The Rising Importance of Chinese Labour in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region
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Volume 7 | Issue 12 | Number 2 | Article ID 3088 | Mar 16, 2009 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Rising Importance of Chinese Labour in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region John Walsh The Rising Importance of Chinese Labour Chinese riots are reported in several countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region and pre-modern history in the GMSR seems to have been, away from urban centres, fraught John Walsh with the potential for violence from various sources. However, these were not the only Migration is, fundamentally, a response to the Chinese to leave China and enter the GMSR. uneven distribution of resources around the Ethnic minority hill tribe people have long world or the variability of the environment, crossed back and forth. Seeking largely to avoid however broadly defined. [1] People move from the attention of state apparatus and to establish one place to another place to take advantage of their own communities in the spaces between a better climate, possible access to better more powerful polities, the ethnic tribes have quality agricultural land, better-paying or more tended to remain unofficial and often illegal numerous jobs, freedom from oppression or members of the country in which they live. The discrimination and so forth. The phenomenon Kuomintang faction present in Yunnan at the has dimensions such as degree of permanency conclusion of the Chinese Civil War was forced and degree of voluntarism. In reality, itacross the border, either to Burma or to comprises a large number of categories and northern Thailand. sub-categories and, as in the case of many of those Chinese people considered in this paper, people can pass through several categories as the result of changes in their own status and in that of the broader political context. Chinese have been migrating to and from the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMSR), an area comprised of Thailand, Burma [Myanmar], Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Yunnan Province of China, for many centuries. Some have come as independent merchants and traders and contributed to the so-called bamboo network of the Chinese diaspora, which did so much to buttress indigenous economic development in the region. Others arrived as indentured coolies and, once they had established themselves, worked to bring family members or potential brides to join them in their new home. They may have had to contend with perilous ocean crossings, difficult working conditions, discrimination and possible violence – anti- 1 7 | 12 | 2 APJ | JF Estimates of global migration figures place the total at around 200 million in 2005. Of these, 35 million are part of the Chinese diaspora and that number is increasing at a considerable rate. The net migration rate is 0.3 migrants per 1,000 people overall. International migrants are 0.04% of total population. Among migrants travelling overseas, 49.1% of the total is now constituted Kuomintang troops in Burma, 1953 of women and total remittances reached US$22.5 billion, according to figures provided They have passed through many legal states in by the Institute of Migration. Chinese workers the meantime, notably when those members of have reached nearly every country of the world, rd the 93 Division were enlisted to help break the at first as part of the diasporic movement of Hmong rebellion by fighting alongside ThaiChinese people seeking better opportunities for government troops in return for being offeredthemselves and, subsequently, as part of citizenship. [2] Clearly, especially in the border Chinese corporations internationalizing areas, it would be simplistic to assume that overseas and as labour to create infrastructure there was one Chinese community, that they in those countries where the Chinese government has established enhanced recognized each other as equals or even as diplomatic relations as a means of securing friendly. The former KMT people, for example, access to scarce resources. The proportion of have little in common with the Chinese inside Chinese migrants may remain low in relation to China and, instead, have developed strong the overall population, although growing, yet guanxi, business and political links withthe Chinese government has started to exhibit colleagues in Taiwan, with whom they share some concern over possible brain drain cultural, linguistic and ideological beliefs and problems, especially given that those travelling values. [3] internationally tend to be higher skilled and 2 7 | 12 | 2 APJ | JF educated than those who have been left behind. strengthen social protection and social risk management in the region, while also This article investigates cross-border Chinese conducting research to determine the migration in the northern part of the GMSR and interaction between integration and labour its interactions with regional integration and migration. [5] local labour markets. It offers a brief overview of regional integration in the GMSR and labour Migrant labour contributes to the development markets there and then describes what is of the destination country in the following ways: known about Chinese migration and investment. Implications from the findings are drawn. a) Building infrastructure. Regional Integration and Labour Markets b) Managing and providing skilled The GMSR and Southeast Asia more generally labour to FDI projects. has labour migration as a central feature of economic development. Throughout Southeast c) Providing a substantial unskilled Asia, it is estimated that around 13 million labour pool to undertake 3D jobs people are migrant workers in one category or and to depress wages in a range of another and, of them, some five million remain sectors. within the region. Close approximations to the exact number are unlikely to be achieved given The Chinese migrants to Burma demonstrate all the large number of illegal or unofficial of these features. They are drawn by a number migrants. For example, it is estimated that there are around one million Burmese people in of factors: Chinese organizations have Thailand and perhaps one quarter of them are established large investment projects refugees living in camps along the border throughout the country, partly to meet domestic region. The remainder is spread throughout the demand (e.g. seafood) and partly in service to Kingdom. [4] its strategic vision of acquiring access to energy sources that may be piped to the country Most of the migrant labour in the GMSR is, overland and not via the Straits of Malacca. numerically, unskilled or, at least, required to Mandalay, the northern city which had undertake unskilled work. The workers compete previously been a royal capital, is a popular in terms of low wages and frequently receive centre for Chinese business and residence. inadequate protection. Remittances, where they Farms, factories and trading ventures of all are possible (which is very problematic for sorts have been opened by migrants and have Burmese workers in particular), represent attracted further migrants wishing to work on important sources of income at family and them. [6] Sino-Burmese co-operation has national level. Countries act both as a source intensified since 1988, when boycotts on Burma and a host for migrant labour. In Thailand, enforced (sporadically) by western countries workers in the unskilled category are largely significantly reduced the number of parties involved in the 3D category of jobs – dirty, wishing to invest in the country. Chinese dangerous and demanding (or ‘disgusting’) – organizations have exhibited little interest in the while Thai workers overseas have slightly higher numerous human rights abuses in the country levels of professionalism and skills. Workers are and the secrecy and absence of rule of law have playing an important part in regional economic been used to their own benefit. This period has integration and this is shaped, institutionally, also witnessed the flourishing of the Chinese most influentially by ASEAN’s Vientiane Action economy after moving to openness and market- Programme, which seeks to establish and based systems, and overseas investment has 3 7 | 12 | 2 APJ | JF boomed. Chinese migrants now mingle with embedded in GMSR societies have done so those who arrived generations ago and who through a process of assimilation and quiet consider themselves ethnically or culturally development of business networks and distinct from the new arrivals. Of course, they opportunities. have similar differences from non-ethnic Chinese in the region. Inevitably, some tensions Contemporary Chinese Migration and conflict have been rumoured and reported. [7] In any case, Chinese investment has meant Since the adoption of the Open Door Policy by a significant improvement in the infrastructure Deng Xiaoping and subsequent restructuring of of Mandalay and its environs, while the region the nature of the Chinese economy, several has been drawn much more strongly into cross- events have stimulated the number of Chinese border trading networks. The opening of new moving overseas. Firstly, the facilitation of firms has had a positive effect on the nearbyforeign travel for increasing numbers of Chinese economy through the technology transfer and has made it possible for some to migrate positive externalities. informally, perhaps by joining a package tour and then simply not returning at its end. [8] The Historical Context of ChineseSecond, the modification of the residential Migration registration system hukou( ) has enabled millions to move from rural to urban locations, Migrants have been travelling southwards from which previously was illegal and difficult.