ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the real and substantial achievements of diaspora Chinese business, on the eve of the crisis. By the mid 1990s it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore or deny the growing economic strength, confidence and transnational interlinkages of Chinese diaspora capitalism. The shifting power balance, between British and Chinese, at the summit of the Hong Kong economy, is documented by Gilbert Wong, who analyses the changing pattern of interlocking directorates among the largest listed public companies and banks between 1976 and 1986. The volume of trade of a region approximating to Yamaguchi’s Chinese Business Sphere grew slowly between 1980 and 1985 and then more than doubled by 1990. Despite the strong presence of foreign multinationals in Singapore, in its regional investments Chinese capital predominated. The inaptness of theories, that stressed either the insuperable smallness and dependency of Chinese capitalism, or else its traditional, backward or ‘ersatz’ nature, was becoming increasingly evident during the 1990s.
