Chinese Cambodian
Encyclopedia
Chinese Cambodians are Cambodia
n citizens of Chinese
descent. "Khmer-Chen", is used for peoples of either mixed Cambodian & Chinese descent or people of whom are Cambodian born citizens with Chinese ancestry; (Khmer being the ethnic group of Cambodia and Chen meaning Chinese in the Khmer language). During the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were the largest ethnic minority in Cambodia; there were an estimated 425,000. However, by 1984, there were only 61,400 Chinese Cambodians left. This has been attributed to a combination of war
fare, economic stagnation, Khmer Rouge
and Vietnam
ese persecution, and emigration
.
dwellers engaged mainly in commerce
, with most of the rural
population working as shopkeepers, processors of food products (such as rice
, palm sugar
, fruit
, and fish
), and moneylenders. Those in Kampot Province and parts of Kaoh Kong
Province cultivate black pepper
and fruit
(especially rambutans, durian
s, and coconut
s). Additionally, some rural Chinese Cambodians are engaged in salt water
fishing
.
Most Chinese Cambodian moneylenders wield considerable economic power over the ethnic Khmer
peasants through usury
. Studies in the 1950s revealed that Chinese shopkeepers in Cambodia would sell to peasant
s on credit
at interest rate
s of 10-20% a month. This might have been the reason why seventy-five percent of the peasants in Cambodia were in debt in 1952, according to the Australian Colonial Credit Office. There seemed to be little distinction between Chinese and Sino-Khmer (offspring of mixed Chinese and Khmer descent) in the moneylending and shopkeeping enterprises.
groups, the largest of which was the Teochew(accounting for about 60%), followed by the Cantonese (accounting for about 20%), the Hokkien (accounting for about 7%), and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each accounting for about 4%). The people of some of these Chinese dialects characteristically tend to gravitate towards certain occupations.
, who made up about 90 % of the rural Chinese population, ran village stores, controlled rural credit and rice-marketing facilities, and grew vegetables. In urban areas they were often engaged in such enterprises as importing and exporting, selling pharmaceuticals, and street peddling. Most of them now living surrounding the area where their expectation of run the business to success. They mostly are the front-runner among the Chinese community in local big cities.
, who were the majority Chinese group before the Teochiu migrations began in the late 1930s, lived mainly in the city. Frequently, the Cantonese engaged in transportation and in construction, for the most part as mechanics or carpenters. Known in Cambodia as "Chen-Catung" in Khmer language. Other than the city, Kampong Cham is their community.
ese started out as pepper growers in Kampot Province, where they continued to dominate that business. Many moved to Phnom Penh, where, in the late 1960s, they reportedly had a virtual monopoly
on the hotel and restaurant businesses. They also often operated tailor shops and haberdasheries.
. After the earliest settlement in Cambodia, Stung Treng
is the consideration of most Hakka active community.
community was involved in importing and exporting and in banking; many of the richest Chinese Cambodians were Hokkien. Revealed to be the earliest group to be found in Cambodia after their earliest arrival in the Khmer Empire
era and the following biggest immigration in 15th century, they once drew with the Cantonese speakers as the largest speaker group in 1860s
. Kampong Thom still stands today as the main centre for the Hokkien
community, followed by Siem reap
, Battambang
and Kampong Chnnang.
Chinese presence in Cambodia dated back to the 13th century when Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan
visited Cambodia and in the 16th century, Portuguese seafarers recorded the presence of a Chinese enclave in Phnom Penh in 1620. Early Chinese immigrants comprised almost exclusively of men, and they took local Khmer or Cham women as wives. Their descendants quickly assimilated into the local community by intergating themselves economically and socially into the agricultural commune
of ancient Cambodians. Some male descendants of Chinese immigrants kept Chinese hairstyles. Descendants of Chinese immigrants from the Ming dynasty maintained the Ming practice of keeping a Chinese topknot until the 18th century.
These Chinese communities had extensive autonomy during the French protectorate period. In effect, each distinct Chinese linguistic group had its own chef de congregation, and these chiefs were recognized by French authorities as having power over matters of immigration and emigration, movement between towns, schools, temples, cultural societies. In other words, they were not treated as colonial subjects; each of the Chinese minorities had the right to control its own internal affairs to a quite extensive degree. This also meant that the French did not assume any responsibility for the Chinese in matters such as health and education.
This was to be a high point in terms of the rights of the Chinese minorities. Cambodian independence in 1953 saw a regression in their treatment by state authorities and the previously existing autonomy was eliminated by the new government. However, many private associations - cultural, business-oriented and to do with education - were simply continued by the Chinese communities and clan associations themselves, as these communities still had very significant economic and political power. Anti-Chinese feeling and policies emerged, however, after the coup of 1970 which saw the establishing of a pro-West government which considered the neighbouring People's Republic of China a dangerous threat - and the Chinese minorities in Cambodia as a possible fifth column.
The year 1970 thus marks the beginning of almost two decades of severe repression of the Chinese minorities in Cambodia. It was after this point that Cambodian authorities started forcing the closure of Chinese schools and newspapers, requiring the Chinese to carry special identity papers, imposing special taxes on the Chinese and moving towards denying them Cambodian citizenship. While the Khmer Rouge regime appeared to have a more ‘tolerant' ethnic policy initially, it continued to discriminate against the Chinese once it had completed its takeover of Cambodia. The continued discrimination, however, now rested on class rather than ethnic grounds; since the majority of urban Chinese were traders, they were classified as ‘capitalists' by the revolutionary regime. While there is no evidence that the Chinese were particularly targeted in the Khmer Rouge purges, their population in Cambodia was probably reduced by half in the four years of Khmer Rouge rule; it seems that there was an increased number of anti-Chinese events just prior to the Vietnamese invasion which brought an end to the Pol Pot regime.
The establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 was not completely positive for the Chinese minorities. Partly because of tensions between China and Vietnam, the new Cambodian authorities adopted restrictive measures against the remaining members of the Chinese minorities, including banning them from returning to urban trades. This continued until the Vietnamese army left in 1989. As Cambodia began moving towards a democratic state, the more obvious forms of discrimination against the Chinese began to be removed or tempered. After 1990, they were allowed to celebrate Chinese festivals and religious practices, then to re-establish Chinese associations and conduct business activities. Even more recently, they have started operating their own schools, which have expanded considerably in recent years in Phnom Penh and other centres.
The French enforced similar policies in Cambodia. The head of a bang, known as the ong bang, was elected by popular vote; he functioned as an intermediary between the members of his bang and the government. Individual Chinese who were not accepted for membership in a bang were deported by the French authorities.
This committee was the largest association of Chinese merchants in the country, and it was required by the organization's constitution to include on its fifteen-member board six people from the Teochiu dialect group, three from the Cantonese, two from the Hokkien, two from the Hakka, and two from the Hainanese. The hospital board constituted the recognized leadership of Phnom Penh's Chinese community. Local Chinese school boards in the smaller cities and towns often served a similar function.
In 1971 the government authorized the formation of a new body, the Federated Association of Chinese of Cambodia, which was the first organization to embrace all of Cambodia's resident Chinese. According to its statutes, the federation was designed to "aid Chinese nationals in the social, cultural, public health, and medical fields," to administer the property owned jointly by the Chinese community in Phnom Penh and elsewhere, and to promote friendly relations between Cambodians and Chinese.
With leadership that could be expected to include the recognized leaders of the national Chinese community, the federation was believed likely to continue the trend, evident since the early 1960s, to transcend dialect group allegiance in many aspects of its social, political, and economic programs.
Generally, relations between the Chinese and the ethnic Khmer were good. There was some intermarriage, and a sizable proportion of the population in Cambodia was part Sino-Khmer, who were assimilated easily into either the Chinese or the Khmer community. Willmott assumes that a Sino-Khmer elite dominated commerce in Cambodia from the time of independence well into the era of the Khmer Republic.
The Chinese, in addition to having their livelihood eradicated on the whole, also suffered because of their class. They were mainly well-educated urban merchants, and thus were characteristic of the people whom the Khmer Rouge detested. Chinese refugees have reported that they shared the same brutal treatment as other urban Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge régime and that they were not discriminated against as an ethnic group until after the Vietnamese invasion.
