Chinese identity

[Outofin]

Read this In Asia's Chinese diaspora, are loyalties divided?

China, for its part, has been careful not to claim the loyalty of its overseas kin. ... This position has modified somewhat with the growth of China's economy… All this raises the question of where the loyalties of ethnic Chinese overseas lie… Yeo argues, “A Chinese cannot cease being a Chinese.”

I've never been South Asia. From my exprience, most Chinese in American think they're Americans from the second generation.

[Outofin]

Make a few more comments here.

When I travel around, I see Chinese in the most unlikely places. It makes me think about the fate of my race. Why Chinese go to every strange and possibly unfriendly place so intrepidly? Why Chinese could so easily forget our history but maintain a strong tradition at the same time? How does China see her children spreading all over the planet? And the ultimate question comes "Who are we?"

I don't believe that China is trying to build a core land of all Chinese. But Chinese do see overseas as their cousins. That might be a reason, among others, Chinese want to unite Taiwan, and Chinese felt so painful when Indonesia massacred its Chinese citizens (which raises another fact: no matter what Indonesia Chinese think who they are, they are identified as Chinese.)

[gato]

From the article:

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....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?

I think the Singaporean official line is the right line to draw. Also there isn't much those in the Southeast Asian diaspora can do to conspire against their own countries to help China. I would think that the interests of their own countries and China are more or less aligned in the same direction. China is in economic competition with these countries, but economic competition is not zero-sum and it's for the most part between private, possibly trans-national, businesses, which don't necessarily represent one country or another. The position of Chinese Americans is trickier because of the military rivalry between the two countries.

About the cultural identification: The owner of a Thai restaurant I used to go to was of Chinese descent. She was in her 40s. I think she told me that her grandfather went to Thailand. Though she didn't speak any Chinese, I think she did identify culturally as Chinese to some degree (I'm sure she also considered herself Thai, as well). It may be because Guangdong isn't that far from Thailand. One can fairly easily feel the Chinese influence in Thailand. A parallel might be with Mexican Americans, many of whom identify culturally with Mexico though they may be a generation or two away from the original immigration.

[Bamboo Grove]

Most Chinese in Thailand have assimilated to the local population better than in many other countries. They do know that they are of Chinese origin but besides the occasional Chinese New Year and Ching Ming day they behave just like other people in Thailand and consider themselves as Thais of Chinese origin more than Chinese.

If you think about it this is often the case in other multicultural countries as well. For example U.S.A and Australia, most people know they backgrounds but consider themselves as Americans or Australians.