Saturday, February 1, 2014

China's Aggression and Sinophobia In Southeast Asia

Sinophobia or anti-Chinese sentiment often targets Chinese minorities living outside of China. It is complicated by the disparity of wealth between the Chinese minority and the local 
majority. Sectarian violence against ethnic Chinese had happened in post-war Southeast Asia.

In May, 1969, for example, ethnic Malays killed hundreds of ethnic Chinese in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Indonesia's experience is even worse. Thousands of ethnic Chinese were killed between 1965-66, the year of "living dangerously." The latest one was in May, 1998 when over a thousand Chinese got killed or raped in Jakarta. Many properties were burned down.

The Philippines has a different experience. Except for racial slurs, the Philippines seems to have no recorded history of racial violence against the "chinoys" or Chinese Filipinos during the post-colonial era. The 1990s saw a spike in criminal activities against ethnic Chinese in the form of kidnapping. But these were mostly carried out by organized crime groups interested for ransom, nothing more.

I expect Sinophobia to increase in an alarming rate in the Philippines and neighboring Vietnam and Malaysia, all three of which are currently involved in territorial disputes with China over some oil-rich small islands in South China Sea, as China turned unusually aggressive in bullying its smaller neighbors in recent years. The standoff in Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal between China and the Philippines somehow caused many Filipinos to hate China for its 'greed' towards these isles despite its already massive current territory. Campaign to boycott Chinese products began in 2012. Protesters were holding rallies in front of the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

As the Filipinos become desperate with ever-increasing Chinese aggression and the United States not flexing its muscle enough to neutralize the Chinese, will this anger spill over against the local Chinese community and possibly resulting in racial violence similar to what had happened in Malaysia and Indonesia?

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