The tail wagging the dog

The three richest men in the Philippines, Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, and John Gokongwei have what might seem to be an unusual similarity. They were all born in the same city and the same province - Xiamen, in China's Fujian province. Filipino Chinese have been spectacularly successful, having founded most of the largest and most profitable Philippine corporations. Airlines, banking, and especially retail are dominated by Chinese. Almost all Filipino Chinese come from Fujian province and originally spoke Hokkien. The larger population of Filipinos muddles along, awed and envious of Chinese business prowess, and not particularly knowledgeable about where the Chinese came from or why they're so successful.

In the rest of South East Asia, the same story repeats itself. After 1945, Chinese minorities throughout the region began to monopolize, and eventually dominate the economies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Overseas Chinese in Asia's city states, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau, turned them into truly global cities, centers for trade and finance in the world's largest market. 

The movers and shakers in this economic boom were a handful of ethnic Chinese minorities from just two provinces, Guangdong and Fujian on China's southeastern coast. These southern, coastal Chinese are very different from the Mandarin-speaking Chinese in northern China. If North China produced emperors, scholars, and soldiers, South China has been more apt to produce sailors, merchants, and pirates. Among Chinese, a stereotype of people from Guangdong and Fujian is that they are obsessed with money. When these peoples emigrated to the South East Asian archipelago, that trait earned them the nickname, "the Jews of Asia."

The barriers to understanding this diaspora of entrepreneurial Southern Chinese are many. There are many variations on their names and the names of places they came from. Guangzhou used to be known as Canton to westerners, with "Cantonese" still referring to the language of a city that's no longer called Canton. Xiamen in Fujian used to be Amoy, and dialects from Fujian are known as Hokkien, Fookien, or Fujianese. This confusion over names is common to all of China, but is particularly applicable to South China's port cities. The names of the people themselves are doubly confusing. Lee Kuan Yew was the Prime Minister of Singapore and Li Ka-Shing is the richest man in Hong Kong (the two are not related). In the Philippines, overseas Chinese had their surnames translated and they often took Western first names, for example "Jose Marie Chan", a famous Filipino-Chinese singer. In Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, Chinese were forced to change their names, with a particularly severe repression of Chinese in Indonesia.

Despite their small numbers and the hostility of the majorities around them, overseas Chinese became the richest and most successful segment of society across South East Asia. While Asian nationalists spoke out against Western oppressors, the real violence and brutality was more often meted out against Chinese. In all three Southeast Asian archipelago nations, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, anti-Chinese sentiment is universal.

Western observers, whether as colonial administrators, military men, or investors, have long observed this peculiarly Southeast Asian dynamic - Chinese minorities worked harder and more diligently than the native, usually Malay population, earning the lasting envy and hatred of the majority. There are two striking features of the situation regarding overseas Chinese in Asia. The first is how rarely their dominance is referred to in media or government. Part of this is intentional, as overseas Chinese tend to keep a low profile in order not to attract undue attention. Second is how tiny these populations are relative to both other Southeast Asian peoples and Chinese in general.

Speakers of the Min languages, a broad category of Southern Chinese dialects including Cantonese, Hokkien, Fujianese, and Teochew, number in the tens of millions. While tens of millions of people are quite many by most standards, in China these numbers are trivial. Yet in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the overseas Chinese are exclusively from these groups. It's hard to emphasize just how small this world is compared to the larger Mandarin speaking North. Li Ka-Shing, the aforementioned richest man in Hong Kong, comes from a Teochew speaking region in Guangdong province. Roughly 10 million people speak Teochew - yet it is spoken throughout South East Asia and often by the rich and influential. By comparison, Mandarin has about 960 million native speakers, roughly two thirds of China's billion and a half people. In China Hokkien is a tiny and insignificant regional language limited to just the southern part of Fujian province. Overseas, it is mighty, spoken by wealthy Chinese in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. Perhaps the greatest example of the small, interconnected world of Southern China might be the first phase of Chinese emigration to the US. Until 1965, the vast majority of Chinese in America from just one county, Taishan, in Guangdong province. The Chinese who helped build the Transcontinental railroad, set up the first Chinatowns on the West Coast, and created chop suey were all Taishanese. The same can be said for the most recent wave of Chinese immigration in the late 1980's. During that period, Chinese emigration to the US was dominated by Fujianese speakers from around the city of Fuzhou, in the northern part of Fujian (Hokkien speakers come from Xiamen, in the southern half of the province).

