The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. In the mounting fury of world conflicts, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea. The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here, as another public service, is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Overseas Chinese. Behind the scenes in Malaya, in the months before Pearl Harbor, cunning Japanese work to drive a wedge between the Malayans and the Chinese. The greedy Chinese have taken what belongs to you. They planted the poisonous thoughts of distrust. You are poor. The Chinese have come into your country and taken its wealth. The Malayans for generations had watched the Chinese make money while they themselves remained poor. There are two and one quarter million Chinese here in Malaya. The Chinese outnumber you in your own country. And in Singapore, 77% of the population is a Chinese. Look what the Chinese have done to you. They own 33% of your tin mines. They own 40% of your rubber plantations. They own most of your rice mills. And for a long time they controlled 80% of your gold and silver and lead and zinc and coal mines. And what do you Malayans have? What have they left for you? Japan is fighting the Chinese for the liberation of Asia. You Malayans need have no fear of us. Your enemy is within your gate. The Chinese. The Japanese propagandists did in Malaya. They did in the Netherlands Indies. There are a million and a quarter Chinese in your country. And they control all its business and wealth. In Thailand. You have more than a million Chinese in your country. They have a monopoly on your food and all your resources. In Burma. What are you going to do about 190,000 Chinese in your country? They control your trade and even your food. The Japanese spoke with the conviction of numbers. Real numbers. Accurate numbers. They used them with deadly effect. For on the eve of the outbreak of the war in the Pacific there were 6 million overseas Chinese. 6 million Chinese living in countries and islands adjacent to China. And wherever they were, they were leaders in business, trade, commerce. Look at Lee Foo Yen there. He is one of the wealthiest men here in Singapore. He owns interest in the pineapple factories here. In the saw mills, in the mines and even in the rice mills. He and all the others like him have taken what belongs to you Malayans. Lee Foo Yen is a financier. One of the wealthiest men in Singapore. 80 years ago his grandfather came to Malaya in a junk. His grandfather was a laborer. You see the junk is crowded with other laborers like Lee Ho Moa. The wind slaps the bamboo sails against the mast. The Chinese tug at the oars as the unwieldy craft plows through the sea. See, there is the land over there. This is Lee Foo Yen's grandfather, the laborer. Sometimes we can see the coast and sometimes it is lost in the mist. Yes Lee. If we had money we could sail in one of those big junks with the great mast. Then we would not have to sail close to the shore. We are lucky to sail in this little junk along the shore. Someday I shall sail in one of those big junks. Lee and Chang sit on the high folks of the Ba Bing junk, waiting for their turn to row. The wind carries the spray like a race over them. Yes, in Malaya I shall earn enough money to own one of those big junks. And then I shall walk on the decks and I shall feel good inside. He speaks of the great junks that venture far out across the sea. The junks that are 400 feet long and have a beam of nearly 200 feet and have crews of 300 sailors. Yes, someday I shall have a junk like that. I shall earn the money in Malaya. I have dreamed of going to Malaya since I was a boy. My father wanted to go too, but it was forbidden to leave China when he was young. Yes, it was the same as dealing with rebels and enemies. And the punishment was death by beheading. My father wanted to leave, but he could not get a license. Only the high ones could get a license. And even they had to promise to come back to China. Some slipped out without a license. Yes, but they never could come back. Soon it will be our turn to row again, Lee. Aye, welcome. Every pull of the oar takes us closer to the new land. And I am strong. Lee Hong Wah came to Malaya as a laborer. He came as millions of other Chinese came to Malaya, to Indonesia and Thailand and Burma and into China, and to all the other lands of the Far East and the islands of the Pacific. At the end of the 19th century, the ban against leaving China was lifted, and still more filtered out. They adapted themselves to the cold of the Arctic, the swathering heat of the tropics, and everywhere they set the pace in enterprise. In Malaya, the Chinese immigrants went into the mines. They went into the rice fields, into the saw mill, the pineapple plantations, the rubber plantations. Lee Hong Wah worked as a miner. His son gained an interest in the mines. The British have been slow to invest in the mines of Malaya. This land is rich in ores, tin, gold, silver, lead, zinc, iron, and coal. The Chinese saw this more clearly than the Malayans, more clearly than the British. Do you realize that the Chinese control 80% of the mining interests of Malaya? 