The Chinese in Southeast Asia, with their growing economic clout, have been attracting attention from politicians, scholars and observers in recent decades. The rise of China as a global economic power and its profound influence over Southeast Asia has cast a spotlight on the role of Southeast Asian Chinese in the region''s economic relations with China.The Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic force and their growing importance with China are, to a certain extent, determined by the nature and development of their communities. This book uses a multifaceted approach to unravel the forces that helped to transform the communities in the past. Containing 17 papers written within a span of six and a half years, from 2000 to 2006, the book focuses on the social, economic and political aspects of these communities, with special emphasis on the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.

The Chinese in Southeast Asia, with their growing economic clout, have been attracting attention from politicians, scholars and observers in recent decades. The rise of China as a global economic power and its profound influence over Southeast Asia has cast a spotlight on the role of Southeast Asian Chinese in the region's economic relations with China.The Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic force and their growing importance with China are, to a certain extent, determined by the nature and development of their communities. This book uses a multifaceted approach to unravel the forces that helped to transform the communities in the past. Containing 17 papers written within a span of six and a half years, from 2000 to 2006, the book focuses on the social, economic and political aspects of these communities, with special emphasis on the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.

Spanning over a millennium of history, this book seeks to describe and define the evolution of the China–Southeast Asia nexus and the interactions which have shaped their shared pasts. Examining the relationships which have proven integral to connecting Northeast and Southeast Asia with other parts of the world, the contributors of the volume provide a wide-ranging historical context to changing relations in the region today – perhaps one of the most intense re-orderings occurring anywhere in the world. From maritime trading relations and political interactions to overland Chinese expansion and commerce in Southeast Asia, this book reveals rarely explored connections across the China–Southeast Asia interface. In so doing, it transcends existing area studies boundaries to present an invaluable new perspective to the field. A major contribution to the study of Asian economic and cultural interactions, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as those engaged with Southeast Asia.

In The Price and Promise of Specialness, Jin Li Lim revises narratives on the overseas Chinese and the People’s Republic of China by analysing the Communist approach to ‘overseas Chinese affairs’ in New China’s first decade as a function of a larger political economy. Jin Li Lim shows how the party-state centred its approach towards the overseas Chinese on a perception of their financial utility and thus sought to offer them a special identity and place in New China, so as to unlock their riches. Yet, this contradicted the quest for socialist transformation, and as its early pragmatism fell away, the radicalising party-state abandoned its promises to the overseas Chinese, who were left to pay the price for their difference.

The rise of the economic power of the ethnic Chinese, known also as overseas Chinese, Chinese overseas or Chinese diaspora, was a late 20th century phenomenon. It was partly the result of the rise of the Four Little Asian Dragons in the 1970s, and was speeded up by the tempo of globalization towards the end of that century. This book explores the ethnic identity and boundary of the Chinese as minority groups in foreign lands, and as sub-groups among the Chinese themselves. It examines prominent personalities that had wielded considerable influence in the ethnic Chinese communities in the economic, social and educational arenas. It also discusses the type of politics that had impacted their relationship with their mother country — China.Containing 16 papers presented at various international conferences in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan as keynote speeches and research findings which are predominantly unpublished in English, this book provides fresh perspectives and re-interpretations on the issues of ethnicity, leadership and politics in the ethnic Chinese worlds.

Combining a historical approach of Chineseness and a contemporary perspective on the social construction of Chineseness, this book provides comparative insights to understand the contingent complexities of ethnic and social formations in both China and among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. This book focuses on the experiences and practices of these people, who as mobile agents are free to embrace or reject being defined as Chinese by moving across borders and reinterpreting their own histories. By historicizing the notion of Chineseness at local, regional, and global levels, the book examines intersections of authenticity, authority, culture, identity, media, power, and international relations that support or undermine different instances of Chineseness and its representations. It seeks to rescue the present from the past by presenting case studies of contingent encounters that produce the ideas, practices, and identities that become the categories nations need to justify their existence. The dynamic, fluid representations of Chineseness illustrate that it has never been an undifferentiated whole in both space and time. Through physical movements and inherited knowledge, agents of Chineseness have deployed various interpretive strategies to define and represent themselves vis-à-vis the local, regional, and global in their respective temporal experiences. This book will be relevant to students and scholars in Chinese studies and Asian studies more broadly, with a focus on identity politics, migration, popular culture, and international relations. “The Chinese overseas often saw themselves as caught between a rock and a hard place. The collection of essays here highlights the variety of experiences in Southeast Asia and China that suggest that the rock can become a huge boulder with sharp edges and the hard places can have deadly spikes. A must read for those who wonder whether Chineseness has ever been what it seems.” Wang Gungwu, University Professor, National University of Singapore. “By including reflections on constructions of Chineseness in both China itself and in various Southeast Asian sites, the book shows that being Chinese is by no means necessarily intertwined with China as a geopolitical concept, while at the same time highlighting the incongruities and tensions in the escapable relationship with China that diasporic Chinese subjects variously embody, expressed in a wide range of social phenomena such as language use, popular culture, architecture and family relations. The book is a very welcome addition to the necessary ongoing conversation on Chineseness in the 21st century.” Ien Ang, Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, Western Sydney University.

As energy has become one of the crucial factors in ensuring the economic growth and the sustainable development of people, nations, societies and, ultimately, human civilisation in the 21st century global scenario, there is a pressing need for treating energy as a strategic commodity and for analysing national, regional and global strategies concerning energy. This is an attempt to debate and discuss various facets -- economic, technological and political -- of such strategies, and at the same time, to encompass concepts, like energy security and energy diplomacy, that form significant components of such strategies. Strategising of energy is an issue that is inextricably linked with the domestic and foreign policies of a nation or a region, and it is characteristically futuristic, as strategies are supposed to be made with a long-term perspective. Contemporary Asian realities serve as the perspective of such an analysis for several reasons. Asia is the home of two fast growing and energy-thirsty countries like China and India, as well as Japan and the ASEAN countries. There are at least three energy-producing regions in Asia that are crucial for global energy security, like West Asia, the traditional one, two upcoming regions of Central Asia and the area around South China Sea. The Indian Ocean is one of the most important energy transit routes for international energy transport. Even the smallest disruption in the production and transport-chain of energy within Asia has the potential of upsetting the global energy balance. This volume attempts to focus on a number of significant issues concerning the theme of strategising of energy. Contributors analyse, debate and discuss the questions from different viewpoints and different angles. Thus, this volume represents a wide spectrum of views—from a scientist’s vision of a world with cleaner energy, to the strategist’s comments on solutions to national energy issues; from journalists’ views on the development of governmental policies on energy, to academicians’ analyses of regional energy strategies; and from historians’ analyses of the restructuring of the national energy infrastructure and the re-prioritising of national energy strategies, to debates on national, regional as well as maritime energy strategies by specialists on international relations.

"This is a bold project recording the lives of a particular group of Southeast Asians. Most of the people whose biographies are included here have settled down in the ten countries that constitute the region. Each of them has either self-identified as Chinese or is comfortable to be known as someone of Chinese ancestry. There are also those who were born in China or elsewhere who came here to work and do business, including seeking help from others who have ethnic Chinese connections. With the political and economic conditions of the region in a great state of flux for the past two centuries, it is impossible to find consistency in the naming process. Confucius had stressed that correct names make for the best relationships. In this case, Professor Leo Suryadinata has been pursuing for decades the elusive goal of finding the right name to give to the large numbers of people who have, in one way or another, made their homes in, or made some difference to, Southeast Asia. I believe that, when he and his colleagues selected the biographies to be included here, they have taken a big step towards the rectification of identities for many leading personalities. In so doing, he has done us all a great service." - Professor Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore

Born in South China before 1949, brought up and educated in Southeast Asia and Australia, and having worked in Southeast Asia, Australia and Hong Kong, Professor Yen has a unique personal experience in telling the fascinating stories of the encounter and clashes of cultural and social values between East and West. Imbued with many traditional Chinese cultural values such as diligence, perseverance, resilience and determination, in this book, he tells his life story of how he was determined to climb the pinnacle of scholarship. As an ethnic minority in Australian society, he devoted himself to fight for the interests of the the Chinese diaspora and help promote multi-culturalism in Australia.This book also provides first-hand source materials for the study of intellectuals, from the Chinese diaspora, studying and working in a Western university through his eyes: his initial problem of adjusting to a new western environment, his experience of cultural dislocation, the clashes of cultural values and social mores, his experience of racial discrimination, and his pursuit of academic excellence.