Bamboo network
| 竹网 | |
|---|---|
| Countries and territories | Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam |
| Languages and language families | Chinese, English, Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Khmer, Laotian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese and many others |
| Major cities | Bandar Seri Begawan Bangkok Ho Chi Minh City Jakarta Kuala Lumpur Mandalay Manila Phnom Penh Singapore Vientiane |
The bamboo network (simplified Chinese: 竹网; traditional Chinese: 竹網; pinyin: zhú wǎng) or the Chinese Commonwealth (simplified Chinese: 中文联邦; traditional Chinese: 中文聯邦; pinyin: Zhōngwén liánbāng) is used to conceptualize the links between businesses run by overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (in a narrower sense with the Min Chinese speaking community). It links the overseas Chinese business community of Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos and Cambodia with the economies of Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). Overseas Chinese companies in Southeast Asia are usually managed as family businesses in a centralized bureaucratic manner. In an article in The New York Review of Books, Indian critic Pankaj Mishra called it the "largest economic force in Asia outside of Japan".