Excellencies

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

1. The 7^th Day of the Lunar New Year is an auspicious day to launch the HuayiNet project.

3 These organisations are involved in the collection, preservation, interpretation and sharing of information on the Chinese living in various parts of the world outside China, including those in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

4 Together, they hold a large amount of published and unpublished material on the Chinese diaspora. The combined collection is one of the world’s most comprehensive on the subject. For example, the primary material on Singapore in the possession of the National Archives, our clan, civic and cultural associations, the trade guilds and individuals is most valuable to scholars and researchers who are interested in the story of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.

5 The main objective of the HuayiNet project is to promote wider cooperation among such institutions and individuals in Singapore and abroad, and provide easy international access to the information available. HuayiNet should become an important port of call for scholars, teachers, students and journalists. The project is also a model of cooperation among our libraries, research centres and community organisations. We hope others would be encouraged to join in.

6 Although the Chinese overseas are relatively small in numbers compared to the Chinese living in China, they have made significant contributions to Chinese civilisation and its heritage. Like other diaspora communities, the Chinese diaspora forms an important transnational, community network particularly in the post-Cold War era. Diaspora and transnational community studies have increasingly become an important branch of intellectual inquiry. Research centres and journals devoted to such topics have mushroomed in different parts of the world.

7 In Singapore, many initiatives have been launched in recent years to deepen awareness and understanding of our Chinese heritage. The National Library Board revamped its Chinese Library Services in 1997. We are now linked to major libraries in Asia, Europe and North America and exchange material with them. The National Library, the NUS Chinese library and the NTU library have been steadily building up their collection of material on China and the Chinese diaspora. In 1991, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry initiated the first World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention in Singapore. It is now held once every 2 years. After Singapore, the Convention met in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Vancouver and Melbourne. The Convention Secretariat which is located in Singapore has a World Chinese Business Network hosted on Singapore Press Holdings’ Asia1.com. Another Singapore contribution to research and public education on the Chinese overseas is the establishment of the Chinese Heritage Centre in 1995 under the auspices of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations. It published an encyclopedia in Chinese and English on the Chinese overseas in October 1998. A number of Singapore-based business groups have positioned themselves for the growing Chinese language markets of Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and other Pacific Rim countries. Zaobao.com, for example, is one of the most highly regarded Chinese websites for news in the world.

8 Small though we are in Singapore, we can play a role in the development of Chinese culture and its evolving civilisation. We are a major centre for the Chinese overseas who are culturally linked to China but politically separate from it. The story of the Chinese overseas is an important story. Take China’s transformation today. Without the part played by the Chinese overseas, China’s policy of reform and opening up would have been much more difficult to carry out.

9 However, we must make a clear political distinction between Overseas Chinese and the Chinese overseas. Unlike the Chinese in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Chinese overseas have different political destinies. Their story cannot be told in the same way as the Chinese dynastic histories which understandably view all Chinese history from a mainland point of view.

10 Once we separate political loyalty from cultural affiliation, it becomes easier for us in Singapore to celebrate and build upon our cultural links to all of Southeast Asia, to China, to India and to the West. So many cultural threads are woven into the beautiful intricate fabric that is multi-racial Singapore of which the Chinese thread is but one. Cultural diversity is at the heart of Singapore society. Cultural diversity, like biological diversity, is important for the long-term survival of the human race.

11 I congratulate members of the HuayiNet Project Committee and its Adviser, Professor Wang Gungwu, for their wonderful work. On behalf of all of us, I would also like to thank Yayasan Lee (Lee Foundation in Malaysia) for its generous financial support of the project. May the Year of the Golden Dragon usher in an era of greater cross-cultural understanding in the world.