Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article
Author(s): Maurice Freedman
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 300-304
Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia
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Chinese Communities in Southeast
Asia: Review Article
S INCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR, the Chinese in Southeast Asia have become
an academic "subject" largely because of two massive political events:
the disintegration of most colonial regimes in the region, and the emergence
of China as a great power. Each of these events by itself would have been
enough to attract attention to the Chinese minorities scattered from Burma
to the Philippines; together they have caused a light to play on the Chinese
in Southeast Asia (the Nan-yang) which must sometimes be less flattering
than inconvenient. The region is now studied because the Chinese there
form a crucial element, because they have (or may have) economic and po-
litical ties with a Communist homeland, and because for some social scientists
prevented from working in China they provide a substitute area for field
investigation. Before the War no sociologist or anthropologist had studied
the Nan-yang Chinese in any detail; one could put together some interesting
facts gathered by administrators, missionaries, historians, political analysts,
and travelers, but no clear picture of Overseas Chinese society could be drawn
from the material available.
In I948 Dr. Victor Purcell published his historical study, The Chinese
in Malaya, and three years later his broader survey, The Chinese in South-
east Asia. These two books appeared at a time when the Nan-yang was be-
coming a field of sociological study-a study which they helped to encour-
age. Three social anthropologists from the London School of Economics were
at work in Singapore and Sarawak in the years I948-5i. In ig9o Dr. G. W.
Skinner, an anthropologist from Cornell University, having been forced to
abandon his research in West China, began what was to prove to be an ex-
tended study of Chinese settlements in the Nan-yang. A little later other
scholars set to work in Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia, and North
Borneo.
Singapore has so far attracted most attention, and this is in a sense a pity,
because its Chinese population, in its dominance of the local scene and in its
complexity, represents only certain extreme features of the Nan-yang. None
of the studies made of Singapore has given a picture of its total structure.
1 See A. J. A. Elliott, Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore, London School of Eco-
nomics Monographs on Social Anthropology, London, i955; Marjorie Topley, "Chinese Women's
Vegetarian Houses," Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. xxv, part I,
i952, "Chinese Religion and Religious Institutions in Singapore," ibid., Vol. xxix, part I, 1956,
and other papers; Maurice Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, H. M. Sta-
tionery Office, London, I957, and "Colonial Law and Chinese Society," Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, Vol. lxxx, i950.
300
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Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia
The Sarawak study, concentrated on associations and economic life, has pro-
vided us with an account of another variant of the Nan-yang Chinese settle-
ment-one in which we can grasp the total network of relations binding the
Chinese in a relatively small and simple community.2 There have been sev-
eral papers resulting from research elsewhere, but until Dr. Skinner's two re-
cent books" appeared, no settlements other than those in Singapore and Sara-
wak had been described in any detail.
Dr. Skinner began his study of the Nan-yang Chinese with a general sur-
vey which he carried out in I950.4 In the three publications under review here'
we can follow his subsequent work, first in Thailand and later in Java. Over
the years he has built up a superb knowledge of the Overseas Chinese and
of the social and cultural milieux in which they live. His first book, Chinese
Society in Thailand, is a pioneering work of scholarship. Nobody before
him had written the history of any Chinese settlement in Southeast Asia
from the point of view of someone who knew what sociological analysis
meant. There are enough facts in the book to satisfy the most exacting his-
torian, but they are classed and interpreted in such a way as to make us un-
derstand how Chinese relations among themselves and with the Thai have
developed from one kind of situation to another. We cannot fully compre-
hend a minority unless we know the society into which it fits, and this fact
is of special importance in Thailand, where the line between Thai and Chin-
ese has tended to sway with contrary movements of encouragement and re-
pression, attraction and repulsion.
Chinese Society in Thailand, described as "an analytical history," fits the
analysis of Chinese social organization and Sino-Thai relations into a
chronological framework. ITe book opens with an account of the general
situation of the Chinese in Thailand up to the early part of the nineteenth
century; it shows, among other things, how trade with China was bound up
with the Siamese tribute missions. In his second chapter Dr. Skinner deals
with the immigration of the Chinese and their population growth up to
I9T7, providing an excellent sketch of emigration from southeast China which
should be read by everybody interested in the Nan-yang. Chapter 3 examines
the role of the Chinese in the Thai economy up to the early twentieth cen-
2 T'ien Ju-k'ang, The Chinese of Sarawak: a Study of Social Structure, London School of
Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, London, I953.
