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One Face, Many Masks: The Chinese in Singapore

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Identity and Ethnic Relations in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Singapore is sociologically interesting in the study of Chinese ethnic identity as, of all the Southeast Asian countries with Diasporic Chinese; it is unique in having a Chinese majority. Seventy six percent of the Singaporean population is Chinese. However, this majority is tempered by the fact that Singapore is a multi-ethnic society, with 15% Malays, 7% Indians, and 2% Eurasian and others. Moreover, Singapore is a small nation state1 situated in a geopolitical region where the majority of the neighbors are Malays or Indonesians.2

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Correspondence to Chee Kiong Tong .

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Tong, C.K. (2011). One Face, Many Masks: The Chinese in Singapore. In: Identity and Ethnic Relations in Southeast Asia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8909-0_3

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