Bamboo network

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Bamboo network

Countries and territories	Brunei  Cambodia  Indonesia  Laos  Malaysia Myanmar  Philippines  Singapore  Thailand  Vietnam
Languages and language families	Chinese, English, Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Khmer, Laotian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese and many others
Major cities	Bandar Seri Begawan Bangkok Ho Chi Minh City Jakarta Kuala Lumpur Mandalay Manila Phnom Penh Singapore Vientiane

The bamboo network (simplified Chinese: 竹网; traditional Chinese: 竹網; pinyin: zhú wǎng) or the Chinese Commonwealth is a term used to conceptualize the links between businesses run by overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (in a narrower sense with the Min Chinese speaking community). It links the overseas Chinese business community of Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos and Cambodia with the economies of Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). Overseas Chinese companies in Southeast Asia are usually managed as family businesses in a centralized bureaucratic manner.

Structure

Overseas Chinese businesses in Southeast Asia are usually family owned and managed through a centralized bureaucracy. The businesses are usually managed as family businesses to lower front office transaction costs as they are passed down from one generation to the next. The bulk of these firms typically operate as small and medium-sized businesses.

Bamboo networks are also transnational, which means channeling the movement of capital, information, and goods and services can promote the relative flexibility and efficiency between the formal agreements and transactions made by family-run firms. Business relationships are based on the Confucian paradigm of guanxi, the Chinese term for the cultivation of personal relationships as an ingredient for business success.

Some overseas Chinese businessmen include Malaysian dealmaker Robert Kuok, Indonesian banker and retail proprietor Liem Sioe Liong, and his son, financier and money manager Liem Hong Sien in addition to fellow Fuqing native and Salim Group co-founder and investor Liem Oen Kian, Filipino billionaire Henry Sy, and Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Much of the business activity of the bamboo network is centered in the major cities of the region, such as Mandalay, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, and Manila.

History

Commercial influence of Chinese traders and merchants in Southeast Asia dates back at least to the third century AD, when official missions by the Han government were dispatched to countries in the Southern Seas. Distinct and stable overseas Chinese communities became a feature of Southeast Asia by the mid-seventeenth century across major port cities of Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than 1500 years ago, Chinese merchants began to sail southwards towards Southeast Asia in search of trading opportunities and wealth. These areas were known as Nanyang or the Southern Seas. Many of those who left China were Southern Han Chinese comprising the Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese who trace their ancestry from the southern Chinese coastal provinces, principally known as Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan. Periods of heavy emigration would send waves of Chinese into Southeast Asia. Unrest and periodic upheaval throughout succeeding Chinese dynasties encouraged further emigration throughout the centuries. By the 12th century, Chinese began permanently settling in Thailand, and by the 13th century, in Cambodia and in Indonesia. In the early 1400s, the Ming dynasty Chinese admiral Zheng He under the Yongle Emperor led a fleet of three hundred vessels around Southeast Asia during the Ming treasure voyages.

Since 1500, Southeast Asia has been a magnet for Chinese emigrants where they have strategically developed a bamboo network encompassing an elaborately diverse spectrum of economic activities spread across numerous industries. The Chinese were one commercial minority among many including Indian Gujaratis, Chettiars, Portuguese and Japanese, in addition to various networks of Malays, Javanese, Minangkabau, Bugis, Chams, Mons and other indigenous groups, all of whom thrived under the patronage of Southeast Asian port polities until the middle of the seventeenth century. Subsequently, damage to the rival trade networks caused by English and Dutch rule in the Indian Ocean allowed enterprising Chinese to take over the roles once held by the other communities by the 1630s. European rulers subordinated the indigenous commercial networks present in Southeast Asia to subject the region more tightly and prevent potential threats to their own political and economic dominance. Thus, the Chinese were relied upon as middlemen in the colonies, and were outsourced much of the day-to-day work of empire building. The Europeans relied on Chinese merchant clans to manage revenue farms, collect taxes, and serve as their main entrepot of trade in the region. However, as most Chinese were sidelined from political power, the community as a whole would focus largely on commerce, leveraging on their transnational connections that spanned from Amoy and Hong Kong to Jakarta and Manila. These networks would be leveraged to accumulate massive fortunes at the end of colonial rule. Overseas Chinese populations in Southeast Asia saw a rapid increase following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 which forced many refugees to emigrate outside of China causing a rapid expansion of the overseas Chinese bamboo network.

References

Further reading

• Chua, Amy (2003). World On Fire. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 978-0385721868.
• Folk, Brian C.; Jomo, K. S. (2003). Ethnic Business: Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia (1st ed.). Routledge (published September 1, 2003). ISBN 978-0415310116.
• Gambe, Annabelle (2000). Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurship and Capitalist Development in Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0312234966.
• Gomez, Terence (2003). Chinese Business in Southeast Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415326223.
• Gomez, Terence (2001). Chinese Business in Southeast Asia: Contesting Cultural Explanations, Researching Entrepreneurship. Routledge. ISBN 978-0700714155.
• Haley, George (1998). New Asian Emperors. Routledge. ISBN 978-0750641302.
• Hemrit, Maetinee (2010). Beyond the Bamboo Network: The Internationalization Process of Thai Family Business Groups. Stockholm School of Economics. ISBN 978-9172588431.
• Landa, Janet Tai (2016). Economic Success of Chinese Merchants in Southeast Asia. Springer. ISBN 978-3642540189.
• Paul Dana, Leo (1999). Entrepreneurship in Pacific Asia: Past, Present & Future. World Scientific Publishing. ISBN 978-9810239299.
• Rae, Ian (2008). The Overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia: History, Culture, Business. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1403991652.
• Richter, Frank (1999). Business Networks in Asia: Promises, Doubts, and Perspectives. Praeger. ISBN 978-1567203028.
• Santasombat, Yos (2017). Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia: Cultures and Practices. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-9811046957.
• Suryadinata, Leo (1997). Ethnic Chinese as Southeast Asians. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 981-3055-58-8.
• Suryadinata, Leo (2012). Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 9789814345217.
• Tagliacozzo, Eric; Chang, Wen-Chin (2011). Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-9357-3.
• Tong, Chee-Kiong (2014). Chinese Business: Rethinking Guanxi and Trust in Chinese Business Networks. Springer. ISBN 978-9814451840.
• Wang, Gungwu (2002). The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674009868.
• Willmott, William E. (1967). The Chinese in Cambodia. Publications Centre: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 978-0774844413.
• Weidenbaum, Murray L.; Hughes, Samuel (1996). The Bamboo Network: How Expatriate Chinese Entrepreneurs Are Creating a New Economic Superpower in Asia. Free Press. ISBN 978-0684822891.

External links

• The Bamboo Network: Asia's Family-run Conglomerates – Strategy + Business January 1, 1998]