80%? Yes, and all the labor in the tin mines is Chinese. The Chinese are taking over the entire mining industry. They will unless we do something about it, and it's our own fault. British capital could have controlled the mines. The Chinese were here in Malaya long before we were, or before any white men were, for that matter. But we have stood by complacently while they have developed the mining resources and all the other resources. We must remember that they have made the commerce in the industry of Malaya what it is today. Unless we propose to let them control it, we shall have to take steps of some kind to control them. By the end of the 19th century, the Chinese were scattered in the millions around the Pacific. While Lee Hong Wah's grandson, Lee Poh Yen, was becoming the financier of wide holdings in Singapore, and in the Malayan country behind it, other Chinese were gaining interest in other lands. In the Netherlands Indies... The Chinese own most of the rice mills in the Indies. That's important in a rice-eating country like this. Yes, we Dutch are not so concerned with this as the Indonesians. What of the other food projects here? Well, the Chinese cultivate sugar and run some sugar centrals. But they have a much more important hold on the rubber and tin and petroleum industries. Most of the big industries. Yes. Now look at this. This is a piece of batik. Hmm. Beautiful piece of work. Typically Javanese. Yes. It has all the art and the skill of the true Javanese in it. And it is made by the Javanese. But the factories in which it is made are run by the Chinese. Who owns them? The Chinese. They hire the Javanese to make batiks like this, and they sell them. There's enterprise for you. How many Chinese are there in the Netherlands Indies? About 1,250,000. One million and a quarter. Do the Chinese mix with the Indonesians? Oh, yes. But the Chinese have organized their own schools so that their children can get a Chinese education. Are the Chinese children admitted to the regular schools? Yes, they are. But there are almost six times as many Chinese schools for Chinese children only as there are other schools. The Chinese here in the Indies have taken great sides. In the Netherlands Indies, as in the other countries and islands of the Pacific, the Chinese had a greater leaning toward business than toward government. Very few of us Chinese are in the civil service. But you Chinese are represented in the government, aren't you? Yes. We have more representation than the Chinese have in the government in Malaya. Dutch subjects? Born in the Netherlands Indies are Dutch subjects as long as they stay here. If I should go to China, I would become a Chinese subject. As the Chinese migrated to the Netherlands Indies, they migrated down into Thailand. Today there are more than a million Chinese in Thailand. Some of my ancestors were Chinese. This is a Chinese noble. Centuries ago, many Chinese kings married Chinese princesses. Our blood is intermixed. The Chinese came down from the north. They brought their energetic brains and blood to the tropical people of Siam, now Thailand. And here, as in the other countries, the Chinese interested themselves in business. The Chinese control between 80 and 90 percent of our rice mills. This is a native Thailander. The Chinese produce and distribute nearly all of the rubber and tin in our country. And they have control of the production of pepper. Through work and enterprise, the Chinese have in Thailand emerged as strong commercial leaders, financiers, industrialists. And here as elsewhere, they have little part in the government. We Chinese are not permitted to engage in politics. This is a Chinese in Thailand. We are not permitted to hold any office except clerk or interpreter. But you have other civil rights, don't you? Yes. We are permitted to own and rent property. We are permitted to live where we please and work where we please and travel where we please. What about your children? Are they admitted to Thai schools? Yes. They go to the regular Thai schools. As long as you have no part in the government, do you have anyone looking out for your welfare? Each provincial center has a Chinese Chamber of Commerce. And this serves to look out for the interests of us Chinese. The Chinese came to Burma. The Chinese have virtual control of the trade, commerce, and the industries of Burma. They came to Indochina. Through Chinese control, the retail trade and the rice trade of Indochina. They are skilled merchants and traders and professional men. They came to the Philippines. They own 75% of the rice mills and dominate nearly half of the timber industry of the Philippines. In the face of the growing commercial power of the overseas Chinese, measures were taken against them. Back in Malaya, Lee Foyen, the financier, and the great numbers of other Chinese found