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Introduction
Minority differences are manifest around the world, in innumerable realms—religious, linguistic, ethnic, geographic, and economic—often in combinations thereof, and can lead to discrimination. Throughout Southeast Asia, ethnic discrimination is widespread, particularly discrimination against Chinese emigrants1 and their descendants. The large number of such emigrants and their descendants threatens many Southeast Asian governments, including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. This is due to their perceived infiltration into regional politics, economics, and culture and the fear that the Chinese might, in effect, turn those states into Chinese colonies.
Southeast Asia has sometimes been called “the Third China”2 by scholars because the region contains the largest southern Chinese emigrant population. At present, approximately 16–18 million overseas Chinese—95 percent of all Chinese emigrants and their descendants—are concentrated in Southeast Asia.3 These Chinese emigrants and their descendants play important social, economic, and political roles in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand.