Globalization and the Future of Southeast Asia's Ethnic Chinese

In Southeast Asia over the last two centuries, Chinese traders, workers, and immigrants adapted to a changing series of local environments--pre-national, colonial, and post-colonial. At each stage, they broadened the scope of their activities. They were on the brink of working the modern global economy when the post-World War II nation-states of Southeast Asia were created. Nationalist agendas and the politics of cold and hot wars soon obliged the ethnic Chinese to make readjustments. New forms of globalization are changing the Southeast Asian environment once again. Will former strategies of survivalÑadaptations honed during the last fifty years, if not the past two hundred--help the region's ethnic Chinese to deal with globalization in the 21st century? Or will such accommodations need to be replaced? Will the ethnic Chinese mainly seek (or be obliged) to concentrate on saving themselves? Or will they be able to share their own skills and values on behalf of the viable nations and vibrant economies that Southeast Asia will need if it is to cope successfully with the new century's challenges? Wang Gungwu is Director of the East Asian Institute and Faculty Professor in Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore; Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, also in Singapore; and Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Previously, he was Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University of Hong Kong (1986-1995) and Professor of Far Eastern History at ANU (1968-1986). He also taught at the University of Malaya (1957-1968). His many publications include The Chinese Overseas (2000), China and Southeast Asia (1999), The Nanhai Trade (new ed., 1998), and, as coeditor, The Chinese Diaspora (2 vols, 1998) and Changing Identities of Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II (1988). Prof. Wang was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, and grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia.