The Social Integration and Transformation of New Chinese Immigrant Communities and Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs: An Empirical Study and Case Study

Speaker 1 0:04

All right, everyone. So a good afternoon, good evening from the East Coast, and good morning from Asia. And welcome, welcome to the UCLA Asia Pacific Center's global Chinese philanthropy lecture by Dr Xing Jing Hua from Tsinghua University. Dr Xing will be speaking with us today about the social integration and transformation of new Chinese immigrant communities and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs. My name is Jeannie Chen, and I am center administrator at the Asia Pacific Center at UCLA. Next slide, please. So before we start, I would like to say a few words about the UCLA Asia Pacific Center. Our center promotes greater knowledge and understanding of Asia and the Pacific Region on campus and in the community through innovative research, teaching, public programs and international collaborations. We focus on inter Asian and Trans Pacific connections from historical, contemporary and comparative perspectives. We also encourage interdisciplinary work on cross border and super national issues, on language and culture, politics, economy and society and the sustainability in the ongoing processes of globalization. Our center runs the Taiwan studies program, the program on Central Asia and the global Chinese philanthropy Research and Training program, and we serve as the East Asia National Resource Center, supported by the US Department of Education, title six grant. Our center also administers various fellowships and small grants, including the US Department of Education's title six, foreign language and Area Studies fellowships, Taiwan studies fellowships and research and travel grants and several other awards on East Asian Studies. We're also a partner of the UCLA Pacific world research initiative on Asians in Latin America and Latin Americans in Asia, which we collaborate with UCLA Latin American institute and UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and we are trying to fundraise to rejuvenate our Hong Kong studies program, next slide, the global Chinese philanthropy Research and Training program led by the UCLA Asia Pacific Center and funded by the Cyrus Tang Foundation, integrates networking, building, research and training to bridge intellectual inquiry and professional practice in the field of global Chinese philanthropy. It aims at fostering passion, interest, volunteerism, stimulating innovative research ideas and sharing best practices in GCP. Next slide and our program includes three main components. The first is maintaining and expanding the global Chinese philanthropy Research Network with eight of our institutional partners, as you can see here, and we welcome other institutions in the US, China and other parts of the world to partner with us in promoting and developing the field of global Chinese philanthropy. Let's go back

Speaker 1 3:21

to the other slide. And secondly, we organize a quarterly Public Lecture Series and an international symposium, which is held by annually or every two years. The quarterly Public Lecture Series connects scholars, professionals and students to share scholarly work and best practices to advance global Chinese philanthropy research, exchange research ideas and findings on history methodologies, emerging frameworks and comparative studies of global Chinese philanthropy in early September 2025 we plan To co host our Fourth International Symposium on global Chinese philanthropy, in collaboration with Zhejiang University at their beautiful campus in Hangzhou, China. And thirdly, we organized an annual half day training workshop in the spring quarter, between April and June. This annual training workshop is designed for undergraduate and graduate students in China, the US and around the world through an interactive community based learning model, participants will gain critical knowledge and deepen their interest in giving back in volunteerism, nonprofit work and civic engagement. Participants will also benefit from networking opportunities with leading scholars and professionals in the field, and by the end of the workshops, participants will be better positioned to pursue their passions in philanthropic or Nonprofit Careers. Participants who attend at least two public seminars and our half day workshop and complete all of our assignments receive a certificate of participation. In global Chinese philanthropy training from the UCLA International Institute. I would like to thank the Cyrus Tang Foundation for their generous support, and our center staff, Deputy Director, Aaron Miller, graduate student researchers Lina Wang and Jia Rai sun and our undergraduate program assistant, Joyce Lin for their hard work behind the scenes. We also thank our counterparts at the UCLA Center for Chinese studies for their co sponsorship of today's lecture. Now it's my great pleasure to introduce today's speaker, Dr Xinhua. Professor Xing is a professor fellow and Deputy Director of the academic committee and Secretary General of the Center for Chinese entrepreneur studies at Tsinghua University. More recently, she held an appointment as a visiting scholar at UCLA Asia Pacific Center from July to October this year, Dr xing's research interests include interdisciplinary areas of migration and development, overseas Chinese entrepreneurs, overseas Chinese economics, society, innovation, philanthropy, business and immigration policy. Moreover, she held a role as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Peking University. She is currently a member of the Overseas Chinese History Society of China and Secretary General of overseas Chinese history in the society of Chinese commercial history, as well as an expert at the think tank Beijing returned overseas Chinese Federation. Next slide, and here you can see that Dr Xing has public published papers in several renowned journals. She has published the two monographs the same moon in the sky, the actor network of overseas Chinese and silk. Silken road, the Chinese entrepreneurial network, new migrants and social integration. And I would like now to hand it over to Professor Xing. The floor is yours. Thank you.

Speaker 2 7:08

Okay, thank you. Hello everyone. As a visiting scholar here, and I feel very honored to be invited by the UCLA Asia Pacific Center to share my research. Thank you very much Professor Joe me, yeah, but now the professor told me, visited in Japan, and also thank you the Jenny and all of your group. Okay, so I shall I share my PowerPoint with a moment. Yeah,

Speaker 2 7:45

it can you find? Yes, that looks good. It's okay. Wait. I don't know why. Wait a moment. Okay, wait, I will try again. I again.

Speaker 2 8:14

Okay, so the just now the journey introduced me, and today I would like to share my recent research with you. This topic is the social integration and the transformation of the new Chinese immigrants. Empirical study and the case study. In the past few years, I have published two books. One is the silk and road, the Chinese entrepreneurial network, new migrants and social immigration, which is published by cuttings price. And another book is the same moon in the sky, the actor network of overseas Chinese. This book is about the practice of overseas Chinese in the covid crisis, and how overseas Chinese entrepreneurs transform locally after the crisis, the toolbox includes my empirical studies and the case studies. So therefore Today I will introduce the social integration and transnational adaption in the first part and in the second pattern, I will look at the local transformation of overseas Chinese entrepreneurs after the covid crisis and unstable international situation. Next, my presentation will be divided into the six parts background and the significance. Problem statement, theoretical framework, research methodology, presentation, analysis and interpretation. The final part is finding and conclusions. In fact, the issue of immigrant integration has been focused on of the scholars for a long time. Immigration is also a tough and obvious problems faced by many countries, although the attention is higher and the policies of various countries have been constant, constantly adjusted. Immigration issue has always been haunted by some structural problems as a unique group of consenting countries, systems and cultures. Overseas Chinese are often in complex and multiple situations. As we all know, the migration ties of Western society arose with the process of industrialization and globalization, especially after the Second World War international migration experience to transfer a transnational blow on a large scale. In this context, immigrants, as a special group, are bound to face problems such as employment, education, social integration after entering a new country or society. In other words, immigrants must adapt a new social interaction of modernity in this country, and as the time goes on, eventually become members of the new ecosphere. Since the early 20th century, the integration of the immigrants has entered the research field of the Western academia, relevant research has produced a rich research results. Series of immigrant integration have also undergone a paradigm shift from assimilation to coexistence and then to integration. The study on the relationship between international immigrants and host the country began with the theory of adaption or assimilation, put forward by Chicago School, which argues that the minorities from the third country world, countries need to give up their original culture norms and adapt or be assimilated to the mainstream culture of developed countries as much as possible. The representative of the assimilation is Robert Park, the leader of the Chicago School of American sociology in the 1920s Park developed a theory of assimilation known as the race revolution circle, like Darwinian evolution, the circle has first stages, context, conflict, accommodation and assimilation, which are progressive and irreversible. In the 1964 there was a famous American sociologist, Melton gardens, his book, assimilation in American life, outlying the seven stages of assimilative process.

Speaker 2 13:03

We can see that these mules of assimilation are inseparable from the Western culture, hegemonism and the history of the United States during the World War Two at that time. However, since the 1970s under the trend of globalization, the number of international immigrants who came from the different countries and engaged in different industries has increased rapidly, and the theory of assimilation has been challenged by theory of multicultural coexistence, the coexistence and The dialog between the mainstream culture and the minority minority subculture inevitable. Since the 1990s discussions on social integration have placed the most emphasized on the interaction between international immigrants and the residents, focused on the degree of social integration of individual immigrant immigrants. In addition, the social integration theory pays attention not only to the influence of cultural factors, but also to the role of institutional, economic, psychological and other factors in the recent 20 years, scholars have studied the phenomena of migration and found that the modern transnational migration is not uprooted or never written as before. They use the term transnationalism to describe a new model of migration across geographical, cultural and political boundaries. Professor Zhou min believes that the transnationalism not only satisfies the economic needs of immigrant families between the two places, but also reduce the sense of in adaptability, confusion and constraint. Action discrimination caused by the feeling of individual immigrants to further integrate into the mainstream society of the host country. We can see that since the early post war two, migration study has focused on the economic and cultural exchanges of immigrants. Then it emphasized the political rights of the immigrants in the 1960s later, it discussed the two way social adaption of the globalization since the 1990s as well as the reflection on the immigration policy. Diaspora Studies have experienced complex changes and development. So the next I will introduce my empirical funding of the field research on social integration of new Chinese, overseas Chinese in the Philippines. A few years ago, according to the latest official report, there are currently over 16 million overseas Chinese who distributed almost 200 countries and regions in the world, and more than 14 million of them live in Southeast Asia. You can see that I use the word new immigrants when it comes to a new immigrants, many people wonder why they are new and how to divide the old from the new. So here I briefly talk about the history of overseas Chinese immigration. Chinese migration in the Philippines is generally described into the two types Chinese Jiu jiao means the old overseas Chinese who migrated in the Philippines before the 1970s and the Xinjiang is the new immigrants who migrated in the Philippines after the 1970s the Chinese immigration to Southeast Asia can be traced by the Bing Dynasty, which with the Chinese traders as foreigner foreigner. Later, during the colonial period, millions of Chinese workers were recruited to the southeast coast of China, mostly from the Fujian and the Guangdong provinces in

