'Overseas Chinese' are people of
Chinese birth or descent who live outside the
Greater China region, which includes
Taiwan,
Hong Kong and
Macau. This includes territories administered by both rival governments; the
People's Republic of China (PRC) and the
Republic of China (ROC). In addition, the ROC had granted residents of Hong Kong and Macau "Overseas Chinese Status" prior to their respective handover to
Beijing rule, so the definition may be said to loosely extend to them. People of partial Chinese ancestry may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese.
The term Overseas Chinese is ambiguous as to whether it can refer to any of the ethnic groups that live in China (the broadly defined ''
Zhonghua minzu'') or whether it refers specifically to the
Han Chinese ethnicity, narrowly defined.
Korean minorities from China who are living in
South Korea today are often included in calculations of overseas Chinese, because these ethnic Koreans also identify themselves as part of the
Chinese nation. In
Southeast Asia and particularly in Malaysia and Singapore, the state classifies the
Peranakan as Chinese despite partial assimilation into
Malay culture.
One study on overseas Chinese defines several criteria for identifying non-Han overseas Chinese: there is evidence of descent from groups living within or originating from China, they still retain their culture, self-identify with Chinese culture or acknowledge Chinese origin, and are not indigenous to their current land. Under this definition, minority overseas Chinese number about 7 million, or about 8.4% of the total overseas population.
[1]
Terminology
The
Chinese language has various terms equivalent to the English "Overseas Chinese". 'Huáqiáo' (Simplified:华侨; Traditional:華僑) refers to Chinese residing in countries other than China. 'Huáyì' (Simplified:华裔; Traditional:華裔) refers to ethnic Chinese residing outside of China.
[24] Another often-used term is 海外华人 (hǎiwài huárén), a more literal translation of ''Overseas Chinese''; it is often used by the
PRC government to refer to people of Chinese ethnicities who live outside the PRC, regardless of citizenship.
Among Overseas Chinese who are
Cantonese or
Hokkien (
Taiwanese), a commonly-used term is 唐人 (tángrén), pronounced ''tòhng yàn'' in
Cantonese and ''teng lang'' in
Hokkien. Literally, it means ''Tang people'', a reference to
Tang dynasty China. It should be noted that this term is used mostly for its common usage, and not necessarily always as a reference to any relations between the Overseas Chinese people of today and the Tang dynasty.
History
Main articles: Chinese Migration
The Chinese people have a long history of migrating overseas. One of the migrations dates back to the
Ming dynasty when
Zheng He became the envoy of Ming, he sent people to explore and trade in the
South China Sea and
Indian Ocean, many of them were
Cantonese and
Hokkien.
Waves of immigration
Often there are different waves of immigration leading to subgroups among overseas Chinese such as the new and old immigrants in
Southeast Asia,
North America,
Oceania,
Latin America,
South Africa and
Russia.
In the 19th century, the age of
colonialism was at its height and the great
Chinese Diaspora began. Many colonies lacked a large pool of laborers. Meanwhile, in the provinces of
Fujian and
Guangdong in China, there was a labor surplus due to the relative peace during the
Qing dynasty. The Qing Empire was forced to allow its subjects to work overseas under colonial powers. Many Hokkien chose to work in Southeast Asia with their earlier links starting from the
Ming era, as did the Cantonese. The city of
Taishan in Guangdong province was the source for many of the economic migrants. For the countries in
North America and
Australia, great numbers of laborers were needed in the dangerous tasks of
gold mining and
railway construction. With famine widespread in Guangdong, this attracted many Cantonese to work in these countries to improve the living conditions of their relatives. Some overseas Chinese were sold to
South America during the
Punti-Hakka Clan Wars in the
Pearl River Delta in Guangdong. Many people from the
New Territories in
Hong Kong emigrated to the UK (mainly England) and the Netherlands in the post-war period to earn a better living.
From the mid-19th century onward, emigration has been directed primarily to western countries such as the
United States,
Canada,
Australia,
New Zealand, and the nations of
Western Europe; as well as to
Peru where they are called ''
tusán'',
Panama, and to a lesser extent to
Mexico. Many of these emigrants who entered western countries were themselves overseas Chinese or were from Taiwan or Hong Kong, particularly from the 1950s to the 1980s, during which the PRC placed severe restrictions on the movement of its citizens. In 1984, Britain agreed to transfer the sovereignty of
Hong Kong to the PRC; this triggered another wave of migration to the United Kingdom (mainly England), Australia, Canada, USA, Latin America and other parts of the world. The
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 further accelerated the migration. The wave calmed after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. More recent Chinese presences have developed in
Europe, where they number nearly a million, and in
Russia, they number over 600,000, concentrated in Russia's Far East. Chinese who emigrated to
Vietnam beginning in the 18th century are referred to as ''
Hoa''.
