The Laotian Chinese (, ) are Laotian citizens of the Han Chinese ancestry. They constitute one of the many Overseas Chinese residing in Southeast Asia. At present, they constitute an estimated 1 to 2 percent of the Laotian population. The Laotian Chinese community have a disproportionately large presence in the Laotian business sector and dominate the Laotian economy today.
Identity Many modern Laotian Chinese have reinvented themselves to assert a more traditional Chinese identity to more easily create economic links to conduct business between Laos and mainland China.
Language
Many Laotian Chinese families have their children learn Chinese to reaffirm their Chinese identity as Mandarin has been increasingly the primary language of business for Overseas Chinese business communities. The rise of China's global economic prominence has prompted many Laotian Chinese business families to see Mandarin as a beneficial asset to partake economic links to conduct business between Laos and mainland China.
Migration history Most Laotian Chinese are descendants of older generations who moved down from the Southern China provinces from the 19th century and present. Most have ancestry from the provinces of Guangdong, Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Guizhou. Laotian Chinese mostly speak Teochew, Hakka and Cantonese but some also speak Southwestern Mandarin from the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou as well as Sichuan. Today in Laos, many ethnic Chinese migrants have decided to reside in Laos, making the population rise by a couple of thousands. Many ethnic Chinese were also involved in constructing the 2009 Southeast Asian Games venues held in Vientiane. During the 1970s and 1980s, after the Communist Pathet Lao came into power, some Laotian Chinese fled to Thailand and other countries. The U.S. also has a significant Laotian Chinese population. Many still practice certain Chinese traditions and customs as their ancestors did. Most of the ethnic Chinese in Laos fled the country during the Communist takeover in 1975.
Trade and industry
Like much of Southeast Asia, the Chinese dominate Laotian commerce at every level of society. The Laotian Chinese wield tremendous economic clout over their indigenous Laotian majority counterparts and play a significant role in the country's commercial sector. According to a 2015 presentation by Professor Choi Ho Rim, the contemporary Laotian Chinese are estimated to effectively control approximately 99 percent of the nation's entire economy. Throughout the topography of Laotian commercial life, where the participation of the indigenous Lao within the nation's commercial private sector is virtually non-existent, the 1 to 2 percent enterprising Laotian Chinese minority more or less comprise 100 percent of the country's entire business community while opportunistically profiting with great alacrity from every grudging inch of globalization-induced market opening.
Many Laotian entrepreneurs and investors of Chinese ancestry play a leading role in the Laotian economy specializing in diverse business areas and industry sectors such as shipping, textiles, mining, casinos, bars, nightclubs, banking, construction, airlines, real estate, tobacco, fashion, health clubs and fitness studios, medicinal healing clinics, cannabis and pharmaceutical drug dispensaries, bakeries, catering and patisseries, laundromats and dry cleaners, ice cream parlours, cinemas and movie theatres, car washes, cafes, hotels, lodging houses, department stores, supermarkets, grocers, corner shops, gas stations, spas, commercial printers and photo shops, garden centres and nurseries, tour operators, hotels, cement mixing, restaurants, cafés, teahouses, vehicular dealerships, electrical appliances, heat, ventilating, and air conditioning services, machinery, metal fabricators, retailers, and repair shops. Expatriate Chinese investors from abroad have made inroads by percolating their involvement in various Laotian commercial activity sectors such as food, consumer durables, electronics, automobiles, hospitality, retail, education, consulting, machinery, health care, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, industrial manufacturing, and construction. Since the early 2000s, expatriate Chinese investors have opened hotels, shopping malls, casinos, and restaurants across the country. In the city of Luang Prabang, the largest hotel and the city's lone shopping mall are both owned by Laotian investors of Chinese ancestry. In Vientiane alone, amongst the thousands of prospering Chinese-owned businesses found across the city's commercial business landscape, the enterprising Chinese minority controls a vast disproportionate percentage of the city's restaurants, cinemas, hotels, repair shops, and jewellery stores. Chinese real estate investors are also the city's dominant power players in the local property market as are numerous Chinese construction companies and real estate developers who operate as the city's top dogs in managing, investing, and running some of Vientiane's largest commercial property development projects such as the Sanjiang International Shopping Centre, Vientiane Centre, and Latsavong Square. The Northern section of Kaysone Phomvihane Road is home to numerous Chinese retailers and houses the Chinese-built National Convention Center. ASEM Villa and Don Chan Palace, two of the largest and most prestigious five-star hotels in Vientiane are well known establishments recognized for accommodating expatriate Chinese businessmen. This precedent is eclipsed by the apparent economic influence presided by the presence of numerous Chinese state-owned enterprises operating around the country, two of which happen to be China Railway Group and PowerChina, where both companies are collaborating on numerous infrastructure projects throughout Laos. Since 2021, following