The Malaysian Chinese community was intricately linked to the Singaporean Chinese community because of a shared history and culture. Singapore was a part of the Federation of Malaysia before it became independent in 1965. Many Singaporean Chinese have relatives in Malaysia and vice-versa. There are also a significant number of Malaysian Chinese residing and working in Singapore. Some families in nearby Johor send their children (around 5,000 of them) to school in Singapore, commuting back and forth between the two countries every day.
On that same note, the Malaysian Chinese are culturally much more distant from the Indonesian Chinese, Filipino Chinese and Thai Chinese. This is attributable to the fact that these countries did not have a shared history with Malaysia like Singapore did.
The entire Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora is characterized by their considerable economic fortunes and their susceptibility to discrimination or political exploitation by politicians. This diaspora is commonly referred to as the Nanyang Chinese, ‘Nanyang’ (??) being the Mandarin term for Southeast Asia.