, the new pro-Hanoi
People's Republic of Kampuchea
regime lifted some of the oppressive rules imposed on ethnic Chinese by the Khmer Rouge government. Chinese newspapers were allowed and the ban on speaking Chinese at home was lifted. However, partial restrictions and a certain amount of suspicion remained, for the pro-Soviet
PRK regime resented China's support for the Khmer Rouge guerrillas fighting against it, now renamed as the "National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
" (NADK). Observers at the time believed that the lingering anti-Chinese stance of the PRK government and of its officials in Phnom Penh made it unlikely that a Chinese community of the same scale as before the Khmer Rouge could resurface in Cambodia in the near future.
The conditions for the ethnic Chinese, however, improved greatly under the SOC, the transitional avatar of the PRK after 1989. Restrictions placed on them by the former PRK gradually disappeared. The State of Cambodia allowed ethnic Chinese to observe their particular religious customs and Chinese language schools were reopened. In 1991, two years after the SOC's foundation, the Chinese New Year
was officially celebrated in Cambodia for the first time since 1975.
The position of the Chinese minority has undergone a dramatic turn for the better and the Chinese seem to have regained much of their previous economic clout. For various reasons, including the growing economic collaboration between China and Cambodia and the huge investments being made by Chinese companies, the Chinese community has seen its numbers expand dramatically in the 2000s. There has been a huge growth in Chinese-language schools, often generously supported by the government of China through subsidies, and also in the production of textbooks (in Chinese) that incorporate Cambodian history and seminars for teachers. There may be close to 100 such schools today (2007). One of these private schools claims to be the largest overseas Chinese school in the world, with some 10,000 students. A number of Chinese-language newspapers began to be published in the country after 1993, and state television broadcasting even included a news segment in Chinese after 1998. All of the main political parties in Cambodia now appear sensitive to the clout of the Chinese minority, publishing campaign material in Chinese in the last elections. While this minority faced serious discrimination until the 1980s, it appears that that period has come to an end and that they no longer appear to be victimized by state authorities and are allowed to prosper under Hun Sen.
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
n citizens of Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
descent. "Khmer-Chen", is used for peoples of either mixed Cambodian & Chinese descent or people of whom are Cambodian born citizens with Chinese ancestry; (Khmer being the ethnic group of Cambodia and Chen meaning Chinese in the Khmer language). During the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were the largest ethnic minority in Cambodia; there were an estimated 425,000. However, by 1984, there were only 61,400 Chinese Cambodians left. This has been attributed to a combination of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
fare, economic stagnation, Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese persecution, and emigration
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
.
Role in the economy
In 1963, William Willmott, an expert on overseas Chinese communities, estimated that 90% of the Chinese in Cambodia were involved in commerce. Today, an estimated 60% are urbanUrban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
dwellers engaged mainly in commerce
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
, with most of the rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
population working as shopkeepers, processors of food products (such as rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, palm sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
, fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
, and fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
), and moneylenders. Those in Kampot Province and parts of Kaoh Kong
Koh Kong Province
Koh Kong is a province of Cambodia. The name means "Kŏng Island Province". Its capital is Koh Kong.-Geography:The most south-western province of Cambodia, Koh Kong has a long undeveloped coastline and a mountainous, forested and largely inaccessible interior which embraces part of the Cardamom...
Province cultivate black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
and fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
(especially rambutans, durian
Durian
The durian is the fruit of several tree species belonging to the genus Durio and the Malvaceae family . Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the "king of fruits", the durian is distinctive for its large size, unique odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk...
s, and coconut
Coconut
The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...
s). Additionally, some rural Chinese Cambodians are engaged in salt water
Seawater
Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...
fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
.
Most Chinese Cambodian moneylenders wield considerable economic power over the ethnic Khmer
Khmer people
Khmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
peasants through usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
. Studies in the 1950s revealed that Chinese shopkeepers in Cambodia would sell to peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s on credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...
at interest rate
Interest rate
An interest rate is the rate at which interest is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrow from a lender. For example, a small company borrows capital from a bank to buy new assets for their business, and in return the lender receives interest at a predetermined interest rate for...
s of 10-20% a month. This might have been the reason why seventy-five percent of the peasants in Cambodia were in debt in 1952, according to the Australian Colonial Credit Office. There seemed to be little distinction between Chinese and Sino-Khmer (offspring of mixed Chinese and Khmer descent) in the moneylending and shopkeeping enterprises.
