The Chinese Diaspora

Hong Liu, Els van Dongen

LAST REVIEWED: 18 MAY 2015

LAST MODIFIED: 27 NOVEMBER 2013
DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199920082-0070

Introduction

The Chinese diaspora is an interdisciplinary research topic par excellence. Located at the intersection of the humanities and social
sciences, it encompasses disciplines as diverse as geography, sociology, history, anthropology, psychology, and political science. In
addition, scholarship on the topic is characterized by changing configurations and approaches that are reflected in terminological
debates. The term overseas Chinese is mostly associated with the first period of migration (the 1850s1950) after mass migration
from China began during the mid-19th century. During this period, the main destination for South Chinese emigrants was Southeast
Asia. Up to the end of World War II, the majority of them considered themselves huaqiao (Chinese sojourners or overseas Chinese),
who remained politically and culturally loyal to China. During the second period (19501980), new migration patterns emerged as
Chinese migrated from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia to North America, Australia, and western Europe. Chinese migrs
renounced Chinese citizenship and gradually became huaren (ethnic Chinese or Chinese overseas) who pledged allegiance to their
host countries. Finally, during the third phase (1980 onward), new migrants (xin yimin) from various locations in the PRC began to make
up a greater proportion of overall Chinese emigration. The term Chinese overseas is generally employed as a neutral term to refer to
the approximately 46 million ethnic Chinese who reside outside of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau in the early 21st
century. As a result of the growing impact of theories of globalization during the 1990s, however, the term Chinese diaspora also
became widespread. Since then, the study of the Chinese overseas in national contexts and of Chinese migration as an account of
departure, arrival, and settlement has been supplemented with an emphasis on mobility, networks, and flexible identities. Since the
topic of Chinese diaspora is interdisciplinary in nature, typified by changing approaches, and encompasses all aspects of the life of
ethnic Chinese dispersed over more than 150 countries, this bibliography combines a thematic with a geographical organization.
Viewing the Chinese overseas in the context of developments both in their places of residence and in China and using a
multidimensional perspective, this bibliography pays attention to main themes, such as the importance of different historical phases,
patterns of adaptation, and linkages and networks of the Chinese overseas. It gives special consideration to interdisciplinary and
geographical aspects, to comparative approaches, to transnational awareness, and to works that combine theoretical discourse and
empirical practice. Research for this article was supported by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (grant number M4081020).

General Overviews

For those new to the field, Wang 2000, written by the foremost historian in the field, offers a brief historical introduction to the Chinese
overseas experience and the main patterns and themes involved. Sinn 1998 is one example of a more traditional volume of conference
papers that has emerged from an ISSCO (International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas) conference and which the reader
may find useful for its treatment of some of the main themes, as well as for its broad coverage. Liu 2006 offers a birds-eye view of the
field of Chinese overseas studies and how it has evolved over a period of several decades. Kuhn 2008 provides a macro-overview of
Chinese emigration since the 17th century in relation to major turning points in both Chinese and world history, thereby paying attention
to different migration phases, adaptation patterns, and networks. Ong and Nonini 1997 is an important volume that breaks with the
traditional emphasis placed on Chinese culture, ethnicity, and nation in Chinese overseas studies and that employs ethnographic and
political economy approaches instead. Ma and Cartier 2003, edited by two geographers, brings geographical concepts of space, place,
transnational mobility, and place-related identity to the foreground in response to the dominance of economic and sociological
paradigms in migration research.

Kuhn, Philip A. Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
In this impressive volume that contains eight chapters, Kuhn discusses Chinese emigration in relation to maritime expansion, early
colonial empires, imperialism, revolution, and reform. He pays special attention to the various human ecologies of Southeast Asia, the
Americas and Australasia, and Europe. Contains glossary and index.

Liu, Hong, ed. The Chinese Overseas. 4 vols. London: Routledge, 2006.
This four-volume anthology, which includes a thirty-page introduction by the editor, presents the changing themes and genealogies of
the field, covering seven decades of the more representative works on international Chinese migration published up to 2005.
Particularly useful because it highlights the multidimensionality of the field.

Ma, Lawrence J. C., and Carolyn Cartier, eds. The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
The five parts of the volume discuss the following themes: historical and contemporary diasporas; Hong Kong and Taiwan as diasporic
homelands; ethnicity, identity, and diaspora as home; migration and settlements in North America; and transmigrants in Oceania.

Ong, Aihwa, and Donald M. Nonini, eds. Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. New
York: Routledge, 1997.
The result of a 1994 conference on overseas Chinese capitalism, Chinese transnationalism is conceived of in relation to the structures
of late capitalism. Based on ethnographic research in the Asian Pacific, aspects covered include early Chinese transnationalism; family,
guanxi, and space; the role of the nation-state; and transnational subjectivities.

Sinn, Elizabeth, ed. The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998.
A sample of essays presented at the 1994 ISSCO conference on the Chinese diaspora since World War II. Apart from traditional
themes such as identity, ethnicity, and emigrant hometowns (qiaoxiang), the volume also features papers on new destinations such as
European countries, Canada, and Australia, as well as comparative approaches.

Wang, Gungwu. The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2000.
Originally delivered as three Reischauer lectures at Harvard University, the book offers a long-term overview of the Chinese overseas
experience. It treats the basic migration patterns of traders, laborers, and economic and political migrants, and discusses main themes,
including identity, self-perception, and policies of the homeland and host societies.

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