Speaker 2 17:27

in wick work book V anguo, the Chinese name Guo, he said, When the Spanish arrived in the Philippines, there were already large numbers of Chinese immigrants since the 1970s especially after China launched the reform and opening up policy, the country has witnessed the new waves of overseas Chinese immigration since the 1975 China and the Philippines established the formal diplomatic relationship relations, the number of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines has increased. According to the Bureau of immigration and deportation of the Philippines, the number of foreign migrants to the country grew more than two times in the last 12 years. For China alone, the Chinese migrants to the country rank as a first in number of compelled to the other foreign countries during the last decade, new over 1.6 million overseas Chinese live in the Philippines. This data from the professor from Guo tu and some other scholar Stephen, mainly from the Fujian and Guangdong Province. From this map, we can see that the Overseas Chinese are mainly living in the macro Manila, subun Davao and other big cities, because macro Manila gathered nearly 20 million people in this country. Therefore, Chinatown, wisdom city, Makati and other places in macro Manila Area have the largest Chinese population in the country. Some people ask me why so many Chinese come to the Philippines? I think there are five reasons, including history, geography, business, living, environment and the springboard. Of course, I can't root out, rule out the in illegal gambling industry of Chinese in the Philippines. This is a big problems now. So, but the this is another topic we wish will not be discussed today. So, when the new immigrants can come to the Philippines, they naturally come with a lot of questions. The main objective of the study is to determine the challenges faced in social culture integration by the new Chinese in. Migrants in the Philippines and explore options to improve the situation of migrants for the health group in the sino Philippines relations, especially specifically, the study aims to answer the following seven questions. The first question, what are the demographic profiles of the respondents? And next, how do the respondents assess their level integration with the Filipino community? What are the problems encountered in greeting with the filibuster community? Are there significant differences in the level of integration among the respondents, one group according to the profile, is there a significant relationship between the problems faced by the respondents and their level of integration? Is there a significant relationship between problems and the profiles of the respondents, based on the findings of the study. What kind of policies related to immigration integration could be proposed by improved sino Philippines relations? So in terms of the significance of the research, I think there are three main aspects due to the time limit. I want to go further here.

Speaker 2 21:25

Sociologist Pennington in half University is now is known for his clash of civilization. His views on immigration in the United in the United States are also widely followed. And then defined integration as a process of mutual adaption between the host society and migrants. It not only involves economic and cultural benefits, but also social security and stability, also the one cultural comment commonality promotes cooperation and cohesion among people, which cultural differences caused division and conflict. He pointed out that everyone had had multiple identities, which may conflict with all reinforce each other, kinship, occupational, cultural, institutional, territorial, educational, partisan, ideological and others in qualitative in quantitative research on social integration, Western scholars often use two dimensions, the three dimensions and four dimensions. For example, The Golden Jack towns, etc, have various indicators. In addition, each dimensions has its own integration sub indicators.

Speaker 2 23:02

So the main intention of the study is to measure integration level of Chinese immigrants into the mainstream of Filipino society. This study will be guided by the theory of Huntington, or immigration integration, which includes culture integration, social economic integration and the status integration. Culture integration is an interaction between different groups of people for a variety of cultures. This kind of integration will include people with different customs, language, educational backgrounds, social economic integration is the second dimensions among economics, between the private and public sectors. It includes the wide data contents, such as occupation, family and economy, which can be educated into each private or social and public dimensions. City's integration describes the active engagement of migrants in the civic and political life of hosted countries. It can provide migrants with a sense of belonging and commitment of to the society. It includes power regions and participations. In the context of the study, the researcher attempts to find out the profile of the respondents can explain their existing level of integration, specifically in the aspects of cultural integration, social economic integration and the status integration. Therefore, we will design the questionnaire according to the this framework. For example, for each indicator you see, I have designed five questions at the same time in the questionnaire survey. The questions must be reasonable, not too many try to use. Took one or two pieces of paper, I think so. Double pitches are enough, otherwise the survey effect will be affected. The next step is to choose the responders. That is where the sample size comes from. In this study, we selected Manila, the city with the largest number of overseas Chinese. They distributed, we distributed questionnaires to nearly 100 new immigrants from the Philippines. Our respondents don't include overseas students and retired people. So we started the working age respondents from the 20 years old to 16 years old, with the legal identity in addition, before the questionnaire survey reliability and validity should be there, as well as The Ethnic Considerations such as voluntary practice participation and confidential additive, I think that is very important. Then I describe where I get my data, the location came from, the three places. Based on the questionnaire, I will first know the profiles of the respondents, which are also statistical variable, including the age, gender, civil status, occupational education, foreign status and land of failure. There are three immigration dimensions we mentioned before, cultural integration, social economic integration and the status integration. Okay, so now we will make hypothesis, the hypothesis of the study based on the problems presented about follows. Okay, let's look at the next picture. In the context of the study, the researcher attempts to determine if the profiles of the respondents can be the course or explain the existing level of integration, specifically in the aspects of cultural integration, social economic integration and the status integration, as shown in this Finger. Likewise, the finger also also illustrated that the profiles of the Chinese respondents is related to the problems they countered in the course of their integration with the locals. So we made three hypotheses.

