Still an Outsider? A Preliminary Study on the Political Culture of Ethnic Chinese in Myanmar

Abstract

The ethnic Chinese in Myanmar used to be strongly averse to political engagement, while some third-generation Burmese of Chinese descent had run for the 2015 general election, which indicated that the time-honored political culture embraced by ethnic Chinese in Myanmar seems to be evolving instead of remaining invariable. Nonetheless, what their political culture has truly become is well deserving of thorough analysis. The connotations of political culture are twofold: people’s attitudes towards the hierarchical structure of the government, and people’s attitudes towards their own political actions. Treating these two aspects of political culture as points of departure and employing various methods including field research and in-depth interviews, this article seeks to address the key question as to whether the political culture of ethnic Chinese in Myanmar is actually evolving.