Thousands of Chinese workers are establishing themselves in the sparsely-populated regions of northern Laos. Why is this happening and what does it mean?
Chinese migrants have been travelling to Southeast Asia for hundreds, indeed thousands of years. They have been motivated by the desire for better economic opportunities for themselves and their families, the desire to escape famine or persecution, the desire for new experience or as a result of compulsion. Either way, the presence of a significant ethnic Chinese population has been a notable feature in every Southeast Asian nation. Although there have been tensions from time to time, it is generally the case that most overseas Chinese have been so focused on working hard and seeking prosperity that major incidents of racially-sparked unrest have been quite few and far between. However, the end of the Second Indochinese War (also known as the Vietnam War) brought victory for the Pathet Lao in Laos, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the unification of Vietnam under the Vietnamese Communist Party, all in the mid-1970s. These regime changes were followed by an exodus of the middle and professional classes from all affected countries, since they risked being identified as class enemies and, therefore, subject to high levels of persecution.
So it was that Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, has seen something of an absence at its heart with the lack of a Chinatown. Of course, support for the Pathet Lao from the Soviet Union was also a contributory factor but the situation is now changing rapidly. Not only are a small number of Chinese pioneers starting to establish businesses in the city, often in tourism or service industries, but rather larger groups of Chinese are entering the country through being hired as construction workers. The Asian Development Bank is leading attempts to integrate Laos more closely into the rapid economic development being enjoyed in many other parts of Southeast Asia through, among other means, an extensive road-building program. This will link Kunming in Yunnan province in the north to, ultimately, Singapore in the south and central Vietnam in the east with, perhaps one day, India in the west. Thousands of Chinese labourers have entered Laos to help build these roads and, once their contracts have expired, many prefer to stay on to build businesses in areas where they have spotted opportunities. Tens of thousands of Chinese are now believed to be in the sparsely-populated north of Laos – accurate numbers are not known – and the Lao government, acutely conscious of the difficulties its low population and low population density have caused, are expressing fears that a parallel state is being established in the northern border region. That is what already appears to have happened in Burma.