themselves on the defensive. You British are discriminating against us Chinese. You refer to the new immigration laws? That is only one thing. You are decentralizing the government and giving the major powers of the Chinese a chance to take over. And giving the Malay sultans more power in order to make it more difficult for us Chinese to operate. This is in the interest of Malaya. We have not forgotten that you set up government rice mills and money lenders as steps against us in 1920. But this did not succeed. We have been informed that the teachers you brought into Malaya from China are teaching not only the Mandarin language, but are also spreading the doctrine of the Guomindong. The Guomindong has never interfered in the affairs of the Malaya government. We are concerned about the future. You must remember that the Chinese cannot belong to the civil service and that all the important positions in the government are in the hands of you British. But the business has been in the hands of you Chinese. We are no problem to the government or the people. We look after our own social welfare. We have built our own hospitals and schools and clinics. And you also have your own newspapers and your Chinese consulate and your Chinese chamber of commerce to look out for your interests. It is the policy of the government of Malaya. While this was going on in Malaya, the same thing was going on in Thailand. Measures were taken against Chinese operations of all kinds. I am a Chinese taxi driver. The new law says that in order to be a taxi driver you must be a Siamese. This will shut me out of a job. Steps were taken against the Chinese in the rice trade. We Siamese are the producers of the rice and the Chinese have been the middlemen. In order to eliminate these middlemen, we have organized the Siam Rice Company. And hereafter we will... Steps were taken against the Chinese moneylenders. We Siamese have always had to borrow from Chinese moneylenders. With our new government cooperative credit societies, we will no longer be dependent upon the Chinese. And this will mean... Steps were taken against the Chinese exporters. We Siamese have made arrangements to load cargoes of rice directly into ocean-going vessels at Bangkok. This will replace the Chinese markets of Hong Kong and Singapore and Penang. Steps were taken against the Chinese exporters of salt. All five of the leading salt exporting companies of Thailand are owned by Chinese. Under the new salt act, the salt will be controlled by us Siamese. And the Chinese salt exporting companies will have to go out of business. The Chinese immediately became aware of the movement against them. The Siamese are crippling our business activities. Yes, they are even trying to drive out our fishing industry. It is unfair. We have worked hard and sacrificed for all we have gained. Yes, but we can make no appeal, for we have no diplomatic representation in the government. We have never mistreated the Siamese. Perhaps the Siamese are afraid of us. The Siamese have nothing to fear of us. We have always been reasonable and fair with them. We have helped them build their country both with our money and our blood. And yet they have never permitted us to vote or to hold an office of consequence. We Chinese wish only to work and live a peaceful life. It is only our proper duty... Next door to Thailand in French Indochina, similar steps were being taken against the Chinese. This anti-Chinese movement was of long standing in Indochina. In 1919, the Annamites boycotted the Chinese. Later the French lent money to the Indochinese to lessen the Chinese influence. And in Burma... Yes, the large European trading companies handle and export most of the rice from Burma. But the Chinese have controlled a major share of the collecting and the milling of the rice. And that is where some of the abusers have come in. What sort of abusers? Well, some Chinese local agents loaned money to the poor Burmans who grew the rice. Later they forced the Burman rice growers to sell their rice to them, below the market price. Hmm, the rice growers never had a chance. Not very much of a chance. They kept the poor rice growers in debt to them for years. That partly explains the rice monopoly of the Chinese. Partly, yes. They kept monopoly on the rice trade by not permitting dealers of other nationalities to trade in their rice exchanges. So you see in this way... On their part, the Chinese position in Burma was somewhat different. On their part, they said... We Chinese have more right in Burma than the British. Burma was once a vassal province of the Chinese Empire. It paid tribute to China. Our people flowed in and out of Burma for centuries. In some parts of Burma, Chinese is still the official language. In this is the germ of the fear that some Burmans feel. The Chinese in Burma are well organized. They have their own societies and schools and clubs and newspapers. These hold the Chinese together and make them strong. Perhaps someday they may try to include