Chinese people in Myanmar

The earliest evidence of this term dates to the Bagan Era, in the 13th century, during which it referred to the territory and a variety of peoples to the north and northeast of Myanmar.

In the 1950s, discriminatory policies against overseas Chinese encompassed citizenship, government employment, approval for business regulations and licensing, loan extensions and permission to make remittances.

[24] Chinese-style bakeries and patisseries, noodle stalls, watch repair shops, cosmetic retailers, and grocery stores became focal points of economic life throughout small towns in Burma.

[25] With growing ambitions, Chinese immigrants sought more aggressive entrepreneurial and investment dealings by venturing into most profitable business opportunities, such as liquour stores and pawn brokerage houses.

[23] The government's economic nationalisation program further prohibited foreigners, including the non-citizen Chinese, from owning land, sending remittances, getting business licences and practising medicine.

Public attention was successfully diverted by Ne Win from the uncontrollable inflation, scarcity of consumer items and rising prices of rice.

In 1988, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) came to power, and gradually loosened the government's role in the economy, encouraging private sector growth and foreign investment.

This liberalisation of state's role in the economy, if slight and uneven, nonetheless gave the ethnic Chinese-led businesses extra space to expand and reassert their economic power.

[14] Despite their status as alien minorities, the close relationship between the military rulers of Burma and the People's Republic of China led to the issues of Burmese Chinese being treated with more sensitivity.

Upper Myanmar has seen a demographic shift resulting from the recent immigration of many mainland Chinese to Mandalay Region, Shan,[31] and Kachin States.

The government forcibly relocated local Burmese to satellite towns as part of a City Beautification and Development Program, allowing incoming Chinese immigrants access to land in central Mandalay.

"[43] According to a 2015 presentation by Professor Choi Ho Rim, the contemporary Burmese Chinese are estimated to effectively control approximately 76 percent of the nation's entire economy.

[45] After the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) came to power in 1988 and liberalised the economy, Chinese-owned Burmese businesses gain a slight but significant leeway to expand and ultimately assert their economic clout.

[51] Burmese entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry have become dominant figures in key industries following the economic liberalisation of the State Peace and Development Council rule in 1989.

[54] Burmese-Chinese also have small businesses like hawkers who sell bicycle tires or new Chinese immigrant farmers growing rice in northern Burma.

[45] Businessman Lo Hsing Han and industrialist Kyaw Win, are prominent examples of Burma's native-born tycoons of Chinese ancestry.

Working with and bribing the SLORC government, these men have come to manage major banks, airlines such as Yangon Airways, teak logging companies, gemstone mining concessions.

[55] Lo's son, Steven Law is also a prominent businessman well known for being at the helm of Burma's largest conglomerate company Asia World, whose investments include a container shipping line, port buildings, and toll road authorities.

However, it is crucial to distinguish between the activities of Chinese-backed corporations and the experiences of the broader Chinese Burmese community, who face complex socioeconomic realities that cannot be reduced to economic dominance.

[60] Over the last 30 years, the entrepreneurial Chinese minority transformed Mandalay into a booming modern metropolis filled with foreign businesses and gem trading centers.

[49] A substantial increase in foreign direct investment has poured in from mainland China, mostly ending up in Mandalay's real estate sector, through Burmese citizen intermediaries of Chinese ancestry.

[67] Much of the influx of foreign investment capital into the Burmese economy from mainland and overseas Chinese investors have been channelled through the bamboo network to help launch new companies and executing potential business acquisitions.

[65] Local Chinese-owned businesses, like noodle stalls and bakeries, that emerged after World War II became focal points of economic life in small towns throughout Burma.

[69] Despite their status as alien minorities, the close relationship between Myanmar's military rulers and the People's Republic of China helped push reform for the Chinese disapora in the 1980s.

[72] The 8888 Uprising saw Burmese political literature that expressed anti-Chinese sentiment, with many reflecting on "public outrage" at the takeover of Mandalay by Chinese migrants who care not for cultural preservation or local morality.

[6][74][75] Chinese economic clout in cities like Mandalay grew at the same time that State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) junta forcibly relocated Burmese as a means of social control.

[25] The increased economic clout held in the hands of the Chinese in Burma has triggered distrust, envy, resentment and anti-Chinese hostility among the indigenous Burmese majority.

According to Amy Chua, the free market liberalization under SLORC rule brought virtually no economic benefit to the Bamar majority but rather the domination and looting of their country by a small handful of outsiders.

(Note: Standard Chinese refers to the national language of the PRC and Taiwan, distinct from the Southwestern Mandarin dialect of the Upper Myanmar, Kokang and Panthay).

There are substantial Burmese Chinese communities outside of Myanmar, particularly in Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, United States (such as New York City's Henry Street[78]) and Australia.