3 Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y.,
1957, 459 pp. $6.50. Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Cornell
University Press, I958, 364 pp. $6.50.
4 Report on the Chinese in Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, i95I,
mimeographed.
5 The two books by Skinner, and Morton H. Fried, ed., Colloquium on Overseas Chinese,
International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, New York, i958; pp. 8o, $i.5o, mimeo-
graphed.
301
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Pacific Affairs
tury, while the next chapter is concerned with the social and political position
of the Chinese during the nineteenth century. With chapter 5 we cross into
the field of "the Chinese Problem" as it has developed in our own times; the
chapter is suitably entitled "Into a New Era: Transition to Nationalism and
Cohesion." Chapter 6 brings the demographic history down to i955, while
the last three chapters deal with successive phases in Sino-Thai relations and
Chinese social organization from i9io to i955. The argument of the book
is clearly set out and fully documented.
In most parts of Southeast Asia the Chinese have had to adapt themselves
to colonial social systems, with the result that they have generally become
groups intermediate between "natives" and alien rulers. For reasons, which
are at least clear in outline, they have made admirable use of economic oppor-
tunities which were neglected by the local peoples. Many Chinese grew pros-
perous in the Nan-yang. As they rose economically, their social ambitions
could take them some of the way towards the culture and status of the Euro-
peans standing at the head of colonial societies; but the Chinese could not
enter the European elites, and there was little point in their merging with the
"natives." In his contribution to the Colloquium on Overseas Chinese Dr.
Skinner shows how the Chinese in Java moved in part towards the Dutch
and in part towards the local peoples, lacking the incentives to assimilate to
the latter and the opportunities to become one with the former. The logic of
the situation has brought the Chinese in independent Indonesia into the posi-
ion of an economically strong but politically weak minority on which the
Indonesian nationalists look with suspicion and disfavor. One could add that
if an exactly similar state of affairs has not come about in Malaya, it is be-
cause the Chinese there are relatively too numerous to be pressed hard.
In Indonesia and Malaya intermarriage and acculturation in the past have
produced Chinese groups culturally close to the indigenous peoples but po-
litically encased within the Chinese minorities. Thailand has been different.
There the movement by the Chinese towards Thai culture has been part of
a social system in which for a long time the Chinese were able to assimilate
freely and completely. The rise of both Thai and Chinese nationalism in the
twentieth century, along with other factors, has modified the system by
strengthening the resistance of the Chinese and decreasing the tolerance of
the Thai. The Chinese who now wish to continue as a more or less self-con-
tained minority are in much the same difficult position as their congeners in
other parts of the, Nan-yang, but in fact the road to assimilation is still open
to those who wish to travel it. In real life many Chinese move between Thai
society and the Chinese minority according to the context of their interests
and the state of the pressure being exerted on the minority.
In his second book, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community
302
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Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia
in Thailand, Dr. Skinner turns to the narrower problem of defining the cen-
ters of power from which those who take part in the Chinese sector of Thai-
land society are controlled. As far as the essential subject-matter is concerned,
we are on familiar ground here; the story of how the Nan-yang Chinese
organize themselves around their economic interests and on the basis of vol-
untary associations is an old one. What is novel in Dr. Skinner's book is the
method of the enquiry, which yields an abundance of facts systematically
collected. These facts are brought together in an illuminating and highly
original account of Chinese leaders.
In his first book Dr. Skinner was an anthropologist writing history; in
his second book he is an anthropologist writing a special kind of sociology. If
one is to criticize his work at all, one must say that the anthropologist writing
anthropology is not well enough to the fore. One misses a sharpness in the
material on family and kinship and detects an impatience with religious
matters. (I am surprised that in his paper on Java Dr. Skinner should offer
us as evidence that the younger generation of Chinese "is a strikingly irrelig-
ious crew" the results of an enquiry into what "high-school seniors" state
their religious views to be. Again, he says of the Bangkok leaders he studied
that most of them "refrain from formal religious activity, and when ques-
tioned about religion cite Confucian virtues . . . or less frequently Buddhist
precepts as the basis for their lives." Anthropologists have a reputation for
being observers rather than simply reporters of what people say they do and
think.) The limitations of the method used in the second study mean, fur-
thermore, that it is really about leaders and not so much about leadership.
While the origins, activities, roles, and interconnexions of the leaders are set
out in impressive detail, there is no corresponding depth in the treatment of
leaders in relation to their followers. In other words, the community of the
led is not fully analysed.
