SINGAPORE
In a world gripped by the rise of China, it is not surprising that the
exploits of a Chinese Muslim eunuch whose armada of ships ranged as far as
the coast of Africa 600 ago draws attention. But for millions of ethnic
Chinese living in Southeast Asia, the anniversary this year of Admiral
Zheng He's maiden voyage out of Nanjing is an occasion for introspection
about their place and identity in a world affected by the growth of
China's power.
Western social scientists have
long postulated that ethnic Chinese communities in Asia have assimilated
with their host societies and slowly lost their Chinese identity. But much
of this research was conducted in the dark days of the Cultural Revolution
and its aftermath, when links between ethnic Chinese and their motherland
were cut off.
The trend for the last 25
years, since China opened up under Deng Xiaoping, has been for ethnic
Chinese in Southeast Asia to make return visits to China to explore their
ancestral villages, network with distant relatives, relearn the language
and - more recently - invest in China's booming economy.
On a recent official visit to
China, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand made a pilgrimage to
his grandparents' graves in Guangdong Province. Thailand's Charoen
Pokphand Group was for many years one of the largest foreign investors in
China.
China, for its part, has been
careful not to claim the loyalty of its overseas kin. Successive prime
ministers, from Zhou Enlai to Li Peng, made it clear that ethnic Chinese
overseas owed their loyalty to host governments. This position has
modified somewhat with the growth of China's economy. Special arrangements
were made for ethnic Chinese returning to "invest in the motherland." A
new network of "Confucius Centers" is being established to teach Chinese
language and culture overseas. When anti-Chinese riots broke out in
Indonesia a decade ago, Beijing felt compelled to lodge a protest with
Jakarta. And China has increasingly made use of ethnic Chinese business
and political contacts to further its influence in Southeast Asia.
All this raises the question
of where the loyalties of ethnic Chinese overseas lie. It's a question
that Singapore is grappling with as it marks the anniversary of Zheng He's
voyages by holding a variety of cultural events reflecting on the identity
of this mostly Chinese city-state.
The official line is that
Singaporeans are culturally Chinese but politically Singaporean. It's this
cultural identification that inspires pride in China's recent achievements
and helps mute the kind of knee-jerk fear of China that tinges debates in
the United States and Europe. "The idea and ideal of One China" are
"deeply embedded in the Chinese mind," Singapore's foreign minister,
George Yeo, said recently.
But as China extends its
influence economically and politically, the nagging question is whether
Beijing's policy of not claiming loyalty and affiliation will hold. With
so much overseas Chinese capital now invested in China, how easy will it
be for governments or individuals in Southeast Asia to resist calls for
support and sympathy?
The difference between being
American and being Chinese is that America has a universal appeal, rather
like a religion; being Chinese is a tribal thing, Yeo argues. "A Chinese
cannot cease being a Chinese."
Part of the reason for the
fond reflections on Zheng He in Southeast Asia is that he helped establish
Chinese communities in parts of Java and the Malay Peninsula - even if
this was in all probability part of a strategy to impose imperial Chinese
control.
As China seeks to project the
journeys of Zheng He as peaceful trade and cultural missions, it would be
an opportune time for China's leaders to restate their modern position of
political distance from the ethnic Chinese of Southeast Asia.