Dialect groups
The Chinese in Cambodia represented five major linguisticLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
groups, the largest of which was the Teochew(accounting for about 60%), followed by the Cantonese (accounting for about 20%), the Hokkien (accounting for about 7%), and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each accounting for about 4%). The people of some of these Chinese dialects characteristically tend to gravitate towards certain occupations.
Teochew
The TeochewTeochew people
The Chaozhou people are Han people, native to the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province of China who speak the Teochew dialect. Today, most Teochew people live outside China in Southeast Asia especially in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. They can also be found almost anywhere in the...
, who made up about 90 % of the rural Chinese population, ran village stores, controlled rural credit and rice-marketing facilities, and grew vegetables. In urban areas they were often engaged in such enterprises as importing and exporting, selling pharmaceuticals, and street peddling. Most of them now living surrounding the area where their expectation of run the business to success. They mostly are the front-runner among the Chinese community in local big cities.
Cantonese
The CantoneseCantonese people
The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
, who were the majority Chinese group before the Teochiu migrations began in the late 1930s, lived mainly in the city. Frequently, the Cantonese engaged in transportation and in construction, for the most part as mechanics or carpenters. Known in Cambodia as "Chen-Catung" in Khmer language. Other than the city, Kampong Cham is their community.
Hainanese
The HainanHainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
ese started out as pepper growers in Kampot Province, where they continued to dominate that business. Many moved to Phnom Penh, where, in the late 1960s, they reportedly had a virtual monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
on the hotel and restaurant businesses. They also often operated tailor shops and haberdasheries.
Hakka
In Phnom Penh, the newly-arrived Hakka were typically folk dentists, sellers of traditional Chinese medicines, and shoemakers. Hakka deemed to be the newest Chinese and the smallest group of all which their movement just began during Second Sino-Japanese WarSecond Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
. After the earliest settlement in Cambodia, Stung Treng
Stung Treng
Stung Treng is the capital of Stung Treng Province, Cambodia. It is located in the western part of the Virachey National Park.It is the major city of both the district and province and has a population of 29,665 ....
is the consideration of most Hakka active community.
Hokkien
The HokkienHokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
community was involved in importing and exporting and in banking; many of the richest Chinese Cambodians were Hokkien. Revealed to be the earliest group to be found in Cambodia after their earliest arrival in the Khmer Empire
Khmer Empire
The Khmer Empire was one of the most powerful empires in Southeast Asia. The empire, which grew out of the former kingdom of Chenla, at times ruled over and/or vassalized parts of modern-day Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and Malaysia. Its greatest legacy is Angkor, the site of the capital city...
era and the following biggest immigration in 15th century, they once drew with the Cantonese speakers as the largest speaker group in 1860s
1860s
The 1860s were an extremely turbulent decade with numerous cultural, social, and political upheavals in Europe and America. Revolutions were prevalent in Germany and the Ottoman Empire...
. Kampong Thom still stands today as the main centre for the Hokkien
Hokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
community, followed by Siem reap
Siem Reap
Siem Reap is the capital city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia, and is the gateway to Angkor region.Siem Reap has colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter, and around the Old Market...
, Battambang
Battambang
Battambang is the capital city of Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia.Battambang is the second-largest city in Cambodia with a population of over 250,000. Founded in the 11th century by the Khmer Empire, Battambang is well known for being the leading rice-producing province of the country...
and Kampong Chnnang.
Medieval History
The Chinese presence in Cambodia goes back a number of centuries; in terms of settled communities, different southern Chinese ethnic groups arrived in the country at slightly different times. It is thought that the first distinct Chinese communities were probably established after the fall of the Song dynasty in the thirteenth century. What is clear, however, is that among the first ethnic Chinese to settle in Cambodia were the Hokkiens, while the Cantonese and Hainanese seem to have arrived towards the end of the seventeenth century, followed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the Teochiu and Hakka. At the time of the French Protectorate, the largest Chinese groups were the Hokkiens and Cantonese, though by the mid-twentieth century they would be outnumbered by the Teochius.Chinese presence in Cambodia dated back to the 13th century when Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan
Zhou Daguan
Zhou Daguan was a Chinese diplomat under the Temür Khan, Emperor Chengzong of Yuan. He is most well known for his accounts of the customs of Cambodia and the Angkor temple complexes during his visit there. He arrived at Angkor in August 1296, and remained at the court of King Indravarman III...
visited Cambodia and in the 16th century, Portuguese seafarers recorded the presence of a Chinese enclave in Phnom Penh in 1620. Early Chinese immigrants comprised almost exclusively of men, and they took local Khmer or Cham women as wives. Their descendants quickly assimilated into the local community by intergating themselves economically and socially into the agricultural commune
Agricultural commune
-Karl Marx:In his 1881 letter to Vera Zasulich, Karl Marx wrote that historically the "agricultural commune" is the most recent type of archaic forms of societies...
of ancient Cambodians. Some male descendants of Chinese immigrants kept Chinese hairstyles. Descendants of Chinese immigrants from the Ming dynasty maintained the Ming practice of keeping a Chinese topknot until the 18th century.
These Chinese communities had extensive autonomy during the French protectorate period. In effect, each distinct Chinese linguistic group had its own chef de congregation, and these chiefs were recognized by French authorities as having power over matters of immigration and emigration, movement between towns, schools, temples, cultural societies. In other words, they were not treated as colonial subjects; each of the Chinese minorities had the right to control its own internal affairs to a quite extensive degree. This also meant that the French did not assume any responsibility for the Chinese in matters such as health and education.
This was to be a high point in terms of the rights of the Chinese minorities. Cambodian independence in 1953 saw a regression in their treatment by state authorities and the previously existing autonomy was eliminated by the new government. However, many private associations - cultural, business-oriented and to do with education - were simply continued by the Chinese communities and clan associations themselves, as these communities still had very significant economic and political power. Anti-Chinese feeling and policies emerged, however, after the coup of 1970 which saw the establishing of a pro-West government which considered the neighbouring People's Republic of China a dangerous threat - and the Chinese minorities in Cambodia as a possible fifth column.
The year 1970 thus marks the beginning of almost two decades of severe repression of the Chinese minorities in Cambodia. It was after this point that Cambodian authorities started forcing the closure of Chinese schools and newspapers, requiring the Chinese to carry special identity papers, imposing special taxes on the Chinese and moving towards denying them Cambodian citizenship. While the Khmer Rouge regime appeared to have a more ‘tolerant' ethnic policy initially, it continued to discriminate against the Chinese once it had completed its takeover of Cambodia. The continued discrimination, however, now rested on class rather than ethnic grounds; since the majority of urban Chinese were traders, they were classified as ‘capitalists' by the revolutionary regime. While there is no evidence that the Chinese were particularly targeted in the Khmer Rouge purges, their population in Cambodia was probably reduced by half in the four years of Khmer Rouge rule; it seems that there was an increased number of anti-Chinese events just prior to the Vietnamese invasion which brought an end to the Pol Pot regime.
The establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 was not completely positive for the Chinese minorities. Partly because of tensions between China and Vietnam, the new Cambodian authorities adopted restrictive measures against the remaining members of the Chinese minorities, including banning them from returning to urban trades. This continued until the Vietnamese army left in 1989. As Cambodia began moving towards a democratic state, the more obvious forms of discrimination against the Chinese began to be removed or tempered. After 1990, they were allowed to celebrate Chinese festivals and religious practices, then to re-establish Chinese associations and conduct business activities. Even more recently, they have started operating their own schools, which have expanded considerably in recent years in Phnom Penh and other centres.
Under French rule
Distinction by dialect group has also been important historically in the administrative treatment of the Chinese in Cambodia. The French brought with them a system devised by the Vietnamese Emperor Gia Long (1802–20) to classify the local Chinese according to areas of origin and dialect. These groups were called bang (or congregations by the French) and had their own leaders for law, order, and tax-collecting.The French enforced similar policies in Cambodia. The head of a bang, known as the ong bang, was elected by popular vote; he functioned as an intermediary between the members of his bang and the government. Individual Chinese who were not accepted for membership in a bang were deported by the French authorities.
After independence
The French system of administering the Chinese Cambodian community was terminated in 1958. During the 1960s, Chinese community affairs tended to be handled, at least in Phnom Penh, by the Chinese Hospital Committee, an organization set up to fund and to administer a hospital established earlier for the Chinese community.This committee was the largest association of Chinese merchants in the country, and it was required by the organization's constitution to include on its fifteen-member board six people from the Teochiu dialect group, three from the Cantonese, two from the Hokkien, two from the Hakka, and two from the Hainanese. The hospital board constituted the recognized leadership of Phnom Penh's Chinese community. Local Chinese school boards in the smaller cities and towns often served a similar function.
In 1971 the government authorized the formation of a new body, the Federated Association of Chinese of Cambodia, which was the first organization to embrace all of Cambodia's resident Chinese. According to its statutes, the federation was designed to "aid Chinese nationals in the social, cultural, public health, and medical fields," to administer the property owned jointly by the Chinese community in Phnom Penh and elsewhere, and to promote friendly relations between Cambodians and Chinese.
With leadership that could be expected to include the recognized leaders of the national Chinese community, the federation was believed likely to continue the trend, evident since the early 1960s, to transcend dialect group allegiance in many aspects of its social, political, and economic programs.
Generally, relations between the Chinese and the ethnic Khmer were good. There was some intermarriage, and a sizable proportion of the population in Cambodia was part Sino-Khmer, who were assimilated easily into either the Chinese or the Khmer community. Willmott assumes that a Sino-Khmer elite dominated commerce in Cambodia from the time of independence well into the era of the Khmer Republic.
Under the Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge takeover was catastrophic for the Chinese community for several reasons. When the Khmer Rouge took over a town, they immediately disrupted the local market. According to Willmott, this disruption virtually eliminated retail trade "and the traders (almost all Chinese) became indistinguishable from the unpropertied urban classes."The Chinese, in addition to having their livelihood eradicated on the whole, also suffered because of their class. They were mainly well-educated urban merchants, and thus were characteristic of the people whom the Khmer Rouge detested. Chinese refugees have reported that they shared the same brutal treatment as other urban Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge régime and that they were not discriminated against as an ethnic group until after the Vietnamese invasion.
Under the PRK/SOC
Following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the fall of Democratic KampucheaDemocratic Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge period refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge Communist party over Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea....
, the new pro-Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
People's Republic of Kampuchea
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
regime lifted some of the oppressive rules imposed on ethnic Chinese by the Khmer Rouge government. Chinese newspapers were allowed and the ban on speaking Chinese at home was lifted. However, partial restrictions and a certain amount of suspicion remained, for the pro-Soviet
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
PRK regime resented China's support for the Khmer Rouge guerrillas fighting against it, now renamed as the "National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
The National Army of Democratic Kampuchea was a Cambodian guerrilla force. NADK were the armed forces of the Party of Democratic Kampuchea , operating between 1979 and the late 1990s.-History:...
" (NADK). Observers at the time believed that the lingering anti-Chinese stance of the PRK government and of its officials in Phnom Penh made it unlikely that a Chinese community of the same scale as before the Khmer Rouge could resurface in Cambodia in the near future.
The conditions for the ethnic Chinese, however, improved greatly under the SOC, the transitional avatar of the PRK after 1989. Restrictions placed on them by the former PRK gradually disappeared. The State of Cambodia allowed ethnic Chinese to observe their particular religious customs and Chinese language schools were reopened. In 1991, two years after the SOC's foundation, the Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
was officially celebrated in Cambodia for the first time since 1975.
Modern years
Of particular note is China's economic role in the country, which encouraged Sino-Khmer businessmen to reestablish their past business which were once suppressed by the Khmer Rouge. Modern Cambodian economy is highly dependent on Sino-Khmer companies who controlled a large stake in the country's economy, and their support is enhanced by the large presence of lawmakers who are of at least part-Chinese ancestry themselves.The position of the Chinese minority has undergone a dramatic turn for the better and the Chinese seem to have regained much of their previous economic clout. For various reasons, including the growing economic collaboration between China and Cambodia and the huge investments being made by Chinese companies, the Chinese community has seen its numbers expand dramatically in the 2000s. There has been a huge growth in Chinese-language schools, often generously supported by the government of China through subsidies, and also in the production of textbooks (in Chinese) that incorporate Cambodian history and seminars for teachers. There may be close to 100 such schools today (2007). One of these private schools claims to be the largest overseas Chinese school in the world, with some 10,000 students. A number of Chinese-language newspapers began to be published in the country after 1993, and state television broadcasting even included a news segment in Chinese after 1998. All of the main political parties in Cambodia now appear sensitive to the clout of the Chinese minority, publishing campaign material in Chinese in the last elections. While this minority faced serious discrimination until the 1980s, it appears that that period has come to an end and that they no longer appear to be victimized by state authorities and are allowed to prosper under Hun Sen.
Well known Sino Khmers
- Pol PotPol PotSaloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
- Khmer Rouge leader (Chinese-KhmerKhmer peopleKhmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
extract) - Ta MokTa MokTa Mok , which means "Grandfather Mok" in Khmer, was the nom de guerre of Chhit Choeun , a senior figure in the leadership of the Khmer Rouge...
- Khmer Rouge leader (Chinese-KhmerKhmer peopleKhmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
extract) - Ieng SaryIeng SaryIeng Sary was a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge. He was the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and held several senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until his defection to the government in 1996....
- Khmer Rouge leader - Khieu SamphanKhieu SamphanKhieu Samphan was the president of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, though Pol Pot was the group's true political leader and held the most...
- Khmer Rouge regime's head of state - Nuon CheaNuon CheaNuon Chea , also known as Long Bunruot , is a Cambodian former communist politician and former chief ideologist of Khmer Rouge. He was commonly known as "Brother Number Two" second in command to Pol Pot who was leader during the Cambodian Genocide 1975-1979...
(劉平坤) - Khmer Rouge chief ideologist - Lon NolLon NolLon Nol was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice, as well as serving repeatedly as Defense Minister...
- President of the ill-fated Khmer Republic (Chinese-KhmerKhmer peopleKhmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
extract) - Bun RanyBun RanyDr. Bun Rany is the wife of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and head of the Cambodian Red Cross. She is addressed and referred to by the honorific "Lok Chumteav", Khmer for Her Excellency.-Early life:...
-The Head of Cambodian Red CrossCambodian Red CrossThe Cambodian Red Cross is the largest humanitarian organization in Cambodia. Established on the 18 February 1955, it is officially recognized by the Royal Government as the primary auxiliary to the public authorities in humanitarian services...
and the wife of Khmer prime minister, Hun SenHun SenHun Sen is the current Prime Minister of Cambodia.He has been the sole leader of the Cambodian People's Party , which has governed Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979...
. - Sinn SisamouthSinn SisamouthSinn Sisamouth was a famous and highly prolific Cambodian singer-songwriter in the 1950s to the 1970s.Widely considered the "King of Khmer music", Sisamouth, along with Ros Sereysothea, Pan Ron, and other artists, was part of a thriving pop music scene in Phnom Penh that blended elements of Khmer...
-The "King of Khmer Music". He was born with several ethnic group's blood, such as CambodianKhmer peopleKhmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
, ChineseChinese peopleThe term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
, and LaotianLao peopleThe Lao are an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southeast Asia.-Names:The etymology of the word Lao is uncertain, although it may be related to tribes known as the Ai Lao who appear in Han Dynasty records in China and Vietnam as a people of what is now Yunan Province...
. - Cham PrasithCham PrasithCham Prasidh is the Cambodian Minister of Trade and Commerce. He belongs to the Cambodian People's Party and was elected to represent Siem Reap Province in the National Assembly of Cambodia in 2003....
- the CambodiaCambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
n Minister of Trade and Commerce (Chinese descent). His real name retained Chinese Sound as Aik Tik Yu. - Tea BanhTea BanhTea Banh is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Defence for Cambodia. He is a former general and a member of the Cambodian People's Party and was elected to represent Siem Reap Province in the National Assembly of Cambodia in the 2003 elections...
- Cambodian People's PartyCambodian People's PartyThe Cambodian People's Party is the current ruling party of Cambodia.This party was formerly known as Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party...
politician (ThaiThai peopleThe Thai people, or Siamese, are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in Southeast Asia as well as southern China. Their language is the Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kradai family of...
-ChineseChinese peopleThe term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
). - Sokun Nisa - Popular Khmer singer, often featured on Karaoke DVD's (Koun Chen)
- Kang Kek Iew - former leader in the Khmer Rouge, head of Khmer Rouge special branch and Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp in Phnom Penh
External links
- WorldChinese: Cambodia
- The Growing Cambodian-Chinese Alliance (with information on the Chinese community in Cambodia)