Negotiating China's rise: The dynamics of Chinese business associations and the Belt and Road Initiative in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

With an increasingly assertive China and the intensifying influence of the Sinocentre, Chinese overseas who have access to Chineseness can exercise their agentic power in using their cultural capital for economic gains. Beijing has recognised the potential for diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to contribute to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) given their influence in Southeast Asia's economy. Correspondingly, these entrepreneurs hail the BRI as a strategic opportunity for them to turn their cultural capital into fiscal capital. Considering the increased global connectivity and new Chinese migration geographies led by the BRI, this article examines the case of Chinese business associations in Brunei Darussalam. The heterogenous responses of these ethnic Chinese and their associations to China and the BRI attest to the multiplicity and contestations of Chineseness based on different migration histories and sentiments to their ancestral land. We focus on the dynamics between the old Chinese Bruneian business elites and the more recent Chinese business migrants from Malaysia and China. An investigation of the cultural and economic politics within the Chinese Bruneian business community will provide insights into the modality of Chineseness as an economic asset that can be tactically used by diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs to maintain their social position and to respond to China's economic rise.