The Philippine Center of the International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, will launch “The Chinese Juggernaut,” the newest book of the Australian journalist Uli Schmetzer, on Feb. 23, 5 p.m., at the Solidaridad Bookshop, Padre Faura Street, Ermita, Manila.

Subtitled “How the Chinese Conquered Southeast Asia,”  the book tells the stories of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia and Australia.

Despite persecutions, legal restrictions, expropriations and periodic pogroms the Chinese migrants persevered in Asia with the same determination that has made them the most active, successful but also feared new settlers and investors around the world today.

The history of how each Southeast Asian country became economically and sometimes politically dominated by a small Chinese minority provides a fascinating insight into the Chinese mindset.

In each country the book pegs the diaspora’s history to a personality: Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand, communist guerrilla leader Chin Peng in Malaysia, the kidnap ordeal of the Dichaves family in the Philippines, retail tycoon Taam Sze-Pui who came to Australia as gold miner and Anne, an anonymous rape victim during Indonesia’s last anti-Chinese riots.

The launch is open to the public.