The Chinese in Southeast Asia, with their growing economic clout, have been attracting attention from politicians, scholars and observers in recent decades. The rise of China as a global economic power and its profound influence over Southeast Asia has cast a spotlight on the role of Southeast Asian Chinese in the region''s economic relations with China.The Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic force and their growing importance with China are, to a certain extent, determined by the nature and development of their communities. This book uses a multifaceted approach to unravel the forces that helped to transform the communities in the past. Containing 17 papers written within a span of six and a half years, from 2000 to 2006, the book focuses on the social, economic and political aspects of these communities, with special emphasis on the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.

A timely look at the impact of China's booming emergence on the countries of Southeast Asia Today, Southeast Asia stands uniquely exposed to the waxing power of the new China. Three of its nations border China and five are directly impacted by its claims over the South China Sea. All dwell in the lengthening shadow of its influence: economic, political, military, and cultural. As China seeks to restore its former status as Asia's preeminent power, the countries of Southeast Asia face an increasingly stark choice: flourish within Beijing's orbit or languish outside of it. Meanwhile, as rival powers including the United States take concerted action to curb Chinese ambitions, the region has emerged as an arena of heated strategic competition. Drawing on more than a decade of on-the-ground experience, Sebastian Strangio explores the impacts of China's rise on Southeast Asia, the varied ways in which the countries of the region are responding, and what it might mean for the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

Will the nations of Southeast Asia maintain their strategic autonomy, or are they destined to become a subservient periphery of China? This book’s expert authors address this pressing question in multiple contexts. What clues to the future lie in the modern history of Sino-Southeast Asian relations? How economically dependent on China has the region already become? What do Southeast Asians think of China? Does Beijing view the region in proprietary terms as its own backyard? How has the relative absence, distance, and indifference of the United States affected the balance of influence between the US and China in Southeast Asia? The book also explores China’s moves and Southeast Asia’s responses to them. Does China’s Maritime Silk Road through Southeast Asia herald a Pax Sinica across the region? How should China’s expansionary acts in the South China Sea be understood? How have Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam and the Philippines responded? How does Singapore’s China strategy compare with Indonesia’s? How relevant is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations? To what extent has China tried to persuade the “overseas Chinese” in Southeast Asia to identify with “'the motherland” and support its aims? How are China’s deep involvements in Cambodia and Laos affecting the economies and policies of those countries? “This rich collection,” writes renowned author-journalist Nayan Chanda, answers these and other questions while offering “fresh insights” and “new information and analyses” to explain Southeast Asia’s relations with China.

Chinese cuisine has had a deep impact on culinary traditions in Southeast Asia, where the lack of certain ingredients and access to new ingredients along with the culinary knowledge of local people led Chinese migrants to modify traditional dishes and to invent new foods. This process brought the cuisine of southern China, considered by some writers to be "the finest in the world," into contact with a wide range of local and global cuisines and ingredients. When Chinese from Southeast Asia moved on to other parts of the world, they brought these variants of Chinese food with them, completing a cycle of culinary reproduction, localization and invention, and globalization. The process does not end there, for the new context offers yet another set of ingredients and culinary traditions, and the "embedding and fusing of foods" continues, creating additional hybrid forms. Written by scholars whose deep familiarity with Chinese cuisine is both personal and academic, Chinese Food and Foodways in Southeast Asia and Beyond is a book that anyone who has been fortunate enough to encounter Southeast Asian food will savour, and it provides a window on this world for those who have yet to discover it.

This collection of twenty essays provides an unprecedented overview of Chinese trade through the centuries, highlighting its scope, diversity, complexity, and the commodities that have linked it with Southeast Asia.

Only recently has the role of Chinese minorities at the forefront of Southeast Asia's rapid economic growth attracted world attention. Yet interactions between Chinese and Southeast Asians are longstanding and intense, reaching back a thousand years and making it difficult, if not specious, to attempt to disentangle what is Chinese and what is indigenous in much of Southeast Asian culture. Sojourners and Settlers, now back in print, written by some of the most distinguished specialists in the field, demonstrates the depth of that relationship. Contributors: Leonard Blussé, Mary Somers Heidhues, Jamie C. Mackie, Anthony Reid, Craig Reynolds, Claudine Salmon, G. William Skinner, Wang Gungwu, O. W. Wolters.