Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 301: The New Dilemma of the Nanyang Chinese
If there is a book, it will be long; if there is no book, it will be short.

Throughout the late 1940s, more and more Chinese people poured into Southeast Asia. Under the influence of currency devaluation, inflation, and war, more and more people in the country chose to flee south. After so many years of development, the concept of Southeast Asia's prosperity has become more and more deeply rooted in people's minds.

What’s more crucial is that after taking Hanoi and Myanmar, there will be a land route from China to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and it is not necessary to take a boat. Both lines are connected by train, and the carrying capacity is actually much stronger than that of a passenger ship.

Even many people can walk here, and there are quite a few of them.

The influx of a large number of Chinese has enriched the SAARC, at least the main base of the Nanyang SAARC, but it has also brought considerable pressure to governance. What is more serious is that stratification among the Chinese is also inevitable.

"Mr. Zheng, this is the overall security situation in Singapore last month. Please take a look."

In the Singapore office, Tan Lark Sye handed over a document. Zheng Yi simply flipped through it twice and put it aside.

"Just tell me how many vicious incidents have occurred and how many of the victims are Japanese, Malay, and Chinese. I won't bother with the details."

"Overall... it was terrible. There were a total of 167 serious incidents, with 143 victims of Japanese descent, and the perpetrators... were almost all Chinese."

Zheng Yi sighed upon hearing this and said, "The ethnic conflicts that were finally suppressed are now flaring up again with the influx of these new immigrants. Tell me something I'd like to hear about, like the economy."

Tan Lark Sye: "Economically, it's indeed very good. If we use the most popular calculation method, just looking at Singapore, its GDP has increased by a full 200% in two years, and the people's living standards have also improved significantly."

Zheng Yi waved his hand. "The GDP figures for the past two years are completely meaningless. If I remember correctly, the loans allocated to Singapore alone in those two years were over five billion US dollars. With such a huge amount of money poured in, the market would have been extremely hot. Plus, you guys are so involved in finance, real estate prices alone have tripled in the past two years. How can a figure like GDP still have any reference value?"

Singapore has received the largest share of the money that was hard-earned from the United States in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). This is because the industry here is almost entirely manufacturing. Apart from military and munitions industries in Penang, and some large and crude steel industries in Yangon and Hanoi, especially precision processing manufacturing industries are now almost all in Singapore.

"Last year, we exported over 1.34 million units of home appliances, including refrigerators, televisions, radios, washing machines, fans, and air conditioners. We are still expanding production, and by next year, we can at least double that."

"As for the shipyard, they repaired and converted seven ships this year, all of which were converted from warships to merchant ships. However, next year, at least one or two cruise ships, even luxury cruise ships, will be launched."

"We've produced over 104,000 agricultural and construction vehicles, and over 30,000 private cars. We can at least double that number within the next three years."

"Automobiles, shipbuilding, and home appliances are currently Singapore's three most important core pillar industries. Other small industries such as pharmaceuticals, toys, precision parts, and mechanical watches have all seen their production output increase by at least three times compared to two years ago."

"The port's throughput has increased more than tenfold in the past three years. Not to mention the real estate and construction industries, the construction teams are almost doubling in size and number every three months. Business is also thriving. Our profits, as well as the government's fiscal revenue, are all very substantial."

This development speed is even much faster than that of Penang. In Zheng Yi's opinion, the financialization in Penang is too obvious, and it is not as down-to-earth as Singapore in developing its manufacturing industry.

"How's the employment situation in Singapore? How many jobs have been created? Can they guarantee a basic minimum wage?"

Tan Lark Sye: "Employment... Last year, there were over 410,000 newly registered jobs. However... we estimate that there are at least 200,000 jobs that are not registered and cannot guarantee minimum wage."

"Although Singapore has experienced significant development over the past two years, to be honest, the number of newly created jobs is far less than the number of newly arrived refugees. Crucially, since Singapore is a city dominated by high-end manufacturing, the new employment population must, at least in part, meet certain basic labor qualifications, and the new influx of refugees into Singapore does not match our job needs."

Zheng Yi thought for a moment, frowned, and said, "There are always jobs that don't require as much discipline, or jobs that require more hardship."

Upon hearing this, Tan Lark Sye said bluntly, "Most of the work needed can be done by Japanese. Even if we don't use Japanese, we can use Malays, Thais, or even Indians. To be honest, Indians are sometimes quite useful."