Speaker 2 27:36

Hypothesis, hypothesis one, there is no significant difference on the level of integration among the respondents when grouped according to profile the two, there is no significant relationship between the problems encountered by the respondents and their level of integration. Hypothesis three, there is no significant relationship between problems encountered at the profiles of the respondents.

Speaker 2 28:13

Let's look at the research instrument. This is the more commonly used lactose scale method in sociology. Respondents. Responders will ask to assess their level of integration to the frequency they practice drawing and accept local, social, cultural beliefs and practices by using bio like the scale on the left reading for integrating integration problems on a scale of always, frequency, frequently, occasionally, seldom and narrow from the five to one score and on the right rating for integration challenges, they countered a score of five. Main was very serious. Four is serious. Three is the moderately serious. Two is not CRS. One is not a problem. The level of integration was the script descriptor using the computed with the main weight main SPSS software was used to compute for the main rating. The range of them with main is interpreted as a five like the scale from one to five. For example, if the range of the wheat Ming is from the 4.2 to five score, it can be deduced that the Chinese immigrants always integrate into local cultural practices and beliefs at the same time, new Chinese immigrants encounter the problems and challenges are very serious when the range of the weight main is the same area. The study, this study uses the non parametric test. Significant difference and relationship in view of assumption that is, the data does not observe melody normality, considering the now random sampling method, in particular, a snowball sampling was applied in the selection of its responses. The following non parametric tests were computed use the SPSS software. First is the protocol wallets for testing difference, which is used to compare three or more independent group. Second is Wilcoxon, the two sample test of difference. This for gender. The third is a superior rank order coefficient correlation, a statement of free distribution in which news assumptions are made about the distribution of variables. The Spearman rank order coefficient of correlation was used to determine the degree of relations relationship between problems encountered and the level of integration of respondents and also in problems encountered and the profile of the respondents. This table presents the demographic profiles of the respondents according to the age, gender, civil status, education, occupation, identity and the land of stay, the intention of the new Chinese immigrants in the Philippines, in terms of cultural, social, economic level And the status assessed the results of which were presented in the next tables. This table is written on the culture integration we measure the culture integration level through customs, language education indicators. We choose some problems to ask of the respondents. Finally, as shown on the table, it can be deduced that the Chinese immigrants occasionally immigrate with culture, with local cultural practices and beliefs, particularly in terms of customs, language and education. On the other hand, it is noted that respondents seldom attend language training or read local newspaper and magazine,

Speaker 2 32:27

the same as before, the influence of social economic integration of respondents in the Philippines includes occupation, family and economic integration. For example, the table reveals that is the five indicators for occupation integration of the respondents, four indicators were related occasionally, and there are, there are lack there work here, easily get promoted in the Philippines, certified with the salary and the benefits, and a Few that they easily get promoted from their present job, and one got a rating of frequency, we can see that and was find themselves fitted with their work as for their knowledge skills and abilities. Table for the reviews that the family integration, two of indicators are related seldom, and one is narrow. So when the respondents were asked about their economic integration in the Philippines, their answer varied,

Speaker 2 33:40

the integration level of new Chinese respondents in terms of data integration, which include the power regions and participation, as shown in this table, for the first indicator, power, it is closed the respondents frequently believe that the Chinese and enterprise again, are given high regard in local markets, and a few that the Chinese produced a very products are very popular for daily revised lives of Philippines. In the Philippines, further, they occasionally feel that the local communities accepted the Chinese local status in the Philippines. It's seldom that we can see that the few that they are being cuddled by the Philippines government since they migrated here, and tell them that easy enter easily. They enter the local mainstream of society. In this table, the overall rating of the three score indicators that a main grant respondents occasionally integrated in terms of status. We have talked about. The first part respondents profile, the second part is the level of input. Region based on the culture, social, economic and status into indicators, then we will talk about the third part, which is the problems encountered by the new Chinese immigrants in their social, cultural integration with the Filipino communities. It was noted that the most common problems in rap order were public safety within the Chinese society, followed by awareness of local laws and regulations, and then local political system practices, and the last but not least, in the standard operating procedure in doing business in the Philippines, in the worst mentioning that the immigrant respondents considered employment, education and health, integration in this country is fair, and that is the reason why They considered that these things not be serious problems. The previously, I have made three hypotheses. Now we need to test the significant differences in the level of integration a new Chinese immigrants in the Philippines, when their profile is considered in view of time, I will just share significant differences when they are grouped according to age. Our computed values were much greater than critical value. Critical value is 7.815 of the hypothesis. So the decision is to reject the hypothesis. This shows that there was a significant difference in cultural significant in culture, social, economic and the status integration of the respondents when they were grouped according to their age. The Table further shows that my majority of the Chinese immigrants occasionally integrated with the local community. Well, those elder immigrants frequently mixed with the local people. That means the the elder the elder immigrants, the greeted better than the young group.

