Unpacking ‘Malaysia’ and ‘Malaysian citizenship’: perspectives of Malaysian-Chinese skilled diasporas

This chapter identifies policy implications to inform Malaysia’s diaspora strategies by focusing on the perspectives of members of the Malaysian-Chinese1 skilled diaspora (i.e. tertiary-educated emigrants). Malaysian-Chinese emigrants have been described as ‘the second wave diaspora’2 (Cartier, 2003: 92) in reference to their ‘forced’ emigration which has been prompted by affirmative action policies privileging the Bumiputera (‘sons of soil’) Malaysian-Malays. These policies prioritise Bumiputeras3 in access to education, government scholarships, civil service jobs, property ownership and business licenses. As a result, there has been significant emigration of non-Bumiputeras including the Malaysian-Chinese and Malaysian-Indians (Sidhu, 2006) to Singapore and countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2010, for example, the Malaysian-Chinese made up 87.8 per cent of persons born in Malaysia who were resident in Singapore (DOSS, 2010).