OVERSEAS CHINESE

The overseas Chinese have suffered from widespread racism in their adopted countries, including the United States, Australia and Europe, and are rightly very sensitive about the fact. A notable characteristic of the overseas Chinese is the extent to which they tend to keep to themselves as a community. Notwithstanding the serious racism that they have historically experienced in the United States, they did not join with black Americans in the major civil rights campaigns. [826] The most important and largest Chinese communities are in South- East Asia, where they often constitute sizeable minorities — most notably Malaysia, where they account for over a quarter of the population. Historically the overseas Chinese in South-East Asia have suffered various forms of discrimination and this has been a continuing problem since these countries acquired independence following the Second World War. It is important, however, to see the wider context. The Chinese in this region invariably control a large proportion of the non-state economy, often more than half, and enjoy on average a rather higher standard of living than the indigenous ethnic majority. It is common for them to look down on the majority race, and even avoid mixing with them more than is necessary, although many in my experience do not share such prejudices. There are, thus, two sides to the coin: the Chinese, as a minority, experience various forms of discrimination, but at the same time regard themselves as superior to the indigenous majority, hold chauvinistic attitudes towards them, and use their economic power to favour their own and discriminate against the ethnic majority. [827] Indonesian-Chinese writer and successful businessman Richard Oh described the attitude of the Chinese towards Indonesians: ‘The Chinese community tends to recoil from society and makes very little effort to integrate. Although frightened, they are very arrogant and haughty. Where do they get this feeling of being a superior race?’ [828] He volunteered that he preferred the company of Indonesians for this reason.

Such is their sense of Chinese being the norm, and every other race being a deviation from that norm, that the overseas Chinese frequently refer to the host population as foreigners. The British author and journalist James Kynge cites a fascinating example of a Chinese community newspaper in Prato in northern Italy, which ran a front-page story about ‘three foreign thieves’ responsible for various burglaries in the local Chinatown. When Kynge rang the editor he discovered that not only were the ‘foreign thieves’ actually Italian, but that anyone who was not Chinese was automatically regarded as a foreigner, and that the same convention was used in all Chinese-language papers around the world. [829] Lucian Pye explains: ‘The Chinese see such an absolute difference between themselves and others that even when living in lonely isolation in distant countries they unconsciously find it natural and appropriate to refer to those in whose homeland they are living as “foreigners”.’ [830]

A particularly striking feature of overseas Chinese communities is the extent to which, wherever they are living, they seek to retain their sense of Chineseness. In many South-East Asian countries, Chinese often prefer to send their children to a Chinese rather than a local school, with the Chinese community often sponsoring a large number of such schools. In many Western countries, where their relative numbers are much smaller, the Chinese community organizes Chinese Sunday schools at which their children can become conversant in Mandarin and familiar with Chinese culture. In San Francisco, which has a large Chinese population, there is an extensive ‘Roots’ project, where Chinese-Americans visit their ancestral villages in China in order to find out about and hopefully meet their distant relatives. [831] One of the participants in 1997, Evan Leong, then a student at the University of California, writes fascinatingly about his experiences and feelings.

Even though my great-great-great-grandfather came to the United States more than 125 years ago, I have not homogenized to become an ‘American’. No matter what people call me, what clothes I wear, what food I eat, what my tastes are, what race my friends are, or what girls I date, I still know that I am Chinese. [832]

He writes:

The general sentiment among both groups [US-born Chinese and those newly arrived from China] was shared — that China and Chinese people were far superior to any other race. [833]

The newly arrived enjoyed greater kudos than those born in the US because they were seen as more authentically Chinese, the opposite to what often happens with migrants from the developing world in the developed world. He also describes his family’s attachment to Chinese customs:

Even though I am so distant and different from my blood relatives in China, my American ancestors have continued to practice many Chinese customs. Our extended families gather together often for holidays and birthdays. We clean and prepare our houses and wear new clothes for Chinese New Year rituals. We pay our respects to my grandfather’s grave… during Ching Ming and other important dates. [834]

The cohesive ties of Chinese identity have found expression in the notion of Greater China, a cultural and civilizational idea rather than a territorial or political entity. [835] Greater China is seen as embracing all Chinese, with China at the centre, circled by Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Singapore, together with the numerous Chinese communities around the world, and has become an increasingly popular concept amongst Chinese over the last quarter century. The strength of these bonds is rooted in a shared inheritance of Chinese civilization, thereby adding a further dimension to the notion of China as a civilization-state. Despite the legacy of political differences, the overseas Chinese, especially those in Hong Kong and Taiwan, have made a formidable contribution to Chinese economic growth through huge investments in the mainland. [836] In contrast, Russian émigrés chose to shun the Soviet Union, and the Indian diaspora has historically made a much less significant contribution to Indian growth than its Chinese counterpart. Strong centripetal forces operate in Greater China, as within China itself, with the Chinese, wherever they are, feeling a powerful sense of attachment to the homeland.

This found a new form of expression during the torch relay that was staged around the world as part of the build-up to the Beijing Olympics. In London, Paris, Athens and San Francisco, the celebrations were overshadowed by counter-demonstrations in protest at Chinese policy over Tibet. But elsewhere the picture was very different. In Canberra 10,000 demonstrated in favour of the Games, hugely outnumbering the protesters. In Seoul, thousands turned out in support of the Olympics, as they did in Nagano in Japan, in both cases dwarfing the number of protesters; likewise in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong. Everywhere those demonstrating their support for the Beijing Games were overwhelmingly Chinese, either students from the mainland or people from the local Chinese community. [837]