ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Political Participation
This article is part of the Research TopicPolitical Dynamics of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia: Participation and PolicyView all 3 articles
Malaysian Chinese and Their Influence on China-Malaysia Relations: A Contemporary Perspective
Provisionally accepted
- 1Centre for International Studies (CEI-ISCTE) of ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
- 2Centro Cientifico e Cultural de Macau, Lisbon, Portugal
- 3ISCTE-Instituto Universitario de Lisboa Centro de Estudos Internacionais, Lisbon, Portugal
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Malaysian Chinese have been an essential part of Malaysian society for centuries, playing a key economic role and being an active party in Malaysian politics. Throughout most of their existence, these groups have also managed to stay connected with China through the bamboo network, a string of connections that China has sought to revitalise in the last decades. This paper explores the impact of Malaysia-Chinese on China-Malaysia relations, demonstrating how these groups have profoundly shaped these relations. The study revolves around three essential factors governing the Malaysian Chinese and their interactions within this framework. First, we explore the internal dynamics of the relationship between Malaysian Chinese groups and their host societies, notably driven by ethnic tensions and economic development. Second, we analyse China's initiatives towards connecting with Malaysian Chinese groups, evaluating their scope and motivations. Third, we scrutinise contemporary Sino-Malaysian relations and key interaction points that Malaysian Chinese groups have highly impacted. This analysis contributes to a generally understudied relationship between Chinese ethnicity and foreign policy in Southeast Asia, whose impact has deeply marked the state's strategies and foreign policies.
Keywords: China, Malaysia, Malaysian Chinese, foreign policy, bamboo network
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Borges and Costa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Diogo Borges, djjbs@iscte-iul.pt
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