ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1980s intra-regional trade and investment links in East and Southeast Asia have expanded rapidly with the shift of production by firms from Japan and new industrial countries to lower-cost, neighboring countries. Various new economic sub-regions such as Greater Guangdong (Guangdong, Fujian, Hong Kong, Taiwan), Greater Shanghai or the southern Growth Triangle involving the Riau Islands of Indonesia, the Malaysian state of Johor and Singapore, have emerged, capitalizing on regional economic complementarities. Another growth triangle is under construction, at least as a blueprint, the Northern Growth Triangle, linking southern Thailand with four Malaysian states (e.g. Penang, center for light industries and electronics, as the hub) and northern Sumatra in Indonesia. The ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia are actively involved in these massive transformation and integration processes (Berger and Hsiao 1988; Hamilton 1991; Menkhoff 1993; Chan and Chiang 1994; Buchholt and Menkhoff 1996; Weidenbaum and Hughes 1996; Haley et al. 1998; Chan 2000).
