Leveraging Connectivities: Comparative Diaspora Strategies and Evolving Cultural Pluralities in China and Singapore

Abstract

Migrant-sending states are connecting systematically with their emigrants and diasporic descendants through policies known as “diaspora strategies.” Underlying diaspora strategizing are the manifold ways in which states capitalize on past migration and present mobility patterns to advance national developmental agendas. Such agendas are conceived in terms of economic and (soft) political power, respectively referred to as “diaspora-and-development” and “diaspora diplomacy.” This article undertakes a comparative analysis of the diaspora strategies by China and Singapore to ask critical questions about, first, the connectivities between migrant-sending states. Doing so elicits the multidirectional migration flows that connect nation-states, showing how the diaspora outreach of one affects the other. Second, the article examines the (multi)cultural logics that underpin diaspora strategizing and its possible impacts on domestic agendas. Such an approach urges researchers to study the race/ethnicity politics that underpin diaspora strategies.

Transnational linkages, power relations and the migration–development nexus: China and its diaspora

“…To tap abundant resources in the diaspora, countries of origin have developed systematic strategies in two key directions. One focuses on 'diasporacentred development' in countries of origin, and the other on promoting 'diaspora diplomacy' internationally or specifically in destination countries (Ho, 2020). Diasporic organisations and communities, once considered marginal in the migration-development process, increasingly have valuable influence on economic development and the formation of transnational identity.…”

Democratizing, Stretching, Entangling, Transversing: Four Moves for Reshaping Migration Categories

“…This is, of course, not a global phenomena or all-encompassing. For instance, China sees migration not only as conflict but also as a way of building links, and of cementing diasporic relations with their own extended diasporas (Ho 2020). Many countries also encourage student migration (Gao and Wit 2017;Gu and Qiu 2017).…”

Dual‐facing bridges and brokers: Diaspora politics and Chinese voluntary associations

“…Singapore is known as a country with a Chinese majority population but the government promotes multiculturalism (known in local parlance known as multiracialism) which is enshrined in the Constitution and implemented through policies ranging from housing to education (Chua, 2003). At the same time, Singapore has long leveraged its ethnic and linguistic affinity with China to strengthen bilateral economic and political relations (Liu, 2011; Ho, 2020). Successive cohorts of Chinese migrants have converged on its shores, starting from the ‘pioneer’ immigrants of the late 18th and 19th centuries to the current inflows of ‘new Chinese immigrants’ ( xinyimin ) arriving under Singapore's managed migration approach.…”