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South East Asia

This book is an amplification of a chapter on “Overseas Chinese” in the authors’ previous work, Singular and Different: Business in China, Past, Present and Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Although the authors concede at the start of their study that the Chinese minorities of the countries of South East Asia are largely assimilated politically, they nevertheless believe that “Overseas Chinese” share a common business culture founded on family ownership, Confucian values, hierarchy, filial piety, and tradition. The book is written for the general reader, and in particular for “Western businesspeople . . . preparing to work with Southeast Asian business partners for the first time” (p. 135). It has succinct histories of the different Chinese communities and the countries of South East Asia they inhabit; a survey of the history of China and its relations with South East Asia and its Chinese minorities; a brief description of Chinese language and culture; and surveys of South East Asian economy and business culture. The book is clearly written and the history is, for the most part, accurate. The section on language, on the other hand, is amateurish. Two examples: Bahasa Indonesia is “a language in which a conversation with a university professor or an illiterate peasant is equally possible”; Chinese is written in “ideographs”, spoken in tones whose meaning “can be often guessed from the context”, and “largely ignores formal grammar and syntax” (p. 86). Neither of these descriptions would win prizes in a linguistics competition. According to the authors, “Overseas Chinese” have a “pan-Chinese feeling” for one another and a shared pride in race, culture, and the ancestral country. They preserve a separate identity and culture wherever they have settled. Although “not necessarily inscrutable” (p. 76), they are nevertheless low-key and outwardly less emotional than other people. They are also loath to admit weakness, lose face, or indulge in generous gestures. They can be ruthless, beg too many favours, make unreasonable requests, speak obliquely, and display cynicism and indifference when dealing with Westerners. Among themselves, key characteristics include guanxi (social relations), xinyong (trust), and ganqing (emotional ties). The source of their ideas and behaviour is Confucianism, which has its good side but can also degenerate into nepotism. In some places, they have assimilated and thus diversified away from a generalised “Chineseness”, yet their business culture is said to be fairly uniform everywhere and to retain features also found in China. These culturalist arguments will be familiar to students of the Chinese diaspora. In line with their general determinism, the authors suggest that “overseas Chinese” are conditioned to think in certain pre-programmed ways about business dealings. Although exposed in recent times to Western-style management education, the common model of Chinese enterprise remains “the family business”. The authors conclude with a list