Factors influencing Chinese cultural identity among new generations of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand: a comparative Study

Introduction: The cultural identity of overseas Chinese populations, particularly new generations born and raised in their host societies, has become an increasingly important topic in globalization research. Previous studies have largely focused on Western immigrant populations, with limited attention to non-Western, non-migrant communities such as new-generation ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. Moreover, prior research has tended to examine language and media factors in isolation. To address these gaps, this study proposes an integrative model examining how Chinese content exposure, large screen preference, visits to China, and Chinese language proficiency shape Chinese cultural identity (CCI) among new generations of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand (SMT). Methods: A self-report questionnaire survey was conducted through an online panel platform, yielding 1,298 valid responses from second-generation or beyond ethnic Chinese across the three countries. One-way ANOVA, hierarchical regression, and mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro with 5,000 bootstrap resamples were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Results: Malaysian new-generation ethnic Chinese exhibited the highest CCI levels, followed by Singapore, with Thailand the lowest. Chinese content exposure and visits to China emerged as the two factors most consistently and positively associated with CCI across all three countries. Chinese language proficiency was significantly associated with CCI only in Malaysia, while large screen preference showed inconsistent associations. Mediation analyses revealed that Chinese content exposure mediated the relationships between visits to China and CCI, and between Chinese language proficiency and CCI, across all three countries. Discussion: These findings underscore the importance of media consumption and direct cultural engagement as key pathways to CCI. The cross-national variations highlight the need for country-specific approaches to understanding diaspora cultural identity. This study contributes to the literature by integrating media and personal factors within a comparative three-country framework, offering a more comprehensive understanding of how CCI is shaped among new-generation overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.