More weird mixed signals from Singapore's government
You will not easily find pro-China Chinese in SEA because we are all underground. We usually don't talk about our views until we are certain that the other person is also pro-China. The political balance is very much against us. But there are a decent number of us, I promise.
Firstly, the reason why people migrated to SEA is economic in nature, to find work. The economic problems in China had not been resolved, how could our ancestors go back? Not to mention, by the 1950s most Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma were 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th generation settlers, how do you settle when you can't even find your hometown? If it is so easy to go back then why is this forum crowded with English-speaking Overseas Chinese? and it is much easier now than back then! The claim that those who did not choose repatriation were anti-China contradicts the historical evidence: other than the obvious example of the 1950s Malayan Communist Party insurgency which was almost entirely ethnic Chinese and worked under CCP direction, also, as late as 1963 a clearly pro-China, anti-Western, hard-left party, the Socialist Front, was about to win the Singapore elections until the voters were threatened with the Malaysian Army.
Next. All the SEA countries regularly fight for the rights of their ethnicity in other countries. A major reason why Singapore hides its Chineseness is because Malaysia and Indonesia regularly threaten on behalf of their kin. In Indonesia and Thailand, Chinese have been explicitly required to cut off from all Chinese culture for many decades. In Burma and Indonesia we were massacred many times. In Malaysia, as Hendriks can tell you first hand, we have been shut out of government welfare, higher education, economic opportunities for decades. There is nothing colonial or privileged about stopping injustice against your own kind.
KMT influence in SEA (before the Reform and Opening) came from the merchant class because of economic opportunities, and from intellectuals, because the KMT in Taiwan offered subsidised university education to all ethnic Chinese at the time, and the other higher education options was in the West. The other Chinese weren't. Do you want me to list out which Singaporean high schools until this day are famous for their legacy of rallying for China and rioting against the British and their cronies? It was only after the chaos in 1960s and 1970s China, when the Bananas got richer and richer while the Sinophones were left to rot, that the new generation started switching over for survival. The official policy at the time that "you're not living in China so you're none of our business" did not help. Now what we need is to work towards repairing the damage. The Reform and Opening is the only reason why there is even a single pro-China left in SEA.
Do you realise that if that message went viral, the Banana faction among the SEA Chinese will win an enormous victory? they will say "Hey look PRC 不认我们, why should we?"
