“Races mix all the time, but it is important that all are loyal to the country.”
turned from the West toward Beijing, now its key political and economic supporter.
Spearheaded by a surge of Chinese tourists, condominiums and second homes marketed to mainlanders are sprouting in the northern Thailand hub of Chiang Mai, along with both legal and illegal businesses catering to their needs.
Chinese investment has increased sharply in Malaysia, sparking concerns over sovereignty. In addition to mega ventures including a $100 billion property development project, Chinese state-linked firms have also bought assets linked to the indebted 1MDB state fund, which was set up by Prime Minister Najib Razak and is being investigated by the U.S and other countries for embezzlement and money laundering.
While a Chinese community has long existed in Mandalay, a new wave flocked to snap up swaths of cheap vacant land following massive fires that tore through the city’s core in the 1980s. As isolationist Myanmar opened up in the 1990s, Chinese entrepreneurs also took advantage of low interest rates at home and high ones in Myanmar to invest in real estate. Others are involved in shadier areas such as the jade trade and narcotics trafficking.
Since foreigners are not allowed to own land or enjoy other privileges, a large but unknown number of Chinese have obtained Burmese citizenship through bribes to Myanmar immigration officials or outright forgery of documents, Burmese businessmen and local journalists say.
The result has been soaring real estate values that have forced many locals to move to the city’s outskirts.
The ease with which Chinese are able to illegally obtain citizenship contrasts with the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group at the heart of an ongoing refugee crisis who despite having lived in Myanmar for generations are denied citizenship.
Some take a balanced view of the Chinese presence in Mandalay, fre-
quently reported as high as 50 percent of the city’s 1.2 million inhabitants, although estimates are unreliable given the undocumented status of many and depending on how assimilated ethnic Chinese are counted.
“As a native I am not so concerned about Mandalay changing because of the Chinese. The world is becoming a global village,” said Tin Maung, managing director of the Royal Tun Thitsar Company. “Races mix all the time, but it is important that all are loyal to the country.”
While some of the regional migration is driven by Chinese government-backed policies, other migrants are aided by the age-old “guanxi,” the informal networks through which Chinese from a particular locality or clan have moved abroad. These networks aid and ease the entry of those following them into a foreign environment.
Some simply come on their own, seeking a better, freer life outside China.
Dai Qing, a prominent author and environmental activist who now calls Chiang Mai home, says she enjoys the absence of an internet firewall in Thailand, clean food and water, and being among “nice, peaceful people,” some of whom she helps through charities.
Living in a rural area outside the city, Dai says she has not yet encountered Thais averse to her countrymen.
“But when I travel here and there, I do see the impolite, following-no-rules, arrogant Chinese and I feel ashamed for that,” she says. “We have a long way to go before China’s true modernization is complete.”