Zheng Yi: "In the end, you just don't want to use Chinese people?"

After a while, Tan Lark Sye gritted his teeth and said to Zheng Yi, "Mr. Zheng, I strongly suggest that Singapore should, like Penang, further block the entry of foreign population. It is true that the Nanyang Chinese are a group, but I think it is necessary to make a distinction between the old Nanyang Chinese and the new Nanyang Chinese."

"If you want to work in Singapore, even if you are Chinese, you must obtain a work visa. And this work visa cannot be too easy to obtain. It must be more difficult and have higher thresholds. Otherwise, Singapore's development will inevitably stagnate, and even cause more and more serious public security incidents."

"Mr. Zheng, you once told us that we should treat ordinary Japanese people who are not right-wingers equally, but now, the excessive influx of Southeast Asian Chinese has seriously infringed upon the rights of these Japanese!"

After he finished speaking, he saw Zheng Yi's eyes were like knives, staring at him unkindly.

Chen Liushi instinctively lowered his head guiltily, but quickly raised it again and looked at Zheng Yi with a righteous look on his face.

After a while, Zheng Yi sighed and lowered his head, saying, "Of course I understand what you mean, but asking the Japanese to expel the Chinese from Southeast Asia is easy to do, but it's hard to say, and even harder to hear."

Tan Lark Sye insisted, "But the old Nanyang Chinese and the new Nanyang Chinese cannot and should not be lumped together. Nanyang is indeed developing well now, and this is primarily due to your leadership, Mr. Zheng. No matter whether you are a man or a woman, young or old, everyone in Nanyang has no objection to this."

"But secondly, this was also built by us, the old Nanyang people, who overcame all difficulties and hardships. Those newcomers have contributed nothing, but they want to enjoy the public resources created by us. The most important thing is that they not only have no positive impact, but all they have is destructive."

What Tan Lark Sye said was certainly not groundless, because objectively speaking, Singapore does have its own uniqueness.

Currently, Singapore's flagship companies are Toyota, Nissan, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and many other Japanese brands. Four years ago, Zheng Yi went to Japan and dug up the best parts of Japanese society, and spent a lot of money to transplant them to Singapore for cultivation. Now, it is finally time for them to bear fruit.

However, this creates a big problem: the proportion of Japanese in Singapore is too high.

Although most of the upper-level positions are still held by Nanyang Chinese, or more precisely, old Nanyang Chinese, the middle-level positions and even the core grassroots positions in the factories are mostly held by the Japanese.

The Japanese of this era are much better than the Chinese in terms of hard qualities, and this is indeed an objective fact. Objectively speaking, the things that Zheng Yi liked at the time all had a bit of high-end manufacturing in this era.

Singapore’s core and top priority industries are automobiles, home appliances, and shipbuilding.

This stuff was already very high-end in the 1940s and 1950s, involving precision manufacturing and processing, and therefore, there were indeed requirements for employees.

Of course, not all jobs in a factory require high-end skills. At least, things like cleaning and porting can be done without any skills.

But the problem is that the Japanese also have their own trade unions.

They also have their own circles.

In short, almost all factories and all senior and middle-level managers, as long as there is an objective demand for expansion and employment, will try their best to prove to you that Japanese must be hired for this position.

Objectively speaking, Zheng Yi could understand this. After all, in a factory where most people are Japanese, Japanese is the standard language. Hiring a Chinese person wouldn't be enough to justify the language barrier; the most crucial thing is that the Chinese hold higher political status than the Japanese. It's common for porters to be dissatisfied with engineers in these Japanese factories.

Chinese people naturally have a sense of superiority: I am the winner, why should I listen to you, a bunch of losers, talking nonsense.

Tan Lark Sye's concerns are justified. Is it possible to force these Japanese companies to accept Chinese employees? Of course not, as the Chinese still manage these Japanese in Singapore.

However, the work efficiency of these factories will definitely decrease, the development speed will slow down, the money earned will become less, the Japanese sense of humiliation will increase, and it will also affect Zheng Yi's original intention of wanting them to integrate into the SAARC and become a part of the SAARC.

Zheng Yi: "What about packaging, transportation, and some service industries? Can't we develop them more? If we need policy support..."

Tan Lark Sye: "Mr. Zheng, let me be frank. If we compare being slaves, we Chinese are far inferior to the Indians."

