I read with interest Phar Kim Peng's Overseas Chinese: How powerful are they? in Asia Times Online.

It is ironical that a "Chinese diaspora of 60 million people extending from San Francisco to Singapore — with an estimated wealth of more than US$1.5 trillion and constituting what could arguably be called the third-largest economy in the world after the gross national products (GNPs) of the United States and Japan" — cannot translate its economic clout to political power. It remains politically marginalised, and even persecuted world over.

The writer asked whether the "commonwealth" of overseas Chinese could be used to "capture the state", which is a wrong question if "state" means the host countries and the word "capture" means to exercise political influence commensurate with economic prowess.

However if "state" means another sovereign territory, the answer is 'yes' — if, from this diaspora, there emerges leaders of vision who can unite this disparate group of wealth and talent. Apart from their common ancestral heritage, they probably share among themselves little else in common within the polity of one "country".

I take it that "to capture a state" here must be taken to mean to "buy a state" given their immense wealth.

There must be some countries which are willing to "sell" and secede territories for which they have no use, for a large sum of money. Overseas Chinese can set up home in such a state much like the way the Jews have done so in present-day Israel.

Even China has so much territory that is barely populated, for example the North West, that it could secede as an autonomous region for this cause.

This would have to be a special administrative region left to run on its own, pretty much like Hong Kong.

This is because Overseas Chinese are capitalistic and will not fit into the socialist framework of the Republic of China. Yet the country's burgeoning economy can benefit from the immense wealth and talent congregated in such an autonomous region within her borders.

If the overseas Chinese could survive and thrive on a rock of an island like Singapore, they probably could do so in any other less hospitable place set up for their "return" especially if host countries do not appreciate their stay and mistreat them.