the establishment of a US$6 billion high-speed railway linking Laos and China, has resulted in a significant increase of expatriate Chinese merchants entering the Laotian market armed with significant financial capital and expertise. The arrival of such enterprising Chinese merchants following the construction of the railway in the region has enabled them to broaden their business ventures into the hospitality, retail, and food service sectors, while also initiating establishments such as guesthouses, grocery stores, and restaurants, businesses that were traditionally controlled by local Lao merchants. Throughout the flourishing economic hub of Vientiane, businesses owned by Chinese nationals have experienced significant growth, overshadowing at the detriment of Lao-owned businesses, which have inevitably led to their decline and displacement as expatriate Chinese merchants continue to establish and expand their commercial presence throughout the city. The influx of Chinese traders has not only intensified commercial rivalries and increased market saturation, but also the heightened competition spurred on by the enterprising nature of the Chinese have pushed numerous Lao merchants to sell their products in markets located outside the city, while markets within the city limits are dominated by Chinese merchants. Some Lao merchants have observed that Chinese counterparts tend to conduct business among themselves, primarily operating within an insular community by forming an exclusive group based on ethnic ties while retaining their profits within a closed enclave. A number of expatriate Chinese merchants, traders, dealers, investors, as well as prostitutes have also settled down in Golden Boten City. Golden Boten City which initially housed a large casino that has since been abandoned, has experienced an upsurge in large-scale construction of hotels and other commercial properties.
Chinese economic dominance of Laos dates back centuries to the medieval Southeast Asian caravan trade that involved the integration of the medieval Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang into medieval Southeast Asia's regional trade network stemming from its establishment in 1354. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Lan Xang gained its economic efflorescence as a result of the prosperity engendered by the Southeast Asian caravan trade. Expatriate Hui caravan merchants and traders acted as intermediaries between the Laotian highland and lowland as their commercial activities of supplying and collecting from the Laotian highland energized the Kingdom's economy alongside the various Southeast Asian trade routes in addition to reaping the economic prosperity presided by the Chinese which acted as a major tax revenue stream for the Lan Xang monarchy. Numerous goods were traded on the Lanxang and international market ranging from medicinal plants, resins, benzoin, timber, and ivory. In the 19th century precipated by Qing rebellions, political upheavals, and dynastic conflicts sent waves of Han Chinese into Central and Southern Laos. Many of the Han immigrants whom eventually settled down in Vietiane, Pakse, Savannakhet, and Thakhek traced their ancestry to the Southern Chinese provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan. Starting off their humble migrant beginnings as coolies for the French Colonial Empire in Laos, the Chinese soon began to flourish and eventually dominated the Laotian economy based on the Confucian paradigm of networking. In order to secure and protect their economic interests, the Chinese banded together along ethnic lines to what the French colonialists denoted as congrégations (huiguan 会馆 or bang 帮). The French colonial economic structure that was utilized as an instrument to extract agricultural produce and the distribution of rudimentary consumer durable goods was nonetheless heavily dependent on the massive labyrinth of business networks controlled by the Chinese middlemen. Laotian entrepreneurs of Chinese ancestry purchased, wholesaled, traded, imported, and exported everything of economic value across the French Indo-Chinese colonies. Dominating the Indo-Chinese trade, the Chinese began to act as compradors for French colonial trading cooperatives as economic preponderance prompted Laotian businessmen of Chinese ancestry to act as financial intermediaries and operating as agents for the French as well as their own. Even more indicative of Chinese economic prowess was their control of the massive system of financial services networks across French Indo-China. Despite their small numbers at the time of French colonialism, the enterprising Chinese dominated the Laotian economy to the point where they controlled all the major industry sectors in the country including banking, industrial manufacturing, and commercial trade. One of the earliest modern forms of Laotian Chinese commodities trading was the purchase of indigenous Lao products from the Laotian countryside, which were then in turn, wholesaled to Laotian Chinese merchants and exporters in the urban areas of Laos. In the constituent domain of international finance and trade within Laos, the Chinese occupy a significant position, with much of the Laotian Chinese commercial activities having been extensively pervasive, as they control 75 percent of Lao's foreign trade in addition to presiding much of the Overseas Chinese investment capital, largely concentrated in 3 of the 4 major Laotian banks. In heavy industry, the Chinese dominate the Laotian industrial manufacturing sector, with dozens of Chinese-owned Laotian industrial manufacturing establishments involved in the production of plastics, monosodium glutamate, textiles, laundry detergent powder, nails, sheet metal, matches, ice, and beverages in addition to the Chinese possessing 70 percent of Laos's aggregate sawmill production capabilities.