In the face of ferocious prejudice, the overseas Chinese clambered their way to the top of the economic and political orders of whole nations. Certainly not all managed to be billionaires of heads of state, but in general, they occupy a position much above the average Filipino, Malaysian, or Indonesian. The habits needed to achieve this success are far from attractive - ruthlessness and ethnocentrism are almost a necessity. Political patrons or protectors are also patiently cultivated, usually with gifts or bribes. These traits are always accompanied by relentless effort and hard work. Families remain large and clannish, with the ownership of land and businesses jealously guarded as they are passed down from generation to generation. These qualities, ugly as they might be to a modern or egalitarian point of view, have allowed the overseas Chinese to thrive despite being hated and outnumbered. Their success reveals several hard truths about the differences between peoples and the qualities truly needed to succeed. 

"Frauenquote"

Germany has recently passed a law mandating that 30% of executive positions in German companies be filled by women. The "Frauenquote" as it's called, has an incredibly long and detailed article on German wikipedia, yet astonishingly, no English translation.

On the other hand, according to a study by Grant Thornton International, a US based consulting firm, the percentages for women in senior management by country were as follows:

Russia - 40%
France - 33%
India - 15%
Germany -14%
Japan - 8%

Unintentional diversity

The usual treatment of Russia in the media is of a xenophobic backwater with opinions about race and gender close to the Nazis. Occasionally the American media will focus on the many national minorities within the Russian Federation. The most recent example was the collective head scratching over Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Since the Tsarnaev brothers spoke Russian and Tamerlan had gone to Russia before the Boston marathon bombing, it wasn't a stretch to report them as immigrants from Southern Russia. Russian immigrants in America were quick to point out that the two were not Russian, but rather, ethnic Chechens. Regardless, Russia's ethnic makeup is a very complex subject that rarely receives any treatment beyond Russia itself.

What's surprising about the American or European media's non-interest in Russia's minorities is how, for lack of a better word, diverse Russia's top leadership is. The Minister of Defense is Sergei Shoigu who is half-Tuva from his father. The Tuvans are a Siberian people in Russia's Far East who resemble and are related to Mongols and Manchurians. An American equivalent would be if Sarah Palin had been half Alaskan Inuit. The head of the Russian Central Bank is Elvira Nabiullina, a Volga Tatar from the Republic of Bashkortostan. It's fascinating how the names of these places alone conjure up Borat-like images of fake Central Asian countries. But they are real, and people from them hold some of the highest offices in Russia.

In sports, it's remarkable how many "Russian" athletes aren't full blooded ethnic Russians. Adelina Sotnikova, who won a gold medal in figure skating at the Sochi Olympics, is part Chuvash, a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to the Volga region. Aliya Mustafina, a gymnast who won four medals at the London Olympics, like Elvira Nabiullina, is a Volga Tatar. Ruslan Provodnikov, an up and coming welterweight boxer, is half Russian and Mansi, an extraordinarily remote Siberian ethnic group from the Urals.

To one familiar with Russian history, little of this would be new. Catherine the Great was originally a German princess, Stalin was a Georgian, and even Lenin was partly Tatar. The most successful rock group in the Soviet Union was headed by a Korean, Viktor Tsoi - "Tsoi" being the Russian transliteration of the Korean "Cho". In fact, part of the criticism aimed at Russia by its Central European neighbors is that it's too "Asiatic" and insufficiently European. The Nazis, and sometimes some modern European politicians, were especially keen on demonizing Russia as an oriental despotism that had more in common with Genghis Khan than civilized Europe.