In recent years, the
People's Republic of China has built increasingly stronger ties with other
African nations. As of August 2007, there were an estimated 750,000 Chinese nationals working or living for extended periods in different African countries.
[2]
Occupations
The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have established themselves in commerce and finance.
[3] In North America, Europe and Oceania, occupations are diverse and impossible to generalize; ranging from catering to significant ranks in
medicine,
the arts, and
academia.
Overseas Chinese experience
The Chinese usually identify a person by ethnic origin instead of nationality. As long as the person is of Chinese descent, that person is considered Chinese, and if that person lives outside of China, that person is overseas Chinese. The majority of PRC Chinese do not understand the overseas Chinese experience of being a minority, as ethnic Han Chinese comprise approximately 92% of the population.
Discrimination
Overseas Chinese have sometimes experienced hostility and
discrimination (see
Sinophobia). Whether such treatment is reasonable, is a frequent point of contention between Overseas Chinese and nativist elements of their host societies. A major point of friction is the often disproportionate economic influence of the Overseas Chinese (who dominate the economies of Southeast Asia), and their tendency to segregate themselves into a subculture. For example, the anti-Chinese
Jakarta Riots of May 1998 and
Kuala Lumpur Racial Riots of 13 May 1969 seem to have been motivated by these perceptions.
Ethnic politics can be found to motivate both sides of the debate. In Malaysia, Overseas Chinese tend to support equal (race-blind) treatment on the expectation that they would do well in the resulting competition for government contracts, university places, etc., whereas many "
Bumiputra" ("native sons") Malays oppose this on the grounds that their group needs such protections in order to retain their patrimony. The question of to what extent ethnic Malays, Chinese, or others are "native" to Malaysia is a sensitive political one. It is currently a taboo for Chinese politicians to raise the issue of Bhumiputra protections in parliament, as this would be deemed ethnic incitement.
[4]
In Indonesia, ethnic Chinese are not allowed to educate their children in formal Chinese-medium schools. In some cases other cultural markers (such as Chinese calendars) are banned. Chinese-language signs were banned in Indonesia until 2004.
In order to avoid discrimination, some overseas Chinese explicitly identify themselves only by nationality (i.e., the state they are from or resident in).
Many of the overseas Chinese who worked on railways in North America in the 19th century suffered from racial discrimination in
Canada and the
United States. Although most discriminatory laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced today, both countries had at one time introduced statutes that barred Chinese from entering the country,
for example the
Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States or the Canadian
Chinese Immigration Act, 1923. .
Assimilation
Hakka people in a wedding in East Timor, 2006
Overseas Chinese vary widely as to their degree of
assimilation, their interactions with the surrounding communities (see
Chinatown), and their relationship with
China. In
Thailand, overseas Chinese have largely intermarried and assimilated with their compatriots. In
Myanmar, the Chinese rarely intermarry (even amongst different Chinese linguistic groups), but have largely adopted the Burmese culture whilst maintaining Chinese culture affinities.
Indonesia, and
Myanmar were among the countries that do not allow birth names to be registered in foreign languages, including Chinese. But since 2003,
Indonesia government allowed overseas Chinese to use their Chinese name or using their Chinese family name on their birth certificate.
In
Vietnam, Chinese names are transliterated naturally into
Vietnamese. For example, 胡锦涛 (
pinyin:
Hú Jǐntāo) would become "Hồ Cẩm Đào". Very often, there is no distinction between Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese. In western countries, the overseas Chinese generally use romanised versions of their Chinese names, and the use of local first names is also common.
On the other hand, in
Malaysia and
Singapore, overseas Chinese have maintained a distinct communal identity, though the rate and state of being assimilated to the local, in this case a multicultural society, is currently on par with that of other Chinese communities (see
Peranakan). In the Philippines, many younger Overseas Chinese are well assimilated, whereas the older ones tend to be considered as 'foreigners'. More recent overseas Chinese immigrants have been despised by many Filipinos due to incidences of some selling illegal drugs, as well as being high profile smugglers. The Chinese have also brought a cultural influence to some other countries such as Vietnam, where many Chinese customs have been adopted by native Vietnamese. A large number of Chinese people stayed in Vietnam and never returned to China.
[1]
Relationship with China
Both the
People's Republic of China and the
Republic of China maintain highly complex relationships with overseas Chinese populations. Both maintain cabinet level ministries to deal with overseas Chinese affairs, and many local governments within the PRC have overseas Chinese bureaus. Both the PRC and ROC have some legislative representation for overseas Chinese. In the case of the PRC, some seats in the
National People's Congress are allocated for returned overseas Chinese. In the ROC's
Legislative Yuan, there are eight seats allocated for overseas Chinese. These seats are apportioned to the political parties based on their vote totals on Taiwan, and then the parties assign the seats to overseas Chinese party
loyalists. Most of these members elected to the Legislative Yuan hold dual citizenship, but must renounce their foreign citizenship (at the
American Institute in Taiwan for American citizens) before being sworn in.
Overseas Chinese have sometimes played an important role in Chinese politics. Most of the funding for the
Chinese revolution of 1911 came from overseas Chinese.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the ROC tended to seek the support of overseas Chinese communities through branches of the
Kuomintang based on
Sun Yat-sen's use of
expatriate Chinese communities to raise money for his revolution. During this period, the People's Republic of China tended to view overseas Chinese with suspicion as possible
capitalist infiltrators and tended to value relationships with southeast Asian nations as more important than gaining support of overseas Chinese, and in the
Bandung declaration explicitly stated that overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation.
After the
Deng Xiaoping reforms, the attitude of the PRC toward overseas Chinese changed dramatically. Rather than being seen with suspicion, they were seen as people which could aid PRC development via their skills and capital. During the 1980s, the PRC actively attempted to court the support of overseas Chinese by among other things, returning properties that were confiscated after the 1949 revolution. More recently PRC policy has attempted to maintain the support of recently emigrated Chinese, who consist largely of Chinese seeking graduate education in the West. Many overseas Chinese are now investing in mainland China providing
financial resources, social and
cultural networks, contacts and opportunities.
Article 5 of the
Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China states:
:Any person born abroad whose parents are both Chinese nationals or one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person whose parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality.
[6]
Current numbers
There are over 40 million overseas Chinese, mostly living in
Southeast Asia where they make up a majority of the population of
Singapore and significant minority populations in
Indonesia,
Malaysia,
Thailand, the
Philippines, and
Vietnam. The overseas populations in those areas arrived between the 16th and 19th centuries mostly from the maritime provinces of
Guangdong and
Fujian, followed by
Hainan. There were incidences of earlier emigration from the 10th to 15th centuries in particular to
Malacca and Southeast Asia.
Statistics
| Continent/Country | Articles about Chinese population | Overseas Chinese Population | % of local
population | % of Global Overseas
Chinese population |
|---|
| Asia | | 30,976,784 (2006) | 0.8% | 78.7% |
| Thailand | Thai Chinese | 8.5 million (2006) | 14% | 11.7% |
| Indonesia | Chinese Indonesian | 7.3 million (2003) | 3.1% | 11.7% |
| Malaysia | Malaysian Chinese, Peranakan | 7.0 million (2006)[7] | 24.5% | 12.1% |
| Singapore | Chinese in Singapore | 2.7 million (2005)[8] | 75.6% | 4.3% |
| Vietnam | Hoa, Ngái, San Diu | 2.3 million (2006)[9] | 3% | 2%-3% |
| Philippines | Chinese Filipino | 1.5 million (2004) | 2% | 2.4% |
| Myanmar | Burmese Chinese, Panthay | 1.3 million (2003) | 3% | 2.1% |
| India | Chinese community in Kolkata | 186,461 (2005) | 0.02% | 0.5% |
| Japan | Chinese in Japan | 175,000 (2003) | 0.1% | 0.3% |
| Cambodia | Chinese Cambodian | 150,000 (2003) | 1.2% | 0.2% |
| South Korea | Ethnic Chinese in Korea | 85,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.16% |
| Brunei | Ethnic Chinese in Brunei | 56,000 (2006) | 15% | 0.1% |
| Laos | Laotian Chinese | 50,000 (2003) | 1% | 0.1% |
| North Korea | Ethnic Chinese in Korea | 50,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| Israel | Chinese in Israel | 23,000 | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| Mongolia | Han Chinese in Mongolia | 11,323 | 0.4% | 0.03% |
| Americas | | 5,920,000 (2005) | 0.6% | 14.4% |
| United States | Chinese American, American-born Chinese | 3 million (2005) | 1% | 6.8% |
| Canada | Chinese Canadian, Canadian-born Chinese | 1.3 million (2004) | 3.69% | 3.4% |
| Brazil | Chinese Brazilian | 360,000 (2006) | 0.10% | 0.4% |
| Peru | Chinese-Peruvian | 250,000 | 2.08% | 0.4% |
| Panama | Demographics section of the Panama article | 150,000 | 5% | 0.4% |
| Argentina | Asian Argentine | 60,000 | 0.16% | 0.1% |
| Nicaragua | Chinese Nicaraguan | 12,000[10] | -- | -- |
| Jamaica | Chinese Jamaican | 10,000 (2004) | 0.3% | 0.02 |
| Cuba | Chinese Cuban | 500 | -- | -- |
| Trinidad & Tobago | Chinese Trinidadian | 3,800 | Less than 1% | -- |
| Europe | | 1,700,000 (2006) | 0.2% | 4.1% |
| Russia | Chinese people in Russia, Dungan | 680,000 | 0.5% | 1.9% |
| France | Chinese French | 300,000 | 0.5% | 0.9% |
| United Kingdom | British Chinese | 247,403 (2001)[11] | 0.4% | 0.7% |
| Republic of Ireland | -- | 16,533 (2006)[12] | 0.39% | |
| Italy | Chinese in Italy | 111,712 | 0.19% | 0.2% |
| Spain | Chinese in Spain | 99,000 (2006)[13] | 0.22% | 0.16% |
| Germany | -- | 71,639 (2004)[14] | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| The Netherlands | -- | 144,928 (2006)[15] | 0.7% | 0.1% |
| Romania | Chinese of Romania | 2,249 | -- | -- |
| Oceania | | 1,000,000(2003) | 1.9% | 1.7% |
| Australia | Chinese Australian | ~700,000(2006)[16] | 2.5% | 1.3% |
| New Zealand | Chinese New Zealander | 147,570 (2006) | 2.8% | 0.3% |
| Fiji | Chinese in Fiji | 6,000 (2000) | 0.5% | 0.01% |
| Africa | | 103,000 (2003) | 0.02% | 0.3% |
| South Africa | South African Chinese | 100,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.3% |
| Mauritius | Sino-Mauritian | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Total | -- | 39,379,784 | 0.6% | 100% |
Statistics compiled using local country statistics or best available estimates. Note that the percentages may not add up due to varying census and estimate dates.
Top 20 Overseas Chinese populations
Statistics as compiled by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission of the Republic of China, for 2005
[32].
| Country | 2005 Population | Rank |
|---|
| Indonesia | 7,566,200 | 1 |
| Thailand | 7,053,240 | 2 |
| Malaysia | 6,187,400 | 3 |
| United States | 3,376,031 | 4 |
| Singapore | 2,684,900 | 5 |
| Canada | 1,612,173 | 6 |
| Peru | 1,300,000 | 7 |
| Vietnam | 1,263,570 | 8 |
| Philippines | 1,146,250 | 9 |
| Myanmar | 1,101,314 | 10 |
| Russia | 998,000 | 11 |
| Australia | 614,694 | 12 |
| Japan | 519,561 | 13 |
| Cambodia | 343,855 | 14 |
| United Kingdom | 296,623 | 15 |
| France | 230,515 | 16 |
| India | 189,470 | 17 |
| Laos | 185,765 | 18 |
| Brazil | 151,649 | 19 |
| Netherlands | 144,928 | 20 |
See also
★
Asian Latin American
★
Chinese migration
★
Chinatown, the article, and the international category list
★
Chinese Clan Association
★
List of overseas Chinese
★
Anti-Chinese legislation in Indonesia
★
Bumiputra
References
1.
2. Chinese flocking in numbers to a new frontier: Africa
3. The world's successful diasporas
4. Race clouds Malaysian birthday festivities
5.
6. http://www.china.org.cn/english/LivinginChina/184710.htm
7. US Department of State info on Malaysia [25]
8. Singapore Statistics [26]
9. [27]: Source from the US Department of State shows (source linked) that as of 2006 there are 2.3 million Chinese in Vietnam. The 1.3 million figure from 1999 excludes Chinese of other nationalities not included in that census, and Chinese population has also increased dramatically since 1999 due simply to large birth rate.
10. Rank and statistics of Han Chinese worldwide on joshuaproject.net
11. "Population of the UK, by ethnic group, 2001" (Note that in UK usage ''Asian'' in this context refer to South Asia)
12. http://beyond2020.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=1842
13. Instituto Nacional de Estadística: Padrón 2006[28].
14. Federal Statistical Office Germany [29].
15. Dutch Census Bureau (excludes ethnic Chinese not from China)[30].
16. 200 Australian Bureau of Statistics [31].
Further reading
★ Pan, Lynn. ''The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas'', Landmark Books, Singapore, 1998. ISBN 981-4155-90-X
★ Chin, Ung Ho. ''The Chinese of South East Asia'', London: Minority Rights Group, 2000. ISBN 1-897693-28-1
External links
★
Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China
★
Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, R.O.C.
★
Ohio University Study on Distribution of the Overseas Chinese Population
★
The Distribution of the Overseas Chinese in the Contemporary World
★
Museum of Chinese in the Americas
★
Professional networking and job-hunting website for Overseas Chinese
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