Word: china
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...mines and on plantations, to load ships and build roads and carry burdens. Each new trading city-Penang, Singapore, Malacca, Hong Kong-became heavily Chinese. As agents and middlemen, the ubiquitous Chinese followed the Dutch troops into Sumatra, Borneo and Celebes, the British into Burma, the French into Indo-China. Even in Thailand, which never became a European colony, the Chinese were advisers to the king, and controlled the nation's commerce...
Generally, the Overseas Chinese have tried to stay out of the ideological battles of their homeland, or out of fear or self-interest have played both sides. Many, while insisting they are nonCommunist, are privately proud of how well Red China stood off the white man's armies in Korea. Though appalled by reports of conditions in Red China, they can be heard to say, in the words of a leading Singapore merchant: "For once, Overseas Chinese feel we have a strong mother country to whom we can turn if everything else fails...
...Endeared. The hua-chiao are often a headache not only to the countries they live in but to the rulers of Nationalist and Red China as well. Formosa, needing friends in the Far East, has friendly feelings for countries that continue to recognize it, such as the Philippines, Thailand and South Viet Nam, and it dares not recklessly rush to the support of the Overseas Chinese in every local squabble. Last week Formosa was engaged in a long, embittering dispute with Manila about the disposition of 2,700 Chinese who have overstayed their visas in the Philippines...
...China has played it both ways. In the first flush of conquering the mainland, the Reds championed the Overseas Chinese and even allotted them 30 seats in the National People's Congress at Peking. The hua-chiao were called "the endeared children of the Chinese nation" and were told that their "proper rights and interests are now protected by their country." Thousands of hua-chiao students went to China to complete their education; Chinese schoolteachers throughout Southeast Asia displayed Peking's five-starred flag; delirious Singapore millionaires endowed academies and hospitals in China; and millions of dollars poured...
Then the love affair palled. Red China decided that the Southeast Asian governments were more important than the Overseas Chinese and. wooing the Afro-Asian nations at Bandung. China's Premier Chou En-lai urged that Chinese abroad "be loyal to the countries they live in." The disenchantment was mutual. Hua-chiao students returned from China complaining of hardships under the Reds. The relatives back home saw little of the money that had been sent them, and sneaked out bitter reports about the communes...