Resistance And Compromise: The Influence Of Malaysia Ethnic Chinese Community On The Policy Setting Of Mother Language Education Among Ethnic Chinese

"Language and culture are the soul of the ethnic group". While the essence of an ethnic culture can be absorbed and developed only through the mother tongue. Mother language education is the main ways of a minority to maintain and heritage ethnic culture, retaining features to distinguish "otherness", which is the struggling force of every ethnic group.Since majority overseas Chinese have migrated other countries through traveling overseas, they have attached importance to their children's education and made unremitting efforts for fighting culture and education rights of the ethnic group. Southeast Asia as the main gathering place of overseas Chinese has become the most-developed area of overseas Chinese education. Before Southeast Asian countries shaked off colonial rule, overseas Chinese education has been well developed. But after post-colonial and in the process of the construction of nation-state, it's fate has fundamentally changed, one after another declining, some even been uprooted. Why has Chinese education in Malaysia been able to maintain a sound momentum of development and form a perfect Chinese education system in comparison with other Southeast Asian countries? Of course, the Chinese community's own effort is very important, but the government relatively relaxed institution environment creating the conditions for it, which is the key factor of Chinese education. Now, how this institution environment has been constructed? And how the Chinese community to make the game with the government?The study attempts to give an answer, which selects the Chinese community force subjects including Chinese political parties, Chinese pressure groups and Chinese newspapers as the main variables and analyses systematically the influences of the key variables on the Chinese education policy setting in different historical periods. At the same time, international system, Sino-Malaysian bilateral relationship and the factor of communist party of Malaya also affect the government cognition to Chinese education, which to a certain extent affect it Chinese education policy setting. Through systematic analysis, the study found that resistance and compromise inform the game process of the Chinese community and the government. The pressure groups headed by DongJiaoZong are always in the forefront of the resistance, while the ruling parties headed by MCA sometimes fight, sometimes to compromise, which depend on temporal political situation and its leadership. Under the Chinese community's strong opposition and political needs (such as election, the changes in interational sitution), the government attitude can relax from time to time and make amendments to the relevant policies. In couclusion, the formulation of Malaysian Chinese education policy is the result of Malaysia related to internal and external fighting and compromise. Although the struggle of Chinese community is the major factor, the influence of international factors should not be ignored.