SINGAPORE -- On Feb. 9, the start of the Year of the Rooster, ethnic Chinese communities across Southeast Asia took stock of their progress and their future in the shadow of China's peaceful development and its strengthened status within the region of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Ethnic Chinese communities, also known as hua qiao (Chinese bridge), have always been perceived as an engine of prosperity as well as a political gauge for both Beijing and ASEAN governments in their shifting relations over the past 55 years. Viewed as China's "fifth column" by some anticommunist governments in the 1960s, this Chinese diaspora has prospered against all odds in Southeast Asia and has been actively wooed by Beijing since the latter opened up to the world. They have become the crucial business link and a prime investor in the so-called connection between ASEAN and China.
Ethnic hua qiao communities symbolize the economic vitality of the "Chinese connection" and the excellent relations between Beijing and ASEAN. But if weakly integrated into Southeast Asian societies, they easily become the target of local ire and a political scapegoat when the economy slows or when unequal distributions of wealth are aggravated.