Why are Chinese workers so unpopular in Southeast Asia?

For decades Chinese migrants have sought refuge from upheavals at home by building new lives and businesses across Southeast Asia

But as a new breed of overseas worker from an ascendant China ruffles feathers, a fresh backlash threatens to derail their immigrant dreams

Reading Time:9 minutes

Manila’s Chinatown in Binondo district. Photo: Phila Siu

Published: 10:30am, 1 Jun 2019Updated: 8:49am, 19 Dec 2019

When Michael Xu arrived in Manila 22 years ago to pursue his “Philippine dream”, he was just another Chinese teenager fresh out of high school with little idea of what lay ahead. Making his way from the airport to his flat for the first time, Xu was surprised to see slum after slum. The youngster was left with the impression that the Philippines was even more backward and poverty stricken than the China he recalled from the 1980s.

Xu, then 17 years old, had made the journey from his native Fujian province to help his family set up a small business. The coming years would give him a front-row seat on the local Chinese immigrant experience, as workers and entrepreneurs from the Middle Kingdom streamed into the Philippines in search of opportunity. Some opened shops and restaurants. Others became the labour that powered those businesses.

But he and other Chinese who have spent many years in Manila say the influx has become particularly acute in recent years. More Filipinos have been openly complaining about the upwards pressure on property prices and inflation. The surge has been made worse by scores of foreign workers recruited by online casinos based in the Philippines to cater to their biggest customer group – the Chinese.

Xu says he and his immigrant friends all believe Filipinos are generally friendly and the Chinese in the country rarely ever feel like outcasts.

But last month he had the shock of his life when he walked out of a restaurant in Manila’s Chinatown, in Binondo district, and saw five Filipinos on motorbikes all pointing guns at him and two friends.

“I didn’t know if they wanted to kidnap me or rob me,” Xu, now 39, says. “My friend was forced to the ground and one of the robbers was pointing a gun to his head. They took my stuff and left. We started yelling but they fired a shot in the air and warned us not to follow. I was scared.”

Why are Chinese workers so unpopular in Southeast Asia?

For decades Chinese migrants have sought refuge from upheavals at home by building new lives and businesses across Southeast Asia But as a new breed of overseas worker from an ascendant China ruffles feathers, a fresh backlash threatens to derail their immigrant dreams

For decades Chinese migrants have sought refuge from upheavals at home by building new lives and businesses across Southeast Asia

But as a new breed of overseas worker from an ascendant China ruffles feathers, a fresh backlash threatens to derail their immigrant dreams