Burma in a greater China. Wherever the Chinese migrated in the lands and islands outside their homeland, they worked up to controlling positions. And wherever they settled, they ultimately were confronted with the opposition of the people. Sometimes the opposition boomerang. We have taken these steps not against you Chinese, but rather in favor of us Filipinos. But in effect, this new national rice and corn corporation that you Filipinos have organized is against us. We are buying rice from Filipinos at a higher price than you Chinese dealers are paying. Yes, that's true. If you pay higher prices than we pay, we cannot compete with you. It is the only basis on which we Filipinos can compete with you. The national rice and corn corporation of the Philippines bought up the rice from the Filipino growers. But soon they ran into a crisis. They did not have the facilities for the selling of the rice. We shall have to sell the rice we bought from our Filipino growers to the Chinese after all. At last in 1940, the selling of rice was nationalized. This was a serious blow to the Chinese. Other blows also fell upon them. As of this date, only citizens of the Philippines and citizens of the United States will be permitted to engage in any form of business in the public market of Manila. Most of the business stalls in the public market of Manila were owned and operated by the Chinese. You are depriving us Chinese of our livelihood. What can we do? Where can we go? Everywhere the situation was the same. The Chinese who had been welcomed as immigrants and who had energetically built up the industry and commerce of the Pacific, now were opposed by those whose country they had helped to develop. In Singapore, the European capital in the Far East has depended upon the industry and energy of us Chinese. This is Lee Foyen, the financier. My grandfather came here to Malaya from China in a junk. He worked in the mines. He slaved, but he looked ahead. He made his way by his own effort. What Lee's grandfather did, numberless other Chinese did. My people went into nearly all lines except the government. Their activity in the government was discouraged, if not prohibited, in most places. My people sailed in merchant men under all flags as seamen and engine room sailors. They did the menial jobs before they earned the right to better places. They ran the retail shops. They made the goods sold in those shops, the shoes, the tools, the furniture. By their thrift and work and energy, they rose in trade and in commerce and in the profession. In Singapore, the Chinese became the very backbone of everyday life. They were the grocers, the vegetable merchants, the clerks, the helpers. Without them, the wheels would stop. Without them, everyday life would be in chaos. You have to respect them for their business ability. Yes, and for their honesty. That's right. If they tell you they'll do something, they'll do it. They keep their promises. The difficulty is they're running everything. Not only that. There are six million of them scattered throughout these parts. That's enough almost to take over. After the Japanese attacked China, but before Pearl Harbor, the attitude toward the Chinese became realistic. Yes. The Chinese are fainting with their becks to the world. They are fighting magnificently. But as for us in Indochina, up to this time, we have had more reason to fear the Chinese than the Japanese. The Chinese are strongly entrenched in Indochina. They control much of our business, and they have their own newspapers and clubs and chambers of commerce. Of course, only six million of China's 450 million people are outside of China. But that is a number so considerable as to be a danger to other peoples. Particularly, as is sometimes the case, the overseas Chinese support the Guomindang government at home. In Burma and Malaya, the great numbers of Chinese constitute a potential danger to these countries themselves. China is fighting for its life today. But if China, with its 450 million people, should emerge from the war as a powerful military nation, then the six million overseas Chinese would be a dangerous threat. This is the thinking of some of the peoples of the Far East. But to this, Li Po-Yan has a powerful answer. We six million overseas Chinese are actually a bulwark against the Japanese in the Far East. We Chinese are everywhere, yes, and everywhere we are standing against conquest by the Japanese. This must be regarded as an important factor in assessing the value of we overseas Chinese to the lands of our adoption. When Li Honghua left China more than 80 years ago, he had a vision. Someday I shall sail in one of those big jumps. In Malaya, I shall earn enough money to own one. I shall walk on the decks and I shall feel good inside. Yes, someday I shall have a junk like that. I shall earn the money in Malaya. Like Li Honghua, the great mass of other Chinese emigrated from China for a thousand years and more. Before Li Honghua, they migrated. Some went northward and westward in