"Ah~"

Upon hearing this, Zheng Yi couldn't help but cover his forehead and felt a headache.

This is also another major problem that SAARC is facing now, that is, these Indians.

President Nepal approached him a few days ago and asked him to expand the number of Indian workers accepted each year and relax restrictions on the use of Indian workers.

It is no exaggeration to say that Indian workers are now in short supply in SAARC, and they are indeed far more popular than the new Chinese among all groups except the Southeast Asian Chinese.

Even many old Chinese in Southeast Asia now prefer to use Indians more and more.

Because Indians are really suitable to be slaves.

India's caste system can be said to be both a shackle and a wealth for the Indians. Simply put, there are many Indians who truly believe from the bottom of their hearts that they are born to be slaves.

They can do their job as slaves so well that the people being served feel very comfortable.

Of course, it is not impossible to find slaves among the Chinese of this era. After all, they have not yet been baptized by the great baptism. But in fact, even in this period, those Chinese who are really slaves are far inferior to the Indians in this respect.

The simplest thing is that no matter how humble a Chinese slave is, he will always think in his heart: I serve the master, so the master has to support me. If something happens to me, the master has to take care of me.

In the Chinese community, old servants serve their masters for their entire lives, and the masters have an obligation, and even must, to provide for the old servants in their old age. Moreover, Chinese servants often have only one master.

Rather than saying that this is a slave mentality, it is better to say that it is a kind of personal dependence.

Moreover, if the master treats the servant badly, the servant will rebel.

Everyone says that the Chinese workers were miserable, just like black slaves, but the Spanish colonists used black slaves for more than 300 years and nothing happened. However, when they used Chinese workers, they were driven away in less than 100 years. It is said that there was not a single deserter among the Chinese workers in Cuba.

Even in old China, it was not so easy for Chinese people to be enslaved. There is really a rebellious nature in the Chinese people's heads.

India is very powerful. The slaves in India can be kicked away at will after use, and they are very humble. The people who are served will feel very comfortable, and they don't have to be responsible when they are thrown away after use.

They are more useful than the black people before they awakened, and people who truly regard themselves as slaves can really make the people being served feel comfortable when working in the service industry.

But Indians' self-reproduction is also a real big problem.

The self-reproduction of Indians is different from the self-reproduction of Chinese.

The self-reproduction of the Chinese is based on mutual help among relatives: If I live well in Nanyang, I also want my family and fellow countrymen to come to Nanyang so that we can live a good life together.

The reason why Indians reproduce themselves is partly due to the same reason as the Chinese, but this is not the main reason.

More importantly: when an Indian does a little better, he must become a superior person.

In the Indian view, when people interact with each other, they must either act like a grandfather or a grandson.

Once he has made a little money by being a grandson of the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans and Americans in Southeast Asia, or if some outstanding ones have really gained some social status, he must become a grandfather.

It is impossible for Chinese people to be grandsons of Indians, and it is also unlikely for Japanese people.

He has to be the boss, otherwise he has to be the boss. So what should he do?
I tried every possible way to get my Indian fellow here to be my grandson and serve me.

The more Indian they are, the more they care about this. Apart from their Indian compatriots, other foreigners cannot give them this feeling. To put it bluntly, they cannot serve them well.

Many Indians try every means to bring their fellow Indians over to serve them. In this way, it can be passed down layer by layer, and the Indians will naturally reproduce themselves and increase in number.

More importantly, because of the orderly hierarchy and clear distinction between levels, Indians are particularly easy to organize in a foreign country.

What is more surprising is that in the old colonial era, the Chinese lived better than the Indians because they were able to resist more unitedly. The achievements of the Chinese in Southeast Asia are far beyond the reach of the Indians in Southeast Asia.

But in the new era, there is not so much oppression and exploitation, and there is no need for Chinese people to stick together anymore. Even Zheng Yi himself wants to break up the Chinese hometown groups as much as possible. He doesn't want them to stick together anymore, and they no longer have the will to resist oppression.

However, in many areas, they are gradually becoming less powerful than the Indians who are sticking together.

To put it bluntly, they cannot compete with the Japanese in the high-end market because their overall quality is not as good as theirs, and they cannot compete with the Indians in the low-end service industry because most Chinese people are too arrogant and are not good at serving others.

This is the dilemma faced by the Chinese in Southeast Asia today, especially the new Chinese in Southeast Asia.

(End of this chapter)