‘Vietnam is my country land, China is my hometown’: Chinese communities in transition in the south of Vietnam

Abstract

ABSTRACTStudies of Southeast Asian Chinese are voluminous; yet, those about the Chinese in Vietnam are comparatively few. This article provides an updated account of the Chinese Vietnamese with focuses on the Chinese associations in the South of Vietnam and the shifting Chinese identity. Many have discussed the Chinese Vietnamese who fled Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s, however, little is known about the plights of the Chinese inside Vietnam during those decades. This article elaborates on their situations in the post-unification decade in Ho Chi Minh City and the subsequent changes after the doi moi reforms in the 1990s. It will show how a liberalized economy and accommodative ethnic policies have resulted in a more proactive relationship between the Chinese minority and the Vietnamese society, which consequentially led to changes in the relationship between the Chinese in Vietnam and China.