Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese (海外華人 or 海外华人)
Image:Overseaschinesebar4.jpg
Elaine Chao · Thaksin Shinawatra · Gary Locke · Lee Kuan Yew
Total population
Regions with significant populations
Majority populations Image:Flag of Singapore (bordered).svg Singapore 2,684,936 [8] Image:Flag of Christmas Island.svg Christmas Island, Australia 1,045 [9] Minority populations      Image:Flag of Indonesia (bordered).svg Indonesia 7,566,200 [10]       Thailand 7,053,240 [11]      Image:Flag of Malaysia.svg Malaysia 6,590,500 [12]       United States 3,376,031 [13]       Canada 1,612,173 [14]      Image:Flag of Peru.svg Peru 1,300,000 [15]       Vietnam 1,263,570 [16]       Philippines 1,146,250 [17]      Image:Flag of Myanmar.svg Myanmar 1,101,314 [18]       Russia 998,000 [19]       Australia 614,694 [20]       Japan 519,561 [21]      Image:Flag of Cambodia.svg Cambodia 343,855 [22]       United Kingdom 296,623 [23]       France 230,515 [24]      Image:Flag of India.svg India 189,470 [25]      Image:Flag of Laos.svg Laos 185,765 [26]       Brazil 151,649 [27]      Image:Flag of the Netherlands.svg Netherlands 144,928 [28]      Image:Flag of South Korea (bordered).svg South Korea 137,790 [29]       New Zealand 110,000 [30]      Image:Flag of Panama (bordered).svg Panama over100,000 [31]
Languages
various
Religions
Predominantly Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, traditional Chinese religions, and atheism. Small but significant Christian and Muslim minorities.

Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese ancestry who live outside China. China, in this usage, usually includes Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. This is sometimes referred to as Greater China, that is, territory currently administered by both rival governments; the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). In addition, the government of the Republic of China 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. Ethnic 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. [32] 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.

Amongst those Overseas Chinese who are Cantonese or Hokkien, a common 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.

The PRC government officially designates the following groups of Overseas Chinese accordingly:

• Huáqiáo (Chinese: 华侨) also known as Qiáobāo or Zhōngguó Qiáomín (Chinese: 僑胞、中國僑民), is defined by Chinese nationality law as a person born in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau, who resides overseas but possesses Chinese citizenship and a Chinese passport.
• Huáyì (Chinese: 华裔) also known as Wàijí Huárén (Chinese: 外籍华人, 海外華人, 華胞), is defined by Chinese nationality law as a person of Chinese ancestry born outside mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and who is a citizen of a foreign country.
• Canadian Huáyì (Chinese: 加拿大華裔) is, under Chinese nationality law, a term used to refer to a Canadian-born person of Chinese ancestry, as are the terms American Huáyì (Chinese: 美国華裔), Brazilian Huáyì (Chinese: 巴西華裔), and so on.

History

Main article: 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. 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.

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 generalise; ranging from catering to significant ranks in medicine, the arts, and academia.

Overseas Chinese experience

The Chinese usually identify a person by ethnicity 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

Undoubtedly the overseas Chinese living in lands outside China where they are a minority have suffered from hostility and discrimination. However, many receiving countries and their respective populations have argued that the overseas Chinese do not assimilate into the host culture but instead create a segregated nation / culture within a nation. Many have argued that the Overseas Chinese have also used modern day multicultural policies as a means not to adopt to local cultural conditions and to promote their own cultural self-interest.

In some countries, the Chinese are often subject to racist discrimination and resentment, where the poor Chinese are despised and the rich Chinese hated. Despite having spent their lifetimes in these countries, "Leave if you don't like it here!" is still a phrase often heard, even by third or fourth generation Chinese. This is a problem faced by many overseas Chinese and for this reason some overseas Chinese have chosen not to be identified as Chinese or overseas Chinese but nevertheless still maintain a separate Chinese identity, in the hope of placating the local majorities (who, ironically, may not even be real natives of the land). Thus many Overseas Chinese explicitly identify themselves only by nationality (ie, the state they are from or resident in). Unfortunately, sometimes even partial assimilation is not enough for them to be spared from persecution.

Many of the overseas Chinese who worked on the North American railways in the 19th century suffered from racial discrimination in Canada and the United States of America. Although most discriminatory laws have been repealed or not enforced today, both countries had at one time introduced statutes that barred Chinese from entering the country.

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 are among the countries that do not allow birth names to be registered in foreign languages, including Chinese. In Vietnam, foreign language names are transliterated into Vietnamese. For example, 胡锦涛 (pinyin: Hú Jǐntāo) would become "Hồ Cẩm Đào". Very often, there is no distinct number of the Chinese population in these countries. 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 en 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.^[2] Physical evidence such as Bukit Cina in Malacca, Penang, and Taiping in Perak in Malaysia seems to indicate permanent settlements.

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.

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.

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, and many overseas Chinese are overseas for political reasons. Many overseas Chinese are now investing in mainland China providing financial resources, social and cultural networks, contacts and opportunities.

Current numbers

There are over 40 million overseas Chinese,^{[citation needed]} mostly living in Southeast Asia where they make up a majority of the population of Singapore and significant minority populations in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia 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

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 [33].

See also

• Chinese migration
• Chinatown, the article, and Category:Chinatowns the international category list
• Chinese Clan Association
• List of overseas Chinese

References

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

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