carts over the ancient road. Like immigrants from other countries, they moved over the long, long roads, slowly, laboriously, to seek their fortunes in other lands. They went to seek opportunity for a better living. I took my family and my people northward into the cold of Siberia, and here we have worked all of our lives. I came here to Audemars-Mongolia when I was a young man. My people have helped build up this great country. My ancestors came here to Turkestan centuries ago. As far back as any of my family knows, we have always been here in Turkestan. When first I came here to Sumatra, I worked in the fields. Now my son can have a better life and his children after him. Five hundred years ago, my people came here to Borneo. They worked in the mines and they raised and exported pepper. Before Columbus landed in America, the Chinese brought civilization to the untamed jungles of Borneo. They came in great junks, bringing the products of China to trade. They brought us and we're jars with them. These jars are still the medium of exchange deep in the interior. And over the trade routes came many more Chinese. Foreman, foreman, stop operations. I have a government announcement to make your Chinese workers. Hoi, hoi! Stop work, all of you! Come here! Hoi! Stop work, come here! Hoi! Stop work! Stop work! All of you! All of you, stand up here! Hoi, hoi! Quiet now! By the order of the Dutch government, all of you Chinese will gather together your personal belongings and prepare to leave Borneo. Ships will carry you away from the island. Why? Why does the Dutch government send us away? Yes, we Chinese were here before you Dutch. You Chinese are a disturbing factor in Borneo. In addition, you have formed secret societies that have used these to advance your own interests. It is the order of the government that all of you Chinese... The Chinese were expelled, but they came again. Today there are many Chinese in Borneo. Yes, when the war broke out in the Pacific, the Chinese were in control of a good part of the mining. And in other sections, they were farmers and fishermen. What about business? As everywhere else, they owned most of the business. In jungle outposts, as well as in heavily populated centers, the overseas Chinese rose to positions of control. As the war in the Pacific has prosecuted, the problem of the overseas Chinese is a matter of concern to far-seeing people everywhere. It must be recognized that the overseas Chinese have become an integral part of many of the lands of the Pacific. And that they have had a large part in the building up the development of these countries. One of the sources of trouble is the strong tie of many of these overseas Chinese with China itself. Yes, many of them have sent money to China to support Chinese politics. And they have formed their own clubs and societies. But in many cases, this has been because they were not taken in as part of the countries of their adoption. You mean by that, that as a group, they are a part? Politically and socially, yes. We must remember that a good deal of Chinese blood has been absorbed by the native peoples through marriage. The Chinese government has tried to get equality of treatment for Chinese and foreign countries. But that is a difficult thing to get when at the same time, the overseas Chinese are urged to engage in industries beneficial to China. What sort of industries do you refer to? Rubber, gasoline, iron, materials of the kind that are essential in the building up of China. Well, it is a small wonder that the Japanese have been able to impress many that they are really liberating them from the economic control of the Chinese. There's been some talk of repatriation of the overseas Chinese. Well, that would be an enormous job. Now, it would seem to me that the overseas Chinese should stay where they are. But that measure should be taken to solve some of their problems. For example, the problem of citizenship. Their citizenship should certainly be clarified. And perhaps laws should be enacted prohibiting the overseas Chinese from sending home large sums of money. This would remove two of the causes of friction and would be an important step in actually making the overseas Chinese a part of the country they have adopted. Well, we must not lose sight of the fact that the overseas Chinese helped build the business structure of many of these lands. That they have rights too, yes. And that must get full consideration in any movement toward the solution of this tremendous problem. You have been listening to the Pacific Story presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent station as a public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. A reprint of this Pacific Story program is available at the cost of ten cents. Send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and directed by Arnold Markowitz. Original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Palousevelo. Your narrator, Gaine Whitman. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