Speaker 2 37:24

The slide presence presents the summary of the findings from the result of the Nether size and interpretation of data. The following findings were presented. The first is the profile of the responders. The second is the overall levels of integration of the new Chinese immigrants in the Philippines was moderately level. However, if every indicator of immigrant integration is studied by itself, it will lead to different result. If we take the family as a unit, we will find the respondents and their family never received good local medical treatment or other public services. The overall rating confirmed that the Chinese respondents uncertainly consider their families to be involved in their locality in when their profiles are considered, it is found that the male Chinese immigrants are more likely than female Chinese immigrants to integrate in the local cultural beliefs and practices, as well as the social economic environment, there is significant difference in the social, cultural integration level when the respondents age and educational, educational attainment are considered the immigrant. Respondents considered public safety as a serious problems in their integration process, awareness of local laws and regulations, local political systems and the standard operating procedures in doing business in this conflict were considered moderately serious. On the other hand, the result also shows that there is a significant relationship between the problems encountered and the age and marital situation of the new Chinese immigrants, which is also important For our research. Based on the findings, the following recommendations are forward. Finally, some constructive options are put forward to improve the level of integration of new Chinese immigrants due to the time limit. I won't go further here.

Speaker 2 40:04

Here are some photos from my research. There is a photo with the Filipino famous professor MC. Professor MC is a Filipino, very famous research immigrants. The professor The right side is in the Philippines and Chinese history museum by NC. These photos was about the Overseas Chinese to celebrate the Spring Festival in Filipino Chinese. Pristine foundation. This is the McCarty HOPE School. Of course, there are a specific limitation of the study, considering the small sample size, all the randomness of the sample. So, okay, that's the empirical research so far. Now, else that the case study the desk? Okay, next. So let's move to the case study of localization transformation of overseas Chinese. You know, there have been many disputes, disputes about the approaches of case study and empirical research in academic circle, some people believe that the empirical research in more scientific through data analysis well. Others believe that the case study can provide rich, detailed description which helps researcher to conduct a comprehensive analysis of research, research objects, empirical research answers what, well, case study answers how and why. So the two American representative respective respectivities of the case study so hard and rubbed in. My case study is based on the covid 19 pandemic period. We started in early 2020 at that time, I launched events about overseas Chinese talks and conducted with the Overseas Chinese leaders, Chinese businessmen and new immigrants from the more than 20 different countries. Later, I followed them up and conducted in depth interviews and surveys with them. Today, I will start from the two cases of overseas Chinese businessmen and take a look at the local transformation of overseas Chinese businesses before and after the covid crisis.

Speaker 2 42:53

First, I will introduce the theory. It was a very interesting study to do because it was interdisciplinary. I combined the economic geography with the study on overseas Chinese businessman. Ethnic proximity has been long considered a key factor contributing to the success of overseas Chinese business. Nevertheless, due to the rapidly changing circumstances overseas, Chinese entrepreneurs are presently engaged in a proactive transformation of their businesses, and the influence a mechanism of ethnic proximity is also undergoing change based on the relational economic geography theory, relational economic geography, I named the A Yi Ji, and the evolution economic geography theory, we named the YI Ji. So this research explores the dynamics of relational geographical proximity patterns in Chinese business in responders to changing circumstances. This research study the two cases of overseas Chinese business. One is the traditional Chinese retail company in Italy, and another is online retail company in Silicon Valley of the United States, United States due to the time limit. I can i due to the time limit I cannot explore the theoretical aspects of ethnic geography. Since the 1980s Western economic geography has studied to focus on the change of distance space. From its beginning, I began to have a cultural turn. We can see that began to have a cultural turn, institutional turn, relational term and evolutional turn, as well as in. Aspect of the local lesion on innovation. Since then, non geographical proximity has gradually attracted attention, and the two mainstream schools are regional, relational economic geography, Ieg and evolutionary economic geography. EEG, IG emphasize the importance of relational proximity. EG, represented the by Bosch Ma, who proposed, who proposed that the proximity a cognitive, social, organizational, institutional and other dimensions, may replace the geography proximity thus affecting the innovation and transformation of enterprises. We often see that the kingship, religions, relationships, geographical relationships, etc, strengthen the transformational business occupation, cooperation of overseas Chinese businessmen and real as a postponed knowledge transfer. In this study, we use ethnic proximity to study the changes of overseas Chinese business. Ethnic proximity is the relationship between the members who belong to one ethnic group with the great changes in external environment. In recent years, overseas Chinese businessmen have actively transformed and the original ethnic proximity painting had also changed in the whole study, we use relationship really relational geographic core proximity as a dynamic variable. The research framework combines it and easy from the perspective of relational, economic geographic the interaction between the ethnic relation distance and the geographic core distance. Now what you are looking at here is the relational geographic proximity model. There are four quadrants in this graph where the FCC represents the geography distance of overseas Chinese businessman and ordinator, ordinate represents ethnic, ethnic relational distance. The bottom left, we can see that the bottom left quadrant means that the geography and ethnic city

