|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
Endnotes
1. A Chinese emigrant is defined as a Chinese who migrated to Thailand from China. This term will be used interchangeably with Chinese emigrants to reflect the aforementioned definition of Chinese persons in Thailand only.
2. C.P. Fitzgerald, The Third China: The Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1965), 5.
3. Lynn Pan, The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 138–272.
4. Definition of Overseas Chinese. Webster’s Dictionary Online. Available from http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/ETHNIC+CHINESE.
Overseas Chinese vary widely as to their degree of assimilation, their interactions with the surrounding communities, and their relationship with China. In Thailand, overseas Chinese have largely intermarried and assimilated with the native community, while in Malaysia and Singapore, overseas Chinese have maintained a distinct communal identity. Often there are different waves of immigration leading to subgroups among overseas Chinese such as the new and old immigrants in Cambodia. Many people, particularly in Malaysia and Singapore, who are considered overseas Chinese do not welcome the label. The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have often established themselves in commerce and finance.
Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) maintain highly complex relationships with overseas Chinese populations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the ROC tended to seek the support of overseas Chinese communities through branches of the Kuomintang based on Sun Yat-sen’s use of expatriate Chinese communities to raise money for his revolution. During this period, the PRC tended to view overseas Chinese with suspicion as possible capitalist infiltrators and tended to value relationships with Southeast Asian nations as more important than gaining support of overseas Chinese. The Bandung declaration explicitly stated that overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation.