Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality by Aihwa Ong

Author:Aihwa Ong [Ong, Aihwa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2012-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

The Global Arrival of Asian Professionals

The struggle of elite Chinese subjects for global visibility can also be traced on two other fronts: their emergence as a new class of professionals in transnational corporations and their new prestige as world-class corporate movers and shakers. In these economic spheres, normativity is not merely generated through the profusion of certain images but also depends on the “realizing” of certain rules that target, shape, or regulate conduct in practice.43 Such practical normativities in corporate behavior are the effects of the globalization of the service and capital markets. Thus, a new category of Western-educated ethnic-Chinese professional has emerged in the service of American, European, and Japanese corporations operating within the Asia Pacific region. The Wall Street Journal notes that “for the multinationals, the ethnic Chinese are invaluable as intermediaries who can guide them through Asia’s sometimes treacherous business landscape and help build bridges to new markets—especially mainland China.”44 These corporate professionals embody the normative ideals of flexibility in an informational age—in the sense of being both technically adaptable to a variety of forms, functions, skills, and situations and culturally adaptable to a variety of countries in Asia and in the West.45 American companies in Asia consider ethnic-Chinese employees as “the kind of smart, flexible work force extolled by [former] U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.”46 An American executive based in Penang, Malaysia, a major site of electronic manufacturing in Asia, says this about ethnic Chinese: “In some ways, they’re more like Americans in that they live to work.”47 A local manager of Motorola claims that with ethnic-Chinese employees, “we are perfectly positioned to penetrate low-wage areas elsewhere in Asia, and especially China.”48 He is, of course, not just talking about their technical skills but referring to their multicultural knowledges that make them so “American” to Western companies and yet culturally attuned to practices in different Asian countries.

Penang is the world’s largest producer of disk drives for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Seagate Technology, Quantum Corp., and Kamag USA. It is also a center for training Asian white-collar workers for Western companies operating in the region. As high-tech firms replace Western professionals with local ones, ethnic Chinese occupy all managing-director positions not taken by the dwindling expatriate staff, and they also fill many other top positions. Besides representing a savings cost for American companies, these professionals can be easily routed to any site in the Asia Pacific region and still operate at a level required by their American companies. While training is not limited to ethnic-Chinese professionals, the latter have come to represent the regional class that embodies the professional practices and standards required by Western companies operating in the Asia Pacific region.

A Chinese employee of the Hewlett-Packard subsidiary in Penang was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal for inventing an electronic device that won him companywide fame: “Thirtysomething and single, he lives a life similar to those of many American professionals: He works long hours, dresses casually, and relaxes by jogging and scuba diving.”49 At the

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