Speaker 2 47:47

are both closed. Which is, which is one ethnic group living in a certain area and interaction with each other. It represents the traditional ethnic economic model, such as Chinatown, Italy, plateau, etc, the bottom right quadrant represents the ethnic group proximity of non geography. This model refers to overseas Chinese belonging to the same ethnic group, but no living or working together. For example, the transnational Chinese business network in Southeast Asia is a typical, typical case. In the upper right corner is dual alienation, alienation of geography and ethnic city. The upper left corner is geographical proximity of male ethnic group, which means the geographic is closed. The ethnic group is scared.

Speaker 1 48:56

Hello. Dr Xing, we keep some time for questions. So we'll ask everyone to put their question in the Q and A, and in the interest of time, we would love for you to cover, maybe briefly summarize, the two cases that you had prepared, and then go into questions then.

Speaker 2 49:21

Okay, so I continue. I could keep speaking, okay. So with the theory of EEG Bolshevik theoretical a framework of matter, dimension proximity, was used to explore the mechanism of ethnic proximity. I will not expand here. I'm going to jump right to the case study today. I choose the two Chinese business enterprises. One is the traditional retail enterprise air which was founded by the Chinese businessman in Italy. And another is a retail E, commerce, enterprise W, which was founded by overseas Chinese students in Silicon Valley, actually the this, this company is the will, W, E, maybe some people use this, especially in California. So the two cases is respectively represent the traditional retail industry with a strong geographical thickness and emerging e Commerce Industry with a weak geographical thickness. The first case is about Mr. Lee, who immigrated to Italy from the window in 21 year, he opened his first store in 25 year, this feature in the in the upper right corner of the slide is mainly running department stores and closing in the 2011 year, he founded the first supermarket in Milan Italy, which is more than 4000 square meters and named Max factory. Then his business grows stronger and stronger. He already has 20 large scale retail supermarket in Italy and more than 300 employees, including more than 80% Chinese employees. So that means that most of employees are Chinese. Recruitment are mainly through local Chinese and social networks. The main suppliers are also Chinese, forming a typical transformed national Chinese business network among themselves. From the perspective of the relational geographical proximity enterprise air shows a pattern in which geographic and ethnic groups are both proximity with the employers and ethnic group proximity of non geographical geography, with suppliers through ethnic proximity between the local and the transnational scales. Enterprise, air wins the competition in the local Italy, retail industry, with its advantage of low cost and mature channels after the beginning of the covid crisis, due to the high cost of international logistics, the delivery time cannot be guaranteed that Chinese employees had left enterprise air was facing extremely difficult challenges, considering cash flow, logistics chain and labor shortage. In order to respondents to the crisis, enterprise air had made a lot of adjustments. This picture is a detailed record of this process, and I will not expand on here. The key point is that enterprise air has chosen high quality products produced by Italy factories, and it's as mainly suppliers, the geographical proximity has enabled Mr. Lee to establish a more trustful relationship with the local suppliers by interacting face to face at the same time, fixed with a shortage of workers, he chose to pair local on short term labor contracts, first, with his deepening familiarity with the local business environment, enterprise, Ill began to buy a well known local supermarket ranked among the top three. She want to buy the top three local supermarket before, before it's the Italy factory, and because, if the supermarket has been collided in sovereign during the covid crisis, due To the problems, due the problems in cash flow

Speaker 2 54:22

of course, the precision process is also very complicated. For example, the enterprise air was blocked by the Italian union. You know, the Italian union is very power. They asked the enterprise to recruit 75% of current employees of the bankrupt company. We can see that from the PowerPoint to some staff were protesting in front of the supermarket. Italian mainstream media reported this finally, after the mandate negotiation each other at. Press accepted most of original employees. This has led to the transformation from the dual geographical and ethnic proximity and the geographical proximity of male ethnic group for the enterprise employees. So that before is a dual geography and ethnic proximity, but now geographical proximity of now ethnic groups comparing to the situation before the covid crisis of the enterprise employees grew to now the more than 700 employees, people, the stores expanded from the 20 to more 40 the areas of the biggest store multiplies from the 4000 square meters to 8000 square meters, more than half of employers are Italian workers, but now the most of the more than half of employers are Italian workers affects the term labor contracts.

