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Overseas Chinese
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Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the territories administered by the rival governments of the People's Republic of China (PRC) (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau) and the Republic of China (ROC)(Taiwan). People of partial Chinese ancestry may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese. A vast majority of the overseas Chinese hail from only three coastal provinces of the mainland viz. Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan
The term Overseas Chinese is ambiguous and inconsistent 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.
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Encyclopedia
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the territories administered by the rival governments of the People's Republic of China (PRC) (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau) and the Republic of China (ROC)(Taiwan). People of partial Chinese ancestry may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese. A vast majority of the overseas Chinese hail from only three coastal provinces of the mainland viz. Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan
The term Overseas Chinese is ambiguous and inconsistent 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 ethnic Koreans may 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, although they are not categorized as ethnic Han Chinese. Under this definition, "ethnic minority" overseas Chinese number about 7 million, or about 8.4% of the total overseas population.
Terminology
The Chinese language has various terms equivalent to the English "Overseas Chinese". Huáqiáo (Simplified:??; Traditional:??) refers to Chinese citizens residing in countries other than China. Huáyě (Simplified:??; Traditional:??) refers to ethnic Chinese residing outside of China. Another often-used term is ???? (haiwŕi 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.
Overseas Chinese who are ethnically Cantonese, Hokkien or Hakka refer to Overseas Chinese as ?? (tángrén), pronounced tňhng yŕn in Cantonese, Tn^g-lâng in Hokkien and tong nyin in Hakka. Literally, it means Tang people, a reference to Tang dynasty China when it was ruling China proper. It should be noted that this term is commonly used by the Cantonese, Hokkien or Hakka and Hokkien in reference to their deep-rooted cultural and ethnic connection with the Tang Dynasty.
History
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, and many of them were Cantonese and Hokkien.
Waves of immigration
There were different waves of immigration which led 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, Brazil, 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. In addition, many citizens of Hong Kong hold citizenships or have current visas in other countries so if the need arises, they can leave Hong Kong on a short notice. In fact, after the Tiananmen Square incident, the lines for immigration visas increased at every consulate in Hong Kong. More recent Chinese presences have developed in Europe, where they number nearly a million, and in Russia, they number over 600,000, concentrated in Russian 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 African nations. As of August 2007, there were an estimated 750,000 Chinese nationals working or living for extended periods in different African countries. An estimated 200,000 ethnic Chinese live in South Africa. In a 2007 New York Times article, Chad Chamber of Commerce Director estimated an "influx of at least 40,000 Chinese in coming years" to Chad. As of 2006 there were as many as 40,000 Chinese in Namibia, an estimated 80,000 Chinese in Zambia and 50,000 Chinese in Nigeria. As many as 100,000 Chinese are living and working across Angola.
Russia’s main Pacific port and naval base of Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners, today is bristling with Chinese markets, restaurants and trade houses. Experts predict that the Chinese diaspora in Russia will increase to at least 10 million by 2010 and Chinese may become the dominant ethnic group in the Russian Far East region 20 to 30 years from now.
Occupations
The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have established themselves in commerce and finance. 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). A major point of friction is the often their tendency to segregate themselves into a subculture. For example, the anti-Chinese Kuala Lumpur Racial Riots of 13 May 1969 and Jakarta Riots of May 1998 were believed to have been motivated by these racially-biased perceptions.
Ethnic politics can be found to motivate both sides of the debate. In Malaysia, Overseas Chinese tend to support equal and meritocratic treatment on the expectation that they would not be discriminated against 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 Bumiputra protections in parliament, as this would be deemed ethnic incitement.
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) .
In Thailand, ethnic Chinese are forced to adopt Thai names .
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 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
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, the Indonesian government has allowed overseas Chinese to use their Chinese name or using their Chinese family name on their birth certificate.
In Vietnam, Chinese names are pronounced with Sino-Vietnamese readings. For example, (pinyin: Hú Jintao) would become "H? C?m Đŕo". 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'. 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.
Language
The usage of Chinese languages by overseas Chinese has been determined by a large number of factors, including their ancestry, their migrant ancestors' "regime of origin", assimilation through generational changes, and official policies of their country of residence. The general trend is - increase of Mandarin-speaking Chinese among the new arrivals, making it the most common language of chinatowns.
Southeast Asia
Within Southeast Asia, the language situation of overseas Chinese vary greatly even amongst neighboring nations. On one hand, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and Thailand had been subjected to official, and at times draconian, assimilation policies, and as a result many of them are no longer proficient in the Chinese language (particularly Chinese ethnic who lived in Java). Chinese who lived in Sumatra did not give up some of the dialects. Most of the Chinese ethnic in Medan is still able to speak creole Hokkien within their circle. This is due to the amount of the generation who lived in Indonesia and exposed to the cultural assimilation. Most of the Chinese ethnic who lived in Java have a long generation of forefathers before them (10 generations), where the Chinese ethnic who lived in Sumatra have a relatively short generation of forefathers (4 or 5 generations).
On the other end, Malaysian Chinese speak a wide variety of dialects, their prevalence being concentrated around particular metropolitan centers: the Penang, Klang and Malacca groups are predominantly Hokkien-speaking; the Kuala Lumpur, Seremban & Ipoh group is predominantly Cantonese and Hakka-speaking; whereas in East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo), Hakka and Mandarin are widely spoken, except in Sibu, where Fuzhou dialect is predominant, and in Sandakan, where Cantonese is spoken.
In Singapore, a nation with an ethnic Chinese majority population, Mandarin is recognized as one of its official languages, along with Simplified Chinese characters, in contrast to other overseas Chinese communities which almost exclusively used Traditional Chinese characters until the 1990s when PRC nationals began to emigrate in substantial numbers. The official policy in Singapore also has an impact to the neighboring Johor, in the south of Peninsular Malaysia, where Mandarin is predominantly spoken among the Chinese communities there.
North America
Many overseas Chinese populations in North America speak some variety of spoken Chinese. In the United States and Canada, Chinese is the third most spoken language. Cantonese has historically been the most prevalent variety due to immigrants being mostly from southern China from the 19th century up through the 1980s. However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to the opening up of the PRC.
In New York City at least, although Mandarin is spoken as a native language among only ten percent of Chinese speakers, it is used as a secondary dialect among the greatest number of them and is on its way to replace Cantonese as their lingua franca. Although Min Chinese is spoken natively by a third of the Chinese population there, it is not used as a lingua franca because speakers of other dialect groups do not learn Min.
Vancouver, British Columbia officially recognizes Chinese as a regional language due to the large number of Chinese people living in Vancouver, particularly the suburb of Richmond, which the majority of residents formed are Chinese.
The Los Angeles area and Santa Clara County have particularly high numbers of Mandarin speakers, partly due to immigration from Taiwan.
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 used to be eight seats allocated for overseas Chinese. These seats were apportioned to the political parties based on their vote totals on Taiwan, and then the parties assigned the seats to overseas Chinese party loyalists. Now, political parties in the ROC are still allowed to assign overseas Chinese into the Legislative Yuan, but they are not required to. 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 US 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.
According to Article 5 of the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China: "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". However the Nationality Law of the Republic of China, which permits dual citizenship, considers these persons to be citizens of the ROC.
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% |  | Thai Chinese | 8.5 million (2006) | 14% | 11.7% |  | Chinese Indonesian | 7.3 million (2003) | 3.1% | 11.7% |  | Malaysian Chinese, Peranakan | 7.0 million (2006) | 24.5% | 12.1% |  | Chinese in Singapore | 2.7 million (2005) | 75.6% | 4.3% |  | Hoa, Ngái, San Diu | 2.3 million (2006) | 3% | 2%-3% | | Chinese Filipino, Tornatras, Sangley | 1.5 million (2004) | 2% | 2.4% |  | Burmese Chinese, Panthay | 1.3 million (2003) | 3% | 2.1% |  | Chinese community in Kolkata | 186,461 (2005) | 0.02% | 0.5% |  | Chinese in Japan | 175,000 (2003) | 0.1% | 0.3% |  | Chinese Cambodian | 150,000 (2003) | 1.2% | 0.2% |  | Ethnic Chinese in Korea | 85,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.16% |  | Ethnic Chinese in Brunei | 56,000 (2006) | 15% | 0.1% |  | Laotian Chinese | 50,000 (2003) | 1% | 0.1% |  | Ethnic Chinese in Korea | 50,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.1% |  | Chinese in Israel | 23,000 | 0.3% | 0.1% |  | Han Chinese in Mongolia | 11,323 | 0.4% | 0.03% |  | Chinese in Pakistan | 1,000 | | | |
Americas | | 6,059,240 (2008) | 0.6% | 15.4% | | Chinese American, American-born Chinese | 3 million (2005) | 1% | 6.8% |  | Chinese-Peruvian | 1.3 million | 2.08% | 3.4% |  | Chinese Canadian, Canadian-born Chinese | 1.3 million (2004) | 3.69% | 3.4% |  | Chinese Brazilian | 360,000 (2006) | 0.10% | 0.4% |  | Ethnic Chinese in Panama | 150,000 | 5% | 0.4% |  | Chinese Cuban | 114,240 | 1% | 0.3% |  | Asian Argentine | 60,000 | 0.16% | 0.1% |  | Chinese-Costa Rican | 40,000 | 0,14% | | Asian Latin American | 25,000 | 0.27% | 0.1% |  | Chinese Mexican | 23,000 (2003) |  | Chinese Nicaraguan | 12,000 |  | Chinese Jamaican | 70,000 |  | 9,400 | 2% |  | Chinese Chilean | 5,000 to 10,000 | | | Chinese Trinidadian | 3,800 | | 2,722 | | |
Europe | | 1,700,000 (2006) | 0.2% | 4.1% |  | Chinese people in Russia, Dungan | 680,000 | 0.5% | 1.9% |  | Chinese French, Sino-Réunionnaise | 300,000 | 0.5% | 0.9% | | British Chinese | 500,000 (2008)
347,000 (2005) | 0.8%
0.7% | 1.3%
0.8% |  | Chinese in Italy | 111,712 | 0.19% | 0.2% |  | Chinese people in Spain | 124,022 (2008) | 0.27% | 0.31% |  | Chinese people in Germany | 71,639 (2004) | 0.1% | 0.1% | | -- | 144,928 (2006) | 0.7% | 0.1% |  | Chinese people in Serbia | 75,000 - 100,000 |  | 16,533 (2006) | 0.39% |  | Chinese people in Bulgaria | 5,000,10,000 estimated up to 100,000 |  | Chinese of Romania | 2,249 | Oceania | | 1,000,000(2003) | 1.9% | 1.7% |  | Chinese Australian | 669,896(2006) | 4.8% | 1.3% |  | Chinese New Zealander | 147,570 (2006) | 3.5% | 0.3% |  | Chinese in Fiji | 6,000 (2000) | 0.5% | 0.01% |  | Chinese in Tonga | 3,000 to 4,000 (2001) | 3 or 4% |  | Chinese in Samoa | 30,000 | |
Africa | | 103,000 (2003) | 0.02% | 0.3% |  | Chinese in Cape Verde | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |  | South African Chinese | 100,000 (2003) | 0.2% | 0.3% |  | Chinese Angolan | 100,000 | 0.2% |  | Sino-Mauritian | 38,000 | 3% | Unknown | Total | 39,417,784 | 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.
Returning
In the case of Indonesia and Burma, political and ethnic strife has cause a signifcant number of people of Chinese origins to reemigrate.
See also
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
- López-Calvo, Ignacio. Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture, Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2008. ISBN 0-8130-3240-7
- Fitzgerald, John. "Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia", UNSW Press, Sydney, 2007. ISBN 978-0868408-70-5
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