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“Page 88: Under the absolute monarchy [in Thailand] it was customary for the King to confer titles of nobility on some influential Chinese merchants, titles comparable to those bestowed on high officials. Such men tended to identify their interests with those of the government and to draw closer to Thai society, assuming Thai names, dress, often wives, and moving in the company of officials. Yet they maintained their standing in the Chinese community, and in fact seem to have been useful intermediaries between that community and the Thai government. … On higher levels of commerce, many Chinese have found Thai officials likewise indispensable for continuing success in business, and consequently leading officials have been made nominal directors of Chinese companies.”

Quote by Richard J. Coughlin

Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand

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Richard J. Coughlin

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“Page 138: The second consequence [of measures to reduce Chinese economic dominance] is a development of closer ties with the élite members of Thai society. The larger Chinese business men, in order to protect their extensive interests from economic controls and eventually nationalization, have formed financial alliances with leading Thai politicians and military men, who are simply made directors of Chinese companies at a handsome remuneration. A person with substantial financial interests in a business is not likely to destroy it. By the end of 1952, it is estimated that ‘hundreds of government officials and other members of the Thai élite were either fully “cut in” on Chinese businesses or serving on the boards of Chinese firms in a “protective” capacity [and] a majority of the most influential Chinese leaders had formal business connections with government officials and other members of the new Thai élite’ (Skinner 1958:187). There is little evidence that these Thai were more than paper directors, and individuals kept their positions only so long as they remained politically powerful and thus useful to their Chinese friends, but on the higher levels both groups found good reasons to work together. This development stands in rather marked contrast to the apparent conflict of economic interests one finds at the lower economic levels.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 155: Before the War, textbooks used in Chinese schools in Southeast Asia were published mainly by two large printing concerns in China (the Commercial Press and the Chung-hwa Book Company, both in Shanghai) and were identical with textbooks used in China itself. Thus, pupils attending Chinese schools in Thailand were given as strong an indoctrination of Chinese nationalism as students in China proper; China was accorded paramount attention, invariably referred to as ‘our country’, and little attempt was made to foster an appreciation of local Southeast Asian traditions and history.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 1-2 One of the most serious concerns of the Thai government for the past forty years or so has been the presence within the national society of an economically powerful minority group whose way of life is alien, and in some respects incompatible, to the Thai way of life. How to assimilate this minority, or at least to reduce its influence nationally, is a question which has troubled a succession of Thai monarchs and prime ministers. To speak of the Chinese minority as constituting a problem is only to recognize this concern felt in varying degrees by all Thai political leaders. Yet, the Chinese living in Thailand are peaceful and self-disciplined, a thrifty and very industrious people who have made significant contributions to their adopted land—to what extent, then, can they be regarded as a ‘problem’? While the Chinese problem has many dimensions, at is first of all an economic problem, and it is precisely this aspect which looms largest for the Thai. As they see it, the Chinese, welcomed into the Kingdom years ago by a generous government, have since that time subtly undermined the livelihood of the Thai people themselves. They have driven the latter from various skilled crafts, monopolized new occupations, and through combination of commercial know-how and chicanery have gained a stranglehold over the trade and commerce of the entire Kingdom. The Thai see the Chinese as exploiting unmercifully their advantageous economic position: the Thai are obliged to pay high prices to the Chinese for the very necessities of life, and on the other hand are forced to accept the lowest price for the rice they grow. Through deliberate profiteering, according to standard Thai thinking, this minority has driven up living costs, hitting especially hard government employees on fixed salaries. It is also charged that profits made by the Chinese go out of the country in the form of remittances to China, which means a continuous and gigantic draining away of the Kingdom’s wealth. To protect their favored economic position, one hears, the Chinese have not hesitated to bribe officials, which in turn has undermined the efficiency and morale of the public service. Efforts to protect the economic interests of the Thai people through legislation have been only partially effective, again because of Chinese adeptness at evasion and dissimulation.”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 11: Yet the very fact of contact over a period of time has inevitably produced changes among the overseas Chinese. Like Chinese everywhere they have a well-ingrained cultural pattern of adaptability and flexibility. Culturally and socially this minority in Thailand has learned to accept Thai ways without, however, losing its attachment to Things Chinese. The question is whether these changes represent simply protective coloration or true identification with Thai society. It is the seemingly opportunistic and vacillating quality of their cultural and social dualism which has made the Chinese, in the opinion of many responsible Thai, only summer patriots and fair-weather citizens. In the other countries of [Southeast Asia], the colonial powers protected and encouraged minority interests, and under colonialism these groups flourished.”

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“Page 15: This prohibition to emigration [from China] applied not only to persons wishing to settle permanently abroad but often to itinerant merchants as well. It seems to have stemmed, at least in part, from the Chinese attitude of superiority with regard to other peoples. A Chinese who preferred to live among barbarians must likewise be an inferior person.”

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“Page 16: …the character of the Chinese immigrant gradually changed from that of a simple Oriental trader or labourer to an essential middleman between Western importers and exporters on the one hand and the mass of the peasant population on the other. Chinese shopkeepers and itinerant traders funneled the manufactures of the West from European import houses in Bangkok to the indigenous population throughout the Kingdom, and at the same time acted as collection agencies for local products—tin, shellac, rubber—exported to the industries of the West.”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 22: Yet it would be a mistake to consider these immigrants of the last several decades alone and friendless in an alien land. Even before leaving China, their way had been smoothed by good organization and a spirit of co-operation. The prospective immigrants merely registered with a hotel in any of the cities of South China, and this hotel secured passage for the immigrant and his family if necessary—usually on the open deck of a European coastal steamer—took care of legal documentation, and saw that at their destination the emigrants were welcomed by persons speaking their own dialect, guided safely through immigration inspection and finally housed at another Chinese hotel until a more permanent residence could be found. … Once in Bangkok, the usual port of disembarkation, the immigrant was certain to have helpful hands extended from relatives, friends from his own village in China, or persons speaking his dialect. Through these persons, living quarters, a job, and perhaps sufficient capital to get started as a street hawker would be provided without question.”

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Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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“Page 32: The phenomenal commercial success of the Chinese in Thailand, and indeed throughout Southeast Asia, has no single or simple explanation. Certainly this success is partly attributable to such personal qualities as perseverance, capacity for hard work, and business acumen, but one of the most important factors has been the tight social and economic organization developed by overseas Chinese communities. Such communities in Southeast Asia appear remarkable self-sufficient and to many observers seem to form alien societies within the host society. They have proved unusually effective, on the one hand, for encouraging mutual aid and co-operation among heterogeneous linguistic and socio-economic groups and, on the other, for providing protection from hostile or competitive individuals and governments. Better than most people the Chinese have learned the dictum that ‘in unity there is strength’. Their organizational cohesion furnishes much of the answer not only to the economic well-being of the Chinese as a group but also to the persistence of their cultural patterns and values in an alien and sometimes unfriendly social environment. This is a community of interest as well, for the wealth accumulated by the successful business man is used in part to support a multiplicity of ethnic organizations: trade guilds, a powerful Chinese Chamber of Commerce, dialect associations, benevolent and charitable organizations, surname associations, religious groups for both men and women, sports associations and social clubs.”

Ethnic ConflictOverseas Chinese
Book:Double Identity the Chinese in Modern Thailand
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