Beijing's campaign to co-opt Chinese diaspora gains urgency amid pressures

China stepping up its outreach efforts to help promote its narrative, influence policies and advance its power

- Tan Dawn Wei

 

As China sees an increasingly hostile alliance of countries bent on containing it, the East Asian giant appears to have intensified its outreach to overseas Chinese to help promote its narrative, influence policies and advance its power.

Three years of Covid-19 isolation had in part crimped its ability to carry out such work, but efforts resumed apace as it emerged from its tough pandemic measures in early 2023.

Singapore delegations were invited to visit China at the beginning of last year, even before visa applications resumed, as The Straits Times had reported.

In March 2023, it invited a naturalised Singaporean businessman active in the local grassroots community to attend annual meetings of its top political advisory body during its parliamentary session.

It was here, in Beijing, that Mr Philip Chan Man Ping, 59, a Hong Kong-born real estate investor, implored ethnic Chinese around the world to band together to “tell the China story well”.

The Singapore authorities have now signalled that they intend to use a new anti-foreign interference law against Mr Chan by designating him a “politically significant person” because his activities were “directed towards a political end in Singapore”. They did not, however, link him to any particular country.

But his public comments and activities suggest that he is using his influence and network to propagate favourable views toward China that have veered into the political realm.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, a United Nations agency, there are an estimated 60 million people of Chinese origin overseas. As China seeks to expand its global influence and secure its interests amid increasing pushback from the United States and other countries, co-opting the Chinese diaspora has gained urgency.