Ethnic Chinese account for around 5 per cent of Southeast Asia’s 650 million people but dominate the region’s $4 trillion economy.
The rapid growth of HNW wealth among overseas Chinese, sometimes dubbed the “bamboo network,” is clearly a big attraction for private banks, advisory firms and family office creators across the region. Despite headwinds caused by the pandemic, and mainland China’s trade rows with Washington, Asia’s general ascent in the number of millionaires remains powerful.
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Ofc things like this also make people wary of china. But at the end of the day Chinese investment is the only way for southeast to grow into a powerhouse in the future decades to come. The chart might be a bit exaggerated but u get the point.
In countries with small ethnic Chinese minorities, the economic disparity can be remarkable. For example, in 1998, ethnic Chinese made up just 1% of the population of the Philippines and 4% of the population in Indonesia, but have wide influence in the Philippine and Indonesian private economies.
The book World on Fire, describing the Chinese as a "market-dominant minority", notes that "Chinese market dominance and intense resentment amongst the indigenous majority is characteristic of virtually every country in Southeast Asia except Thailand and Singapore.now u get why there's some resentment within some countries in southeast Asia that's because Chinese communities do tend to outperform the locals.