Southeast Asia's Chinese winning freedoms

Southeast Asia's Chinese winning freedoms

Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Many of Southeast Asia's 20 million ethnic Chinese are welcoming
in the Lunar New Year with increasing freedoms, but the specter
of discrimination still weighs heavily across parts of the
region.

On the surface Indonesia offers hope of progress for Chinese
who for centuries have faced resentment for their economic
success and racial difference, with the New Year declared a
national public holiday for the first time only last year.

Previously a 1967 law had forbidden the public display of
Chinese culture and religion, reflecting anti-Chinese sentiment
not only within the local population but also among their former
Dutch colonial masters.

The law began to be watered down toward the end of former
dictator Soeharto's reign that ended in 1998 but was only fully
revoked under current President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Indonesia, a mostly Muslim nation of 214 million people, is
home to about eight million ethnic Chinese.

They are the largest group in a Southeast Asian diaspora of
more than 20 million who mainly trace their roots to Guangdong
and Fujian provinces in southern China and are renowned for their
work ethic and business sense.

Thailand and Malaysia have the next biggest Chinese
populations at over five million, followed by Singapore with more
than two million, Myanmar with about 1.5 million, and then the
Philippines and Vietnam.

In all but Singapore, where they make up nearly 80 percent of
the population, the Chinese have had to battle problems common to
many minority groups worldwide, with an added pinch of resentment
at their economic success.

Leo Suryadinata, a senior research fellow at Singapore's
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said it was impossible to
determine the exact number of ethnic Chinese partly because of
the discrimination they have faced.

This had led to many ethnic Chinese changing their surnames as
part of efforts to blend in with the majority race in the
countries in which they lived, said Suryadinata, who has written
extensively on the issue.

"In Indonesia a Western name or an Indian name is considered
Indonesian, only a Chinese name is not, so many have adopted a
Javanese name," Suryadinata said.

He said official discrimination against the ethnic Chinese of
Southeast Asia had for a long time been the deepest in Indonesia.

"But now I cannot say the worst is Indonesia now that the
government is introducing much more enlightened policies," he
said.

Suryadinata said other more subtle developments, such as the
recent opening of a Chinese-language university in Kuala Lumpur,
reflected small moves toward less discrimination, partly due to
global multiculturalism.

In nations such as Thailand race is already much less of a
problem with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his
predecessor, Chuan Leekpai, both carrying Chinese ancestry.

More than 10 percent of Thailand's population is ethnic
Chinese and, although they dominate the business and political
arenas, they are so tightly integrated with the rest of the
community they do not form a distinct group.

Ethnic Chinese also enjoy all the rights given to other
citizens in the Philippines and, like elsewhere in the region,
have widespread economic influence through their success in
banking, manufacturing and other sectors.

However ethnic Chinese are particularly vulnerable in the
Philippines to kidnapping-for-ransom gangs, who believe Chinese
have large amounts of money and would be reluctant to report
being victimized.

And while Indonesia has given ethnic Chinese the right to
express their identity, more than 50 laws and regulations remain
that discriminate against them, Indonesian rights lawyer Frans
Hendra Winarta said.