How do Han Chinese Immigrants Own 80% of East Asian Stocks?

In this video, we delve into the fascinating phenomenon of Chinese economic dominance in Southeast Asia and beyond. Malcolm and Simone discuss why Chinese communities, often compared to Jews in their financial prowess, control significant portions of local economies in countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam despite being small minorities. The video explores historical, cultural, and socio-economic factors behind this trend, including the influence of Confucian values, the impact of historical migrations, and the concept of 'Guangxi' or trust-based networks. The discussion also contrasts the Chinese experience with that of Jews, examining different cultural traits and survival strategies. Join us as we navigate through data, historical anecdotes, and personal insights to understand what drives the remarkable success of Chinese communities across the globe.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing the Jews of Asia, the Chinese. And people might say the Chinese are the Jews of Asia. Look, it's something that people have said. But also, isn't it a

Simone Collins: thing for like, How to make money like a Jew, aren't those popular books in China?

Yeah, Chinese

Malcolm Collins: people, like, in China, there's this whole category of books, like how to make money like a Jew, or how to do finance like a Jew, or how to teach your kids about money like a Jew. There's some

Simone Collins: kind of, like, this, these people get it thing going on.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we're going to be discussing a phenomenon where Chinese people make up the vast majority of income for specific regions through Southeast Asia.

So like outside of China why this phenomenon might be happening and what we might actually be able to learn from Jews about this phenomenon, because it's happening with this vastly different culture in the Chinese, what's causing it and where can we look at people like, oh, it's the middleman. Like, like, merchant phenomenon.

It's not the middleman merchant phenomenon. That's a stupid idea. That's, that's what people stay to try to avoid the offensive takes. I'll put a map on screen here [00:01:00] so people can understand how extreme this phenomenon is. Okay. So, the bottom number on this map is the percent that is Chinese, ethnically Chinese of these economies.

And this is Han Chinese. And then the top percent is the percent of the. Total economy that they control. Oh, no. So, in Myanmar, 3 percent are Chinese, 76 percent of the economy is Chinese. Oh,

Simone Collins: no. Laos,

Malcolm Collins: 1 percent are Chinese, 99 percent of the economy is Chinese.

Simone Collins: Why are we stepping on this hornet's nest? In Vietnam,

Malcolm Collins: this is the hornet's nest.

I am sticking my Thing in with a bat,

Simone Collins: just shaking it around. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: great. And this, this had been all removed from Wikipedia. I had to go to like old version of Wikipedia because they're like, this is too offensive. In Vietnam, 1% are Chinese. They own 41% of the local economy in Thailand, 14% are Chinese.

They own 81% of the local economy. God. And in Malaysia you've got 22 percent Chinese, 63 percent of the local [00:02:00] economy.

Simone Collins: Oh, come on.

Malcolm Collins: In Indonesia it's a little confusing here. I can't tell because they have like one side here and the other side. Well, okay. So in, in Malaysia, it might be like the bright side of Malaysia is like 10 percent Chinese, 24 percent of local economy.

We'll see in Indonesia. Oh, this is Singapore. I'm looking at here. It's the one little thing here in Singapore. It's 76 percent are Han descended. They control 96 percent of the economy in Indonesia. 3 percent are Chinese descended. They control 74 percent of the local economy in the Philippines. It's 3%.

They control 62 percent of the local economy.

Also note here that the level of economic development of these countries seems correlated with the percent of Han Chinese within them, with Singapore being the highest.

This is in this is like calling them. The Jews of Asia is honestly underselling the situation. If Jews control, maybe maybe Jews do control this much of the local economy and they're just better at hiding it.

Simone Collins: I had so many that there's, there's also that.

I mean,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. [00:03:00] So, so if I go into you know, something I had written on this, so over these Chinese entrepreneurs and investors play a very, role in the commerce and industry throughout the economy of Southeast Asia, compromising less than 10 percent of the population of Southeast Asia. Overseas Chinese are estimated to possess foreign exchange, reserving over 100 billion and control two thirds of the retail trade and 80 percent of all publicly listed companies on the stock market across the Southeast Asian region.

10 percent of the population, 80 percent of the stock market through their economic, though their economic prominence is particularly conspicuous among the public companies listed on all major Southeast Asian stock markets, 90%. Oh my God, the small and medium sized South Asian businesses are also overwhelmingly Chinese or overseas Chinese.

They control 70 percent of the region's corporate wealth and 86 percent of the billionaires are of Chinese ancestry.

Simone Collins: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay. So you can see why

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: wanted to dig into

Malcolm Collins: this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. There's, mm [00:04:00] hmm. This is, I, I mean, I, I want to be surprised. I'm not surprised, but also I had no idea. I had no idea.

This is like, I mean, I, if you'd asked me to guess. I would not have thought it was slightly

Malcolm Collins: outsized.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, the other thing to note about these people is most of them immigrated out here, and we'll get to this in a second, hundreds of years ago.

Simone Collins: They are not

Malcolm Collins: recent Chinese immigrants.

They are not doing this off of the CCP. They have a very different culture than recent Chinese immigrants may have that is much more authentic to the original Chinese culture,

Because they didn't undergo the cultural revolution.

Simone Collins: Right. Okay. Oh, wow. So in some ways you could argue because they were, they were part of an intellectual class that if they had stayed in China would have been systematically killed and starved.

That they can't have a leg up. Wow, that's really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Part of the question is, why is China so [00:05:00] dumb? I'm sorry, China's dumb. This is just one of those episodes, isn't it? Has made catastrophically bad decisions over and over and over again. I mean, true,

Simone Collins: true. Honestly, like, I, I, I, I'm super, I was just watching.

More history on what happened during the cultural revolution the level of profound death and suffering like i'm just yeah i'm, sorry, no pity that was I feel that they have

Malcolm Collins: spite themselves somehow had some level of wealth right now, but most of the wealth right now is based on a You can see our episode on what's the future