights and assurances of cultural reproduction rather than assimilation and domination. Nonetheless, for a start, the Chinese in Southeast Asia, while recognising that they are part of diaspora, should not emphasise their diasporic connections. At best, 'diaspora' should be nothing more than a geographical description of the 'dispersal' of the Chinese overseas. The Chinese diaspora outside China are no longer huaqiao (Overseas Chinese). Hence, it would be better for the Chinese in Southeast Asia to see Southeast Asia as their home country, not host country, and operate in that milieu. Citizenship is Janus-faced. Role and status are two components of citizenship. Most Southeast Asian Chinese have the status of citizens but have not fulfilled their role as citizens. If they can and are allowed to do so, they are likely to reconceptualise themselves in a manner that reduces the element of fear.

Endnotes

1. Wang Gungwu, 'Migration History: Some Patterns Revisited,' in Wang Gungwu, ed., Global History and Migrations (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), p. 16. [Return to Text]

2. Milton J. Esman, 'The Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia,' in Gabriel Sheffer, ed., Modern Diasporas in International Politics (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 140-141. [Return to Text]

3. Cf. with the laudatory view of diasporas as the basis for 'a new form of universal humanism', see Robin Cohen, 'Diasporas, the Nation-State, and Globalisation,' in Wang Gungwu, ed., Global History and Migrations (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997). [Return to Text]

4. For the breath of the differences within the Chinese diaspora, see Lynn Pann, ed., The Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1998).[Return to Text]

5. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: UCL Press, 1997), p. 195. [Return to Text]

6. For a comprehensive discussion of the paradoxes encountered by the Chinese diaspora in a world dominated by nation-states, see Wang Gungwu, 'Migration and New National Identities,' in Elizabeth Sinn, ed., The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998). [Return to Text]

7. 121, 345 Indonesians flocked to Singapore in May 1998. This was a 45.3% increase in Indonesian arrivals when compared with May 1997, see Asian Migrant 11(2) (April-June 1998), p. 35. [Return to Text]

8. Hadi Soesastro, 'The Indonesian Economy Under Habibie,' Paper presented at the ISEAS 1999 Regional Outlook Forum, 8 January 1999, Singapore; and Sofyan Wanadi, 'The Post-Soeharto Business Environment,' Paper presented at Indonesia Update 1998, ANU, Canberra, 25-26 September 1998). [Return to Text]

9. Andrew MacIntyre, 'The Indonesian Debacle: What Americans Need to Know and Do,' The National Interest 53 (Fall 1998): 41-52 at 50. [Return to Text]

10. 'KL model "will not do" for Indonesia,' The Straits Times, 24 December 1998, p. 2. [Return to Text]

11. For the proposition that nationalisation in many developing countries is driven by ethno-nationalism rather than concerns of economic justice and equity, see Amy L. Chua, 'The Privatisation-Nationalisation Cycle: The Link between Markets and Ethnicity in Developing Countries,' Columbia Law Review 95(2) (March 1995): 223-303. [Return to Text]

12. See interview with Dewi Fortuna Anwar, special adviser to Habibie 'Why Chinese Indonesians Must Buy "Social Insurance",' The Straits Times, 27 November 1998, p. 71. [Return to Text]

13. 'Talking Fast and Loose,' Asiaweek, 26 February 1999, p. 30.[Return to Text]

14. 'Protestors "bringing in racial issues",' The Straits Times, 29 October 1998, p. 26; 'Don't play up Anwar issue, Chinese told,' The Straits Times, 30 October 1998, p. 35; ' "Beware of extremism and unrest",' The Straits Times, 31 October 1998, p. 48. [Return to Text]

15. Manuel Castells, 'Communal Heavens: Identity and Meaning in the Network Society,' in The Power of Identity (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, 1997), p. 39. [Return to Text]

16. The concepts of 'legitimising identiy' and 'resistance identity' is from Manual Castells, ibid, p. 8. [Return to Text]

17. Speech at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas at the Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, 26 October 1998. [Return to Text]

18. Benedict Anderson has observed this too. See his The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London and New York: Verso, 1998), p. 15, footnote. 29. [Return to Text]

19. Ministerial Statement on Chinese Language in Schools by Deputy Prime Minister Brigadier-General Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament, 20 January 1999. [Return to Text]

20. Wang Gungwu describes sojourning as 'experimental migration'. This option is open mainly to the middle-class and educated people who would explore all options and defer decision-making until a decision is inevitable. See, generally, Wang Gungwu, 'Global Development and the Movement of Peoples,' in Selo Soemardjan and Kenneth W. Thompson, eds., Culture, Development and Democracy: The Role of the Intellectual - A Tribute to Soedjatmoko (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994). [Return to Text]

21. Gabriel Sheffer, 'Ethnic Diasporas: A Threat to their Hosts?' in Myron Weiner, ed., International Migration and Security (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), p. 284. [Return to Text]

22. For the view that ethnic conflict has 'calculative' and 'passionate' components, see Donald Horowitz, 'Structure and Strategy in Ethnic Conflict,' Paper prepared for the Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, Washington, D.C., 20-21 April 1998. [Return to Text]

Copyright © 1999, Eugene Tan.

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