Speaker 1 56:24

It's the top of the hour. So I know we have some questions. Maybe you can also elaborate on the second case study in one of our questions, but we will have maybe five minutes.

Speaker 2 56:37

Okay, so sorry, I prepared a lot. So, okay, so after So, okay, I chose the next, next. The Another case is the enterprise W which was founded by the three graduated Chinese students in Silicon Valley that they represented the new immigrant intellectual class. They founded a new retail enterprise of online, fresh department store, comparing the to the traditional retail industry, enterprise W relies less on geographic proximity, in contrast, the ethnic proximity played an important role in the establishment and development of the enterprise because they replied on the WeChat platform. In the early stage, they established a community group purchase in the local Chinese culture, recruit Chinese staff and conducted supplies based on the cost amount. However, when they found that the original model entered the sales efficiency, they began to shift to the from the B to B to B to C model, like a model, the sales mainly based on the Chinese customs in California. So however, after the covid crisis, online shopping has become a kind of conception habit for people enterprise that will apply the machine learning and artificial intelligent algorithms in various aspects. It gets into the significant increase in sales and multiple rounds of financing, okay, because the time is very limited. But now, when the enterprise W gets neutrals in, lost its logistics and the product categories, it begins to expand to Asia and the Latino Americans markets in the United States and Canada. More than half of its customers use the app with the English interface. Now the company's business has covered 41 states and Washington, DC, as well as Canada, it becomes American, largest online Asia and Latino supermarket. So almost finished through the compassion of the relational geography proximity model, the transnational transformation of the two enterprise enterprises can be clearly seen from the finger before the covid crisis, operation and the development of Italian enterprise, air and American enterprises. W both benefit from the ethnic proximity after the covid crisis, the relational relationship geography, proximity model, shift after afterward, upward shift afterward, the ethnic alienation occurred. The difference is that the ethnic proximity of enterprise air is mainly established between the supplies. And employees, they had shifted to the mode of geographical proximity of no ethnic groups, the ethnic proximity of enterprise w is mainly reflected in the relationship with customs and have the challenge and change changed the dual alienation of geographic and ethnic city due to the time limit. I want to discuss the main dimensions, multi dimensions, approximately by the let me deliver a summary with the findings of the three years research I provides a new perspective for understanding the dynamic changes of ethnic proximity. The combined the application of EEG and Ieg theory helps us to gain a better understanding of changing of overseas Chinese businessmen in terms of their response, respond, response, and helps to further review the reasons and the process for the replacement of the ethnic proximity rose.

Speaker 2 1:01:17

Ethnic relationship is undoubtedly a special resource of overseas Chinese businessman in the specific time and the space space context is, in fact, may be positive, which means that the Chinese businessman will adopt their ethnic proximity, can achieve success, or maybe Nick, or it may be negative, it requires Chinese businessman to tend to the ethnic alienation to achieve the further development. Of course, this study mainly focus on the discussions of the two cases in Europe and America. I believe that in different countries and the different industries, many Chinese businessmen are changing different degrees. Okay, that's all. Thanks for your listening. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:14

yes, thank you. Dr Xing and I know we have several questions for you in the chat,

Speaker 1 1:02:19

but in the interest of time. Since we are a little bit past our hour, I would like to uplift this question about whether you have found that there are any similarities or differences that Hawaii or overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and the US, any similarities or differences between them, the Southeast Asia and US based on your research.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:48

This first question is,

Speaker 1 1:02:52

I've put the question in our chat so you can answer it.

Speaker 2 1:02:58

I find a lot of questions, but I don't know which questions.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:04

Are there any similarities or differences that one,

Speaker 2 1:03:09

so that, for me, you want to ask that between the what is the Hawaii and the Overseas Chinese?

Speaker 1 1:03:18

It meaning that based on the Hawaii in Southeast Asia and Hawaii in the US. Are there similarities or differences between those two communities?

Speaker 2 1:03:30

Oh, Southeast Asia a very different culture, because in America, you know, a lot of not old overseas Chinese. A lot of the new Chinese immigrants in USA, so a lot of students, also is a second generation. So a lot of people like the some, you know, the banana people like, just the face, like the Chinese actually the culture, and a lot of the culture and some some things and habits, also is American habits, so but is in Southeast Asia don't a little different, because the Southeast Asia, some people, like in Malaysia, is a Chinese, is a one Of the three party, the Chinese party. So also language is also Chinese, continued now present. So a lot of people know how to say Chinese and the Chinese culture, because of the geography is a closer in. In China and also communicate is better, and in America, the I think they are mixed, including some culture that is depend on the their education from their families, if the families often talk some Chinese culture and maybe some. And speaker with overseas Chinese immigrants often talk something and all a gap in China. They had been of a gap in China, and maybe, know, a lot of good culture and the China, Chinese situation. But if no, because American, their parents don't talk this, maybe just know, a little like a dumpling, like Dragon, just a little so they're very different.

