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Article
The Chinese diaspora:
The current distribution
of the overseas Chinese
population
Dudley L Poston Jr and
Juyin Helen Wong
Abstract
In the present paper we draw on the extensive data resources of the ’Overseas Chinese
Affairs Council in Taiwan in an analysis of the overseas Chinese worldwide as of c. 2010.
We raise and endeavor to answer four basic questions: (1) How many overseas Chinese
are there currently in the world? (2) How are they distributed among the world’s
countries and regions? (3) What have been their patterns of population change in
past decades? (4) What characteristics of the receiving countries are related to their
numbers of overseas Chinese? We begin with a brief discussion of diasporas and pre-
sent some recent data on the larger of the non-Chinese diasporas to enable us to better
evaluate the significance and importance of the Chinese diaspora. We then review the
major patterns of previous Chinese emigrations to provide an overall perspective for
the presentation of our empirical data on overseas Chinese. This is followed by a
discussion of our data and its sources. We then present and analyze our current data
on overseas Chinese for the period c. 2010–2011 and answer our four questions.
Keywords
Overseas Chinese, diaspora, immigration, emigration
Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA
Corresponding author:
Dudley L Poston Jr, Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Email: d-poston@tamu.edu
Chinese Journal of Sociology
2016, Vol. 2(3) 348–373
!The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2057150X16655077
chs.sagepub.com
Introduction
Overseas Chinese are spread over the globe, residing in almost every country in the
world, albeit with a heavy concentration in Asia. A famous Chinese poem states
that ‘wherever the ocean waves touch, there are overseas Chinese’ (Mung, 1998;
Poston and Yu, 1990; Zhou, 2009).
An overseas Chinese person is defined here as a Chinese person who resides
outside the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan; we discuss this
definition in more detail later. It excludes tourists, visitors and short-term residents.
Around 2011, there were over 40.3 million Chinese residing in 148 countries of the
world. To repeat, this figure represents the number of Chinese people not living in
the People’s Republic of China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
We use the term ‘overseas Chinese’ in this article not because we believe that the
label represents a foreign presence by virtue of race but principally because of the
term’s continued and accepted use in the international arena (Fitzgerald, 1972;
Mung, 1998; Poston et al., 1994; von Brevern, 1988; Wang, 1991) and because
there is really no more convenient and shorter alternative phrase one can use to
refer to Chinese living outside China.
In this paper we raise and answer four basic questions: (1) How many overseas
Chinese are there currently in the world? (2) How are they distributed among the
world’s countries and regions? (3) What have been their patterns of population
change in past decades? (4) What characteristics of the receiving countries are
related to their numbers of overseas Chinese?
Prior to addressing these questions, we begin with a brief discussion of ‘dias-
pora,’ another term used for persons living outside their home country. We present
some recent data on the larger of the non-Chinese diasporas to enable us to better
evaluate the significance and importance of the Chinese diaspora. We then discuss
the major patterns of previous Chinese emigrations to provide an overall perspec-
tive for the later presentation of our empirical data on overseas Chinese. This is
followed by a discussion of our data and its sources. We then present and analyze
our data on overseas Chinese c. 2011 and address our four questions.
Diasporas
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2nd ed.) notes that the term ‘diaspora’
(from the Greek diaspor0, meaning a scattering or dispersion) refers to the
‘whole body of Jews living dispersed among the Gentiles after the
Captivity ...(or) to the body of Jewish Christians outside of Palestine’ (Oxford
English Dictionary, 2000, Volume IV: 613). Safran (1991) has written that the
term ‘diaspora’ may be traced to Hebrew and Yiddish (Hebrew, Galut ;
Yiddish, Golus), and that it referred early on only to the historical exile and dis-
persion of Jews from Judea and later from Israel. These statements confirm
Sheffer’s (2003) claim that until relatively recently most definitions of ‘diaspora’
were in terms solely of the Jewish dispersion (see also Brubaker, 2005). The
Poston and Wong 349
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has a similar definition, but also includes a
second and broader definition, namely, ‘the movement, migration, or scattering of
a people away from an established or ancestral homeland’ (Merriam-Webster
Online Dictionary, 2013).
Brubaker (2005) noted that in recent literature the term ‘diaspora’ has been
extended to refer to almost every nameable population that is dispersed in space.
He conducted a search of books published on the topic of diasporas since 1900, and
found ‘that nearly all (17 of 18) books published on diasporas between 1900 and
1910 addressed the Jewish case; as late as the 1960s, this remained true of 15 of 20
books sampled. In 2002, by contrast, the top 20 books sampled (of 253 published
that year) addressed 8 different cases; only two of the twenty addressed the Jewish
case’ (Brubaker, 2005: 14). These observations and data suggest that currently, the
term diaspora is used to refer to all dispersed populations, not just the Jewish
population.
