Ethnic Chinese in Malaysia are celebrating China’s rise – but as multicultural Malaysians, not Chinese

Peter T. C. Chang says at a time when China is emerging as a global power and extending its influence far and wide, aspersions cast on the loyalty of ethnic Chinese born and bred in Malaysia are wholly unjustified

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As China rises, ethnic Chinese in Malaysia are revelling in spontaneous flushes of cultural pride. But they do so not as Chinese, but as Malaysians. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 11:23am, 11 May 2018Updated: 7:48pm, 11 May 2018

In 2015, China's then ambassador to Malaysia, Huang Huikang, visited Kuala Lumpur Chinatown just ahead of a planned pro-Malay rally. Huang's walkabout, during which he spoke out against racism and extremism, defused a potential ethnic showdown. But it earned the ambassador a summoning to the foreign ministry to explain his perceived meddling in Malaysia’s domestic affairs.

The Kuala Lumpur incident is a portent of things to come as China steps up efforts to connect as well as protect overseas Chinese communities. During the 19th Communist Party congress, last year, President Xi Jinping reaffirmed China’s strategic policy of co-opting the Chinese diaspora into Beijing's grand push to internationalise the “Chinese dream”.

Xi's overture is hitting some wrong notes. In the United States, lawmakers have complained that mainland Chinese students there have come under pressure from Beijing after criticising China. In Australia, Canberra is proposing countermeasures for alleged interference by the Communist Party in the country’s internal affairs and in the Chinese Australian communities.

A woman offers prayers at a temple in Kualar Lumpur’s Chinatown area on the first day of the Lunar New Year last year. Photo: AFP

The Chinese diaspora is a global phenomenon unlike others because immigrants from China have, over the centuries, planted roots in almost every continent. More crucially, the crisis-stricken homeland they left behind generations ago is today a rejuvenated, self-confident modern nation-state. And this re-emerging superpower is eager to re-enter the world stage and shape the existing international order.