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Overseas Chinese are Chinese people who live outside China. China, in this usage, usually refer to what is sometimes called "Greater China", including territory currently administered by the rival governments of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) as per traditional definitions of the term prior to the Chinese Civil War, or only to the People's Republic of China by some. 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.
Terminology. The Chinese language has similar terms. Huá Qiáo (Traditional:華僑; Simplified:华侨) refers to Chinese residing in countries other than China. Huá Yì (Traditional:華裔; Simplified:华裔) refers to ethnic Chinese residing outside of China. * It has to be noted that the usage of the term can be relatively fluid, geographically. For example, the ethnic Chinese people of Singapore and Malaysia are occasionally excluded from the above said definition of "overseas Chinese" in view of their successful integration with their new country. Recent research shows that the majority of the ethnic Chinese in both nations have expressed the view that they are bonded to their country of citizenship, rather than to China (either PRC or ROC). Another often-used term is 海外華人 (hǎiwài huárén), this is a more literal translation of Overseas Chinese, and it's also a term 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 (táng rén), pronounced tòhng yàn in Cantonese and tang 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 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 Peranakans 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.• History The Chinese people have a long history of migrating overseas (see Chinese Migration). The overseas Chinese of today can be dated 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. Chinese emigrated to Vietnam beginning in the 18th century, and have been identified as the Hoa, or Vietnamese Chinese. A large portion stayed and never returned to China. * Physical evidence such as Bukit Cina in Malaysia seems to indicate permanent settlements. In 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 in 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 Punti-Hakka Clan Wars in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong. With the completion of railways, many overseas Chinese suffered from racial discrimination in Canada and the United States of America, where they were barred from entering the country. After World War II, the last years of the Chinese Civil War increased Chinese suffering. Some educated overseas Chinese did not return to the country as the conditions deteriorated. 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. In the 1980s, 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, United States of America and other lands. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 further accelerated the migration. The wave calmed after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. Current numbers There are approximately 60 million overseas Chinese, 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 the 19th centuries mostly from the maritime provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, followed by Hainan. There are incidences of earlier emigration in the 10th centuries to 15th centuries in particular to Malacca and Southeast Asia. Recent emigration More recent emigration from the mid-19th century onward 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, 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 in the 1950s to the 1980s, during which the PRC placed severe restrictions on the movement of its citizens. Assimilation
Waves of immigration Often there are different waves of immigration leading to subgroups among overseas Chinese such as the new and old immigrants in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Ireland, Hawaii, USA, Peru, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Myanmar, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, and Philippines. The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have often established themselves in commerce and finances. In North America, because of immigration policies, overseas Chinese tend to be found in professional occupations, including significant ranks in medicine and academia. 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. 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. Statistics Note that the percentages do not add up due to varying census and estimate dates. See also | ||||||||||
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