Apart from fear of radicalism, it is easy to understand Nanyang businessmen’s distrust of Chinese bureaucrats (whether party or government) whose behavior barely distinguished them from the Qing officials from whom so many emigrant merchants had been glad to escape. As Huang Naishang had written, the Nanyang Chinese business class had profited by being out from under the control of the “greedy officials and harsh flunkies” of the homeland.
