Overseas Chinese

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Gate to the Chinatown of Montreal :
Inscription: " 唐人街 , Tángrénjiē " literally: "Street of the Tang people"

As overseas Chinese , and occasionally overseas Chinese are Chinese referred to the outside of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan live. Estimates now speak of around 40 to 45 million overseas Chinese. In Chinese usage, a general distinction is made between:

  • Haiwai Huaqiao ( 海外 僑民  /  海外 侨民 , hǎiwài qiáomín  - "overseas citizens ") as people with a passport of the PRC or the Republic of China who live permanently abroad; and
  • Haiwai Huaqiao ( 海外 華僑  /  海外 华侨 , hǎiwài huáqiáo  - "Han Chinese overseas citizen ") as people of Han Chinese descent with a passport of the PRC or the Republic of China who live permanently abroad; and
  • Haiwai Huaren ( 海外 華人  /  海外 华人 , hǎiwài huárén  - “Overseas Han Chinese”) as people of Chinese origin who have taken citizenship of the country in which they live.

Overseas Chinese are mostly ethnic Han Chinese , whose ancestors were predominantly so-called contract workers ( coolies ), and to a small extent also members of ethnic minorities of China , including mainly Manchu , Hui Chinese , Uighurs and Tibetans . The Chinese term overseas Chinese or overseas Chinese ( 華僑  /  华侨 , huáqiáo ) stands for Chinese citizens who live as foreigners temporarily or permanently (for generations e.g. in Indonesia) in the diaspora .

For ethnic Chinese who are foreign nationals, the terms hǎiwài become huárén ( 海外 華人  /  海外 华人  - "overseas Chinese") or huáyì ... rén ( 華裔 ... 人  /  华裔 ... 人  - "people of Chinese origin [r]. .. Citizens ”).

history

The Chinatown in San Francisco ( California ), an example of a foreign Chinese settlement

Overseas trade

Since the time of the Ming dynasty , the Chinese have settled in Vietnam and Thailand and in these countries partially assimilated with the rest of the population . In non-Buddhist countries, these early communities mostly kept to themselves and often organized themselves independently within the framework of secret societies. The Chinese Empire, on the one hand, favored the expansion of Chinese merchants in the Pacific region with the military expansion under Admiral Zheng He , on the other hand, the negative attitude of Confucianism towards any form of trade, and in particular foreign trade understood as an insult to the imperial dignity - because this contradicted the view that China had to be self-sufficient - to displace traders abroad. There the unloved traders were able to evade the state monopolies that prevented the emergence of a privately capitalized economy. According to Confucian self-understanding, wrote the writer Yu-chien Kuan (1931-2018), only inferior people could leave their homeland. Only within the framework of the tribute system , in which the foreign traders and diplomats symbolically submitted to Chinese suzerainty, was foreign trade expressly desired from the monarchy's point of view. As early as the Song period from 960 to 1279 and later between 1740 and 1840, trade in Southeast Asia was firmly in Chinese hands. Another route led overland into the interior of Asia and as far as Persia or Europe; for the 14th century there are reports of Chinese quarters in the Russian cities of Moscow and Novgorod . Before the 14th century, three Chinese women traveled along a trade route to Eastern Europe, where they converted to Judaism and married Ashkenazim .

Mass emigration

The advance of European colonialism changed the situation. The Chinese traders were integrated into the colonial system. The colonial powers valued them as middlemen and thus prevented local people from infiltrating their business processes. Opium , for example, was handled with the help of the overseas Chinese. The pen system was co-organized by wealthy overseas Chinese and made it possible for the colonial powers to recruit workers for infrastructure projects. The drivers of this Chinese labor migration were the population growth in the regions of origin, the numerous famines and the penetration of colonialism into China as a result of the First Opium War . At the same time, the ban on slavery created a new demand . Estimates of the number of Chinese emigrated at the time are around 15 million people. The ancestors of today's Chinese abroad mostly emigrated between the 16th and 19th centuries and came mainly from the area of ​​the Pearl River Delta and the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian , other groups of emigrants came from Taiwan and Hainan . From the 1930s onwards, women increasingly emigrated.

The emigration from China was opposed by the Chinese Empire as the kingdom was afraid it might be pockets of resistance emerge against the rule in a foreign land. This assessment was largely correct, as the Sun Yat-sens national movement received financial aid from overseas Chinese communities for the political transformation of China. However, because the monarchy had to recognize that the western colonial powers were technologically far superior to China, the sending of young men to study in the USA, England, France and Germany was encouraged from 1850 onwards. Officers abroad also acquired knowledge of modern warfare and technology, with which Western ideas, such as Marxism , finally reached China.

Chinese diaspora in Asia

Guandi Temple (Dili)

The fact that the Chinese traders were integrated into the colonial system made them a pariah group in Southeast Asia in the emerging nation states. This position made it possible for the multiethnic states in Southeast Asia to develop a national identity by means of demarcation from the Chinese. The Chinese were often exposed to hostility from the locals, which manifested itself and had different effects: from defamation , discrimination , oppression , ethnic persecution to pogroms , displacement or murder . The political developments in China intensified these processes. In Thailand, the Chinese were suspicious of the king because of the 1911 republican Xinhai revolution overthrew the empire in China. After the Republic of China was replaced by the People's Republic of China , the Chinese in Indonesia were automatically suspected of communism , which among other things led to serious attacks on them ( massacre in Indonesia 1965–1966 ); also in East Timor, which was occupied by Indonesia from 1975 onwards . Before that, imperialist Japan, as the occupying power in Southeast Asia, had waged several bloody campaigns against the Chinese. Japanese soldiers killed around 50,000 Chinese in Malaya alone , which later became the states of Malaysia and Singapore , under the name of Sook Ching (Eng. "Cleansing by Elimination") . Tan Kah Kee , however, led the non-communist resistance.

The majority of Chinese overseas today live mainly in Southeast Asia . Outside of China, Chinese also make up the majority in Singapore with 74.3% of the population. Standard Chinese is one of the four official languages ​​of the city-state. In Malaysia the proportion of the Chinese in the total population is almost 25%, in some Malaysian cities, such as in Kuala Lumpur or Ipoh , they make up the largest ethnic group or even the majority of the population. There are also significant Chinese minorities in Indonesia (3.6% of the population), the Philippines , Thailand (10–15% of the population), South Korea , Vietnam and Myanmar . In the small state of Brunei , Chinese made up 10.3% of the population in 2016. A Chinese minority also lives in Timor , Cambodia (2.5%) and Laos (3.2%). In Vietnam, however , as a result of the Vietnam War , around 1 million Chinese left the country between 1976 and 1979, very often for France. Cambodia saw one such exodus in 1978.

In some of these countries there has been repeated discrimination and expropriation of the Chinese in the past, especially in Indonesia and the Philippines during the time of Dutch and Spanish colonial rule. Numerous regulations in present-day Malaysia are seen by the Chinese abroad as a continuation of these interventions in their free economic development. From the perspective of the Malays (so-called Bumiputra ), such a policy is considered positive discrimination , with which this ethnic group is to be given opportunities in economic life, especially since the economic preponderance of the Chinese over Malays and Indians is clearly evident: 16 of the 20 richest Malaysian citizens were in 2001 of Chinese descent. The preferential treatment of the Bumiputra, however, leads to social tensions, but at the same time should make them controllable. Around 100,000 Chinese moved to the later state of Singapore during the bloodiest phase of the ethnic conflict from 1947 to 1957.

The Hakka ethnic group migrated mainly to areas of the later states of Malaysia ( Penang ), Singapore - at that time both formed the Straits Settlements - and Indonesia ( Sumatra ). The emigration of the Hakka represented 18% of the first Chinese emigration. In 1950, the main settlement areas of overseas Chinese were on Malaysia's west coast, in South Vietnam, around Bangkok and on Java . The Malay- speaking Chinese families who have lived in the Straits Settlements since the 19th century are known as Peranakan . Chinese overseas in Asia have in some cases changed their country of residence. At the end of the 1990s, 100,000 to 200,000 Chinese Indonesians fled the anti-Chinese unrest to Malaysia and, above all, to Singapore. This mobility repeatedly exposes them to the charge of not being loyal citizens. Another settlement area for Chinese abroad in Asia has been Russia's Far East since the end of the Soviet Union ; China is interested in the forest there.

Chinese diaspora in Australia and the Pacific

In Australia today, 5.6% of Australians are wholly or partially of Chinese origin, which corresponds to around 1.2 million people. In addition, thousands of Chinese come to study on the southern continent every year. The number of wealthy investors from the People's Republic with second homes in Sydney is increasing. The actual or sometimes assumed influence of Chinese overseas Chinese and Chinese overseas organizations, such as the United Front Department of the CP or the Chinese social media site WeChat, on the politics of the country is increasingly shaping the public debate, especially since the Chinese in individual constituencies make up 15% of the electoral population put. On the very small Christmas Island , which belongs to Australia , the Chinese make up the majority of the population of only about 1400.

Chinese diaspora in America

Since the 19th century, numerous Chinese immigrated to countries in the western hemisphere, such as the United States (initially mostly in Hawaii ) and Canada , where, despite numerous immigration and settlement restrictions in many large cities, so-called Chinatowns , Chinese Enclaves, developed. They often did dangerous work in railway construction , on the route network of today's Amtrak . In December 1978 the People's Republic of China and the United States announced the establishment of diplomatic relations, which marked the beginning of a new immigration of mostly better-qualified Chinese. Since the transition from Hong Kong to the People's Republic, the Vancouver region has been shaped by China, but the first Chinese came to Terminal City with the construction of the railroad . There are also large communities in South America, particularly in Peru , where around 120,000 immigrants from China settled from 1848 to 1910, who initially mostly worked in silver and guano mining . This community has been greatly reduced by emigration. The Chinese community in Cuba , which consisted of around 150,000 people between 1850 and 1910 and whose labor had mainly served the cultivation of sugar cane, largely dissolved . Across Latin America, the number is estimated at around 1.3 million people today.

Chinese diaspora in Europe

Chinese New Year Celebrations - Lion Dance , Dublin Ireland 2008

After the end of the Second World War, there was also increased immigration to Europe, relatively most of the Chinese in Europe now live in the Netherlands , almost 150,000 (just under 1% of the population). A significant part of their ancestors had previously lived in Suriname , South America , from where they fled in 1975 after the country gained independence on November 25, 1975. There are over 400,000 Chinese living in Great Britain, between 400,000 and 600,000 in France, depending on the counting method, and more than 110,000 in Germany. They are self-employed more often than not, for example in the field of Chinese cuisine .

In France, which had regulated immigration from China on an interstate basis from 1860, Chinese settled for the first time in significant numbers around the Gare de Lyon train station , where they mainly lived in the narrow Brunoy and Raguinot passages. Most of them came from southern Zhejiang Province and made a modest living as peddlers or in industry. During the First World War , the French state employed around 140,000 Chinese workers in armaments factories or for terracing, some of whom returned to Asia afterwards. Among the immigrants of that time was the future Chinese head of state and party leader Deng Xiaoping , who worked for Renault in Boulogne-Billancourt , among others . In 1949 the influx ended with the victory of the communists in China. In the 1970s, ethnic Chinese came to France as refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam and mostly moved to the 13th arrondissement of Paris, which is how the local Chinatown arose between Avenue d'Ivry and Avenue de Choisy. As former residents of former French colonies, most of them already spoke French. From 1978 onwards there was another immigration from the People's Republic, with people from Wenzhou arriving at the time. They also settled in large numbers in northern Italy. This last group of immigrants now dominates in numbers in France. There are also many Chinese students who live as sans-papiers after their residence permit has expired .

Cultural Aspects of the Chinese Diaspora

Under the entry "Qiaopi and Yinxin Correspondence and Remittance Documents from Overseas Chinese", letters between overseas Chinese and their families in China have been included in UNESCO's list of world document heritage .

In overseas Chinese communities, cultural conflicts often arise with future generations . Often the parents place extremely high demands on their children. This upbringing is known as tiger parenting in North America . The best- known expression of this is the autobiographical bestseller The Mother of Success by Amy Chua . The Chinese are sometimes accused of being overadapt and wanting to help shape their societies only economically, but not socially and culturally. As a result, they see their task mainly as being economically successful.

Distribution across the continents

Population (1998)
area % number
Asia 80 17,070,000
America 11.63 5,020,000
Europe 2.3 945,000
Oceania 1.28 564,000
Africa 0.3 126,000
Total 100 23,725,000
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States with the most overseas Chinese

These figures are based on figures from the Overseas Chinese Authority of the Republic of China in Taiwan in 2005 and thus diverge from official figures from the People's Republic of China.

country region Population 1 rank Further articles
IndonesiaIndonesia Indonesia Asia 7,566,200 1 Chinese minority in Indonesia
ThailandThailand Thailand Asia 7.053.240 2 Chinese ethnic Thais
MalaysiaMalaysia Malaysia Asia 6,187,400 3 Baba-Nyonya
United StatesUnited States United States America 3,376,031 4th Sino-Americans , History of the Chinese in the United States , History of the Chinese in Hawaii
SingaporeSingapore Singapore Asia 2,684,900 5 -
CanadaCanada Canada America 1,612,173 6th -
PeruPeru Peru America 1,300,000 7th -
VietnamVietnam Vietnam Asia 1,263,570 8th Hoa
PhilippinesPhilippines Philippines Asia 1,146,250 9 Filipino Chinese
MyanmarMyanmar Myanmar Asia 1,101,314 10 -
RussiaRussia Russia Asia 998,000 11 -
AustraliaAustralia Australia Australia 614.694 12 -
JapanJapan Japan Asia 519,561 13 -
United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom Europe 500,000 14th -
FranceFrance France Europe 450,000 15th -
CambodiaCambodia Cambodia Asia 343,855 16 -
GermanyGermany Germany Europe 212,000 17th Chinese in Germany 2
IndiaIndia India Asia 189,470 18th -
LaosLaos Laos Asia 185.765 19th -
BrazilBrazil Brazil America 151,649 20th -
NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands Europe 144.928 21st -
CubaCuba Cuba America 114,240 22nd Chinese Cubans 3
East TimorEast Timor East Timor Asia 4,000 23 History of the Chinese in Timor 4
annotation
1 Population from 2005
2 Estimation of the population from 2012
3 Estimation of the population from 2008
4th Population estimate from 2015 - around 3,000–4,000 Chinese-born citizens of East Timor

Economical meaning

In 1996, overseas Chinese were valued at $ 2 trillion in cash, more than the 1.3 billion people of the People's Republic of China. The share of overseas Chinese in investments in mainland China is 80 percent (for comparison: Germany 0.25 percent). The approximately 60 million overseas Chinese (including Macau , Hong Kong and Taiwan , although these are not overseas Chinese at all) are a major economic power in most Asian countries. Their economic power is only surpassed by the US and Japan, and their investments are higher than Japanese foreign investments . In the People's Republic of China itself, they make up around 80% of investors .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Nathalie Fau, Manuelle Franck, et al .: L'Asie du sud-est - Émergence d'une région, mutations des territoires . Armand Colin (Dunod Éditeur), Malakoff 2019, ISBN 978-2-200-62698-3 , pp. 35-40 .
  2. ^ A b c d Patricia Buckley Ebrey: The Cambridge Illustrated History of China . Ed .: Damian Thompson. 7th edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-66991-X , pp. 250 ff .
  3. ↑ a b c d Alain Bihr, translated by Ursel Schäfer: Why China did not invent capitalism . In: Barbara Bauer, Anna Lerch (Ed.): Le Monde diplomatique . No. 11/25 . TAZ / WOZ , November 2019, ISSN  1434-2561 , p. 3 (the cited article is an excerpt from Alain Bihr: Le Premier Âge du capitalisme (1415–1763) , Éditions Page 2 / Éditions Syllepse, Lausanne / Paris, 2019).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Yu-chien Kuan , Petra Häring-Kuan: The China Knigge - A manual for the Middle Kingdom . 7th edition. No. 16684 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-16684-8 , pp. 26, 31, 35, 39 .
  5. ↑ Kevin Alan Brook: The Jews of Khazaria . 3. Edition. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2018, ISBN 978-1-5381-0342-5 , pp. 204 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Michel Jan, Gérard Chaliand, Jean-Pierre Rageau, Bruno Jan, Catherine Petit: Atlas de l'Asie orientale - Histoire et stratégies . Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1997, ISBN 2-02-025488-3 , pp. 72 f .
  7. ↑ a b c d e Kai Vogelsang : History of China . 6th edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-15-010933-5 , pp. 431 f .
  8. ↑ a b c d e Christopher Alan Bayly , Tim Harper: Forgotten wars - The end of Britain's Asian Empire . 2nd Edition. Penguin Books, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-14-101738-9 , pp. XXV, 24 f .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g Rodolphe De Koninck: L'Asie du sud-est . 4th edition. Éditions Armand Colin, Malakoff 2019, ISBN 978-2-200-62658-7 , pp. 100-103 .
  10. ↑ Oskar Weggel : The Asians - social orders , economic systems, ways of thinking, beliefs, everyday life, styles of behavior . 2nd Edition. No. 1990 . Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-36029-1 , p. 85 f .
  11. ^ Edmund Terence Gomez, et al .: The State of Malaysia - Ethnicity, equity and reform . Routledge Curzon (Taylor and Francis Group), Abingdon-on-Thames, ISBN 0-415-33357-1 , pp. 164 (missing imprint in the quoted copy; published around 2004).
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Gérard Chaliand, Jean-Pierre Rageau, Chatherine Petit; traduction: AM Berrett: The Penguin Atlas of Diasporas . Penguin Books, London 1997, ISBN 0-670-85439-5 , pp. 125-142 .
  13. ↑ Jonathan Dimbleby: Russia - A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People . Ed .: Martin Redfern, Christopher Tinker. BBC Books (Random House), London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84607-540-7 , pp. 470-474, 492-496, 499 f., 507 f .
  14. ↑ a b c d Éric Chol, Gilles Fontaine: Il est midi à Pékin - Le monde à l'heure chinoise; (Chapter 2: Il est 11 heures à Tomsk en Sibérie occidentale - Ces pins sylvestes qu'on abat; Chapter 36: Il est 14 heures à Canberra, en Australie - WeChat s'invite dans la campagne électorale) . Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-213-71281-9 , pp. 25-29, 265-271 .
  15. ↑ a b c d e Urs Wolderlin: Australia is becoming more Chinese - With investments in farms, apartments and politicians, capital from China creates facts . In: Barbara Bauer, Dorothee d'Aprile (ed.): Le Monde diplomatique . No. 04/24 . TAZ / WOZ , April 2018, ISSN  1434-2561 , p. 11 .
  16. ↑ Xavier Paules: La République de Chine - Histoire générale de la Chine (1912-1949) . Ed .: Michel Desgranges, Alain Boureau, Damien Chaussende. Éditions Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-251-44945-6 , pp. 275 .
  17. ↑ a b Statistical Yearbook of the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission ( Memento of July 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=276743&c=London&d=13&e=13&g=325264&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1281194575ns359&enc=1&scksF=1 = false & nswid = 1280
  19. ^ A b c Marc Zitzmann: Beijing – Paris, without a return ticket - Chinese in France: a lot of entrepreneurship, little civic spirit . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 210 . Zurich September 10, 2012, p. 33 .
  20. ^ A b c Richard Evans: Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China . 2nd Edition. Penguin Books, London 1995, ISBN 0-14-013945-1 , pp. 14-24 .
  21. ↑ Qiaopi and Yinxin Correspondence and Remittance Documents from Overseas Chinese | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved August 28, 2017 .
  22. ^ The Ranking of Ethnic Chinese Population . Archived from the original on September 8, 2001. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
  23. ^ Central Intelligence Agency Library - The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency , accessed March 30, 2020 (2008 estimate).
  24. ↑ 禾木 尹丹丹 章 新 新 - He Mu, Yi Dandan, Zhang Xinxin: 东帝汶: 帝 力 关帝庙 - Eastimor: Guandi Temple in Dili. In: www.huaxia.com. August 14, 2015, accessed on March 28, 2020 (Chinese, estimate by the local chairman of the merchants' association of the Chinese community "Fu Xiaoqin" - 符 孝 勤 ).

(Source: http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendung/grundpolitik/757973/ )