Since diversity and multiculturalism is celebrated in the United States, "Russian" diversity poses an interesting counterpoint. Russia has no affirmative action and Russians remain strongly ethnocentric and traditional. Yet the facts remain - women and minorities, and better yet, female minorities, have reached the highest positions in Russia without any assistance. Shoigu received no preference because of his ancestry, if anything, it was more likely to count against him. Of course, because of the sheer obscurity of many of these groups, Americans or Europeans would be little interested in Russian "diversity". And because they are Turkic, Siberian, or generally Asian minorities, that too would also be of little interest in an American diversity head count.

This is not to suggest Russia is secretly a multicultural paradise. As always in a multi-ethnic federation, some groups have influence out of proportion to their size and others are disadvantaged. In general, Tatars do particularly well. To add one more Tatar to those listed, Rashid Narguliev headed the Interior Ministry during Putin and Medvedev's presidencies. Indigenous Siberians, specifically Tuvans, Yakuts, Mansi, Komi, and others, tend to be treated equally in Russian society. On the other hand, the far larger Central Asian peoples, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Turkmens, are looked down on and seen in the same light as Mexicans and Central Americans in the US. The most disliked are Caucasus peoples, Chechens, Dagestanis, Ossetians, and others. An exception to the rule with Caucasians are Armenians, who, like Tatars, have reached the highest levels of the government and the military. Anastas Mikoyan was a Soviet politician of extraordinary influence and longevity, along with Marshal of the Soviet Union Hohvannes Bagramyan. Today, an ethnic Armenian, Margarita Simonyan, heads Russia Today, the "propaganda bullhorn" of the Russian state according to John Kerry.

Perhaps the disinterest in Russia's diversity is due to the corruption of the word's meaning in Europe and America. In the West, diversity is the promotion of favored groups at the expense of others with overtly political motives. The Soviet Union, to a lesser degree, promoted a similar kind of diversity that emphasized how all fifteen of its republics and hundreds of ethnic minorities lived together in harmony. Ironically, the Soviet Union's leadership was much more closed to minorities than the modern Russian Federation. Russia makes none of the same pretensions to diversity or openness of the modern west. Yet perhaps because of that, minorities in Russia thrive more easily in an environment that doesn't seek to use them as political props.

Introduction

Who was Cato? And what was he doing in Utica?

Cato the Younger was a Roman politician, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Cicero. He was renowned for his integrity and unwavering loyalty to the old virtues of Republican Rome. After his faction in Caesar's civil war was defeated, he committed suicide in the North African city of Utica.

In life, Cato was defeated on the battlefield and in politics. Old Rome and all that he stood for was swept away. Yet centuries after his death, his example continued to inspire. Cato held fast to the values of old Rome all his life in the midst of the worst corruption and decay. These virtues were more general than specific, guidelines rather than directions. Some of them were the prototypes of the civic virtues virtually all nations aspire to today - integrity in office, not taking bribes, not pandering to the public, and putting personal ambition aside for the good of the nation. Others concerned tradition and one's place in society. In his personal life, he also pursued virtue, living simply without unnecessary wealth or luxury. He was also a Stoic, trained to accept loss and tragedy with as little emotion as possible. And of course, he was human, never fully living up to the ideals of old Rome or the iron logic of Stoicism. Yet he did not give in to despair, even if he was facing some of the most famous names in history. Even his suicide defied Caesar, who said "Cato, I grudge you your death, as you would have grudged me the preservation of your life."

Cato lived his ideals, even if sometimes he fell short. His life has inspired Christian theologians, medieval poets, and American revolutionaries. Even George Washington held Cato in higher regard than Caesar. The conflicts that Cato dedicated his life to have long become irrelevant. It was ultimately his character, and not his politics, in particular his integrity and resilience, that inspired so many. We live in a time that Cato would recognize much like his own. The world is changing, and many would have us believe that these changes are inevitable. To those of us who are against this, there's a strong temptation to simply retreat and concede defeat. But even if the march of progress is inevitable, we can still do as Cato - to stay true to what we hold dear, even if the world leaves us behind. This blog will explore what it's like to be on the wrong side of history.