As far as the organized social life of the Chinese is concerned, Thailand
can be conveniently reduced to Bangkok. Here Dr. Skinner began his study
by compiling a list of Chinese occupying the highest positions in business
and associations. In I952 he himself personally interviewed all but a handful
of the I35 men whom his previous researches had shown to be at the top of
the Chinese community. Supplemented by other enquiries, the interviews
provided data from which the structure of the group of Chinese leaders
could be inferred. The leaders turned out to be, as one might expect, predom-
inantly China-born and for the most part the sons of business men. (Ten per
cent of the fathers are said to have been of the "scholar-gentry class." I won-
der whether Dr. Skinner has any independent evidence to support this find-
ing.) Although over three-fifths of the leaders were self-made men, only
one-fifth had themselves travelled the whole road from the status of penni-
303
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Pacific Afairs
less immigrant. After setting out these and many other important charac-
teristics, Dr. Skinner examines the prestige, power, and influence of the
group of leaders, widening his sample when he thinks it necessary. In one
chapter, for example, he analyses the structure of power under the title of
"Control and the Inner Circle." Here he shows how businesses and associa-
tions are tied together through their common officers and how (on the basis
of "five-man interlock clusters") a set of power blocs can be isolated from the
total web of interrelations, all under the ultimate leadership of one man.
Happily, Dr. Skiner was able to extend his study, carrying it through to
1955 when he examined a second sample of leaders. In the three years cov-
ered by the total study the group of leaders can be shown to have been fairly
stable, while there was a high degree of continuity in the structure of the
power blocs. "Even during three years of intense political controversy within
the Chinese community," Dr. Skinner comments, "its 'governmental' struc-
ture has if anything grown stronger and more all embracing." The final chap-
ter of the book discusses the political alignments of leaders and the relations
between Chinese leaders and the Thai elite. Despite all the political and eco-
nomic badgering to which the Chinese in modern times have been subjected,
their leaders are likely to be creamed off if present trends continue. "Follow-
ing the example of their leaders, and weakened by their defection, the entire
Chinese community will inevitably move more rapidly toward complete
assimilation to Thai society."
The Colloquium on Overseas Chinese suffers greatly by comparison with
Dr. Skinner's painstaking and considered Thailand studies. It is a rather
poorly mimeographed collection of seven brief papers discussed at a special
session of the American Anthropological Association meetings in i957. The
papers are followed by a twenty-page "edited version of the three hours of
speech and conversation that comprised the Colloquium." It is dismaying to
see how little people can say in long discussions and how badly they are apt
to say it; one wonders why they choose to expose themselves to the cold eye
of the reader. Two papers, apart from Dr. Skinner's on Java, deal with the
Nan-yang: Mr. David Fortier's on North Borneo and Professor Stanley
Spector's on Singapore. They both suffer from compression but are extremely
useful as guides. Indeed, the stated purpose of the Colloquium was not
primarily to add to our knowledge, but rather to! map out the field of current
research on the Overseas Chinese. The editor reports that he is acting as tem-
porary chairman of "a slowly coalescing Committee for Overseas Chinese
studies." One wishes it well and hopes that its future publications will consist
of more carefully prepared papers, better written than some in the present
collection.
London School of Economics MAURICE FREEDMAN
304
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Article Contents
p. 300
p. 301
p. 302
p. 303
p. 304
Issue Table of Contents
Pacific Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 219-320
Front Matter [pp. ]
Foreign Policy Issues in Japan's 1958 Elections [pp. 219-240]
South Viet-Nam's Internal Problems [pp. 241-260]
New Sources of Industrial Finance in India [pp. 261-274]
Urbanization and Population Pressure in Japan [pp. 275-285]
Notes and Comment
The Curriculum in Chinese Socialist Education: An Official Bibliography of "Maoism" [pp. 286-299]
Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article [pp. 300-304]
Book Reviews
Review: untitled [pp. 305-306]
Review: untitled [pp. 306-307]
Review: untitled [pp. 307-308]
Review: untitled [pp. 308]
Review: untitled [pp. 309-311]
Review: untitled [pp. 311-312]
Review: untitled [pp. 312-314]
Review: untitled [pp. 314-315]
Review: untitled [pp. 315-317]
Review: untitled [pp. 317-318]
Review: untitled [pp. 318-319]
Review: untitled [pp. 319-320]
Back Matter [pp. ]
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