Speaker 1 1:06:03

Yeah, thank you. And there's one more question, and then we'll close out. But another attendee had a question, thanking you for your informative speech, and they noticed that you are doing some research on overseas Chinese entrepreneurs in Malaysia. So are there differences and or similarities between overseas Chinese entrepreneurs from these two countries? So I think they're indicating Malaysia. And yeah,

Speaker 1 1:06:42

yes. So would you like to share sort of the similarities or differences between the Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs, including the ones in Malaysia,

Speaker 2 1:06:53

Malaysia, the Malaysia actually, I have been a lot of times in the Malaysia. The Malaysia, you know, the because, like in Tsinghua University, the most population international students from the Malaysia. So the Malaysia, the young, young immigrants, the Chinese immigrants very like travel and studying and working in China at a very Chinese culture is very, very popular. And also the Chinese salary is very higher than Malaysia salary. So the if we graduated, and maybe some Malaysia students and found a new job, and also want to study in the China and want to get a new job, but, but you know that is actually they stay in China, but is a little different, although they speak Chinese on the face from the Chinese. But they are foreigners, so the different countries, so they respect their country benefits. So a little different. So some people ask me, How can I stay in China? Better than better? If, if the Malaysia transport the in China, and I think, is immigration and talk and make power different countries, because the Chinese country, Chinese very large, the different culture and different food. So I think often travel the different cities and can find different views, and also the China Chinese and Malaysia. The relationship is very good. So often the these two countries often have some good events and conference, and some people can often attend this and between the two countries and the community communicate each other become better, I think so, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:09:44

Thank you so much. And so our question kind of is, yeah, so we have somebody who added a comment about the major difference of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia are rooted in. In the historical background of colonialism, social, economic context and immigration phases. So thank you so much for that comment from the audience member. And I know we are also running out of time. I was really interested in sort of the last case study that you shared about the W company. Or we do you know they are now that they are, you know, sort of successful and also widely distributed and also expanding into other ethnic communities. Do you know whether the company is involved in any sort of philanthropic activities, or sort of encouraging charity, or sort of charitable giving or volunteerism. Do you know any of that? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:48

You say that the win, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:10:50

So like the company, now that they are sort of becoming more well established, do you feel that they have any involvement in philanthropic activities, sort of charitable giving, volunteer opportunities, things like that, to kind of support and help society based on your

Speaker 2 1:11:10

actually this two cases I in the covid crisis. I researched them, and the wing is the leader is graduated from the Silicon Valley, from the USA. Actually the this company established the company, very complex and difficult. But you know, you know, the Overseas Chinese in America is better than only stated in America because the Chinese, the AI and the data and the information is also developed, so much So some people graduated and like the Taobao bei plan, like the Chinese state, the app so and we chat. They also can use, oh, China Chinese is used very well. And why we cannot transport the America group, America environment, but you know the covid crisis that all of people stayed in the in the US, in the home, and and habit, habit, use this the from the internet also. Now this, this time I went to, I had been to the in the America, also some international staff, international engineer also work in in the home, in home, and, know, just the user computer, and get the job. So this is a new thing. And the fo under the manager, think engineer, think the China is good. So the first she communicate, use WeChat and organize some you know, the Overseas Chinese in USA, a lot of populations, so especially in California. So she organized the user WeChat and asked some people to the first she asked some people to organize these products and the sale, and then she, she like the Chinese Mei or something, we chat, and then new, new made a new app, found a new app, found a New App, and then transfer the goods. But the you know these three connectors, three founders is AI engineer, studied the computer so she know the how to data, the what the people prefer some booths and mathematics. Use this and AI use this. So it's a good better for if I use a wing the next maybe recommend something to me. Also, yes, I bought it twice and the three times. So that is not only a small app. The back of the app is a computer. So the three people is use this and benefit for the American, the Chinese American, because the Chinese American before. Buy foods only Amazon, some goods for all global people if I want to buy the Chinese food, Chinese brand something, and I don't know how to buy so the thing can match this.

Speaker 1 1:15:18

So that's right. So it fulfilled a need in the market that was sort of the gap. Yeah, okay. Well, thank you so much. We have no more questions, but we appreciate you, Dr Xing, for taking the time to share your research with us today. And yeah, we'd like to thank you for attending. We still have a couple events coming up, so you can check out our event page. And this concludes today's lecture. Thank you everyone for coming, and I'll go ahead and drop the next event that we are co sponsoring, along with the Center for Chinese studies. So if you're interested, and in Los Angeles or around the UCLA campus, we have an event coming up with featuring an author, Peter Hessler, on Friday, November 22 at 1pm

Unknown Speaker 1:16:06

in Royce Hall, 314 so yes. Thank you so much everyone. And thank you. Thank you, Danny, yes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai