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Chinese Big Business in the Philippines: Political Leadership and Change. THERESA CHONG CARING. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. viii, 167 pp. $35.00 (paper).
When the Republic of the Philippines became constitutionally independent again in 1946, most ethnic Chinese had not yet become citizens of the country. Today networks of Chinese entrepreneurs crisscross the Philippines. By 1990 Chinese ownership accounted for a third of manufacturing corporations and a fourth of financial institutions among the top thousand in the Philippines. What organizational forms have facilitated interaction by Chinese business leaders with the national government? How effectively has traditional Chinese business leadership in the Philippines responded to changed local and international circumstances? Addressing these questions is Theresa Chong Carino's revised dissertation, Chinese Big Business in the Philippines: Political Leadership and Change. The book is divided into "Acknowledgments" (p. iv), a "Preface" by Leo Suryadinata (pp. v-vii), eight chapters (pp. 1146), three useful appendices (pp. 147-150), and an index (pp. 161-167).
A former officer of the Philippine-China Development Resource Center and the Philippine Chinese Language Center, Dr. Carino has extensively studied the social, political, and business leadership exercised through Fei Hua Shang Lian Zong Hui, or Federation of the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Abbreviated FFCCCI, it was founded in 1954 when "the majority of the Chinese in...