There is an extensive debate in the literature on what peoples should be included
in a diaspora. Brubaker (2005) covers most of the issues, but see also Anderson
(1998), Sartori (1970), and Sheffer (1986, 2003). Should Country X’s diaspora refer
only to persons born in Country X but now living outside Country X? Or should it
refer to persons born in Country X and living outside that country providing some
economic, political and related support to Country X? Or should it refer more
broadly to persons who claim identification via birth or ancestry with Country
X? We use the third definition and refer to the diaspora of Country X as compris-
ing persons living outside Country X who claim identification with Country X
through birth or ancestry. Our definition does not require that the person be
born in Country X, nor does it require that he/she have citizenship in Country
X. We only require that the person be born in or claim ancestry from Country X.
We have gathered data from numerous sources to identify the diasporas with the
largest populations. In Table 1, we list the fifteen largest diasporas as of c. 2010. Of
all countries in the world, Germany has the largest diaspora, estimated at around
95 million people (Historical Boys’ Clothing, 2010; Moser, 2011). Ireland has the
second largest, at about 70 million people (Russell, 2012; Whittemore, 2013). China
is in 3rd place, followed by the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Russia and
India. Italy, Poland and the Ukraine share 9th place with an estimated 20 million
persons in their diasporas, respectively.
It is of particular interest to point out that with one of the smallest populations
in the world, Ireland, has the second largest diaspora. The combined populations in
2012 of the country of Ireland at 4.6 million and Northern Ireland at 1.8 million
equal just over 6.4 million Irish people living on the island of Ireland. Yet an
estimated 70 million people identify as Irish via birth or ancestry.
More than half of the Irish diaspora and more than four-fifths of the German
diaspora reside in the United States, a country comprised almost entirely of immi-
grants or descendants of immigrants. Less than two percent (1.7%) of the US
population identified themselves in the 2010 census as American Indians or as
Alaskan Natives (Norris et al., 2012), meaning that over 98 percent of
350 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. This fact led to the
phrase popularized by President John F. Kennedy in a posthumously published
book in which he called the United States a ‘nation of immigrants’ (Kennedy,
1964). Moreover, nearly all white Americans are descendants of Europeans, with
very few Americans born in Europe. Furthermore, all but a very small percentage
of white Americans identify a European country of ancestry, with Germany and
Ireland being the two most often cited (Hout and Goldstein, 1994: 64).
Our brief analysis of diasporas indicates that only two diasporas (German and
Irish) are appreciably larger than the Chinese diaspora. These two diasporas, though
much larger than the Chinese diaspora, are of a much more recent historical vintage.
That is, the German and Irish diasporas date from around the 18th century or
perhaps slightly earlier. In contrast, the Chinese diaspora, as we note below, has a
much longer history, dating back to the Qin Dynasty, more than 2000 years ago.
Although not the largest of the contemporary diasporas worldwide, the Chinese
diaspora is third among the top fifteen and is the largest diaspora from Asia.
Major patterns of prior emigration from China
We now discuss the major patterns of prior Chinese emigration. According to
Wang (1991), there have been four principal patterns over the past two centuries.
Table 1. The fifteen largest diasporas in the world, c. 2010.
Rank Diaspora
Population size
(thousands) Reference data
1 Germany 95,000 Historical Boys’ Clothing (2010), Moser (2011)
2 Ireland 70,000 Russell (2012)
3 China 40,300 This paper
4 United Kingdom 38,000 World Bank (2011a)
5 Mexico 35,000 OECD (2009), World Bank (2011a)
6 South Africa 30,600 Ratha and Plaza (2011)
7 Russia 28,500 Russian Diaspora (2007)
8 India 21,900 Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (2012)
9 (tie) Italy 20,000 Redizione (2012), World Bank (2011a)
9 (tie) Poland 20,000 Pieslak (2001), Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (Poland) (2012)
9 (tie) Ukraine 20,000 Ukrainian World Congress (2004)
12 Nigeria 17,000 Nigeria Formations (2012), Idowu (2013)
13 Lebanon 14,000 National Archive (2007)
14 Israel (Jewish) 13,500 DellaPergola (2011)
15 Philippines 9500 Commission on Filipinos Overseas (2010)
Poston and Wong 351
The first is the Huashang (Chinese trader) pattern; it is characterized by merchants
and traders and eventually their families going abroad to establish businesses in the
host countries. Typically comprising mainly males, after one or two generations
many of these merchants ‘settle down and bring up local families’ (Wang, 1991: 5).
The more prosperous their businesses, the more likely they are to maintain ‘their
Chinese characteristics, if not all their connections with China’ (Wang, 1991: 5).
Huashang migration has been the prominent model of Chinese emigration to many
Asian countries, particularly to Southeast Asia before 1850 (Fitzgerald, 1965;
Legge, 1886).
Lynn Pan’s (1990) Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese
Diaspora provides very interesting and fascinating stories, indeed mini-biographies,
of the emigrations of numerous Chinese families, many of whom followed the
Huashang pattern. For example, in 1841, a 24-year-old male from Tongan
County in Fujian Province left China and migrated to the Philippines accompanied
by his 6-year-old son, Giok Kuan Co. This was the second emigration for the
father (known in the Philippines as Martin Co), who as a young boy had emigrated
from Fujian to the Philippines with his father. After Martin had grown up and
saved some money, he returned to his village in China, married, and had children.
Giok Kuan Co, the above mentioned boy who accompanied Martin Co on the
emigration in 1841, was his second son. In the Philippines, this son was later
baptized by the Spaniards and named Jose, later becoming known as Jose
Cojuangco. Jose started as a carpenter in Manila, established a large business
specializing in sugar and rice, and also became a money lender. He accumulated
a great deal of land and wealth in the Philippines province of Tarlac. He married,
had children, and they married and had children, and this Chinese-Filipino family
grew and prospered. The great-granddaughter of Jose Cojuangco (Giok Kuan Co)
was Marı
´a Corazon Sumulong ‘Cory’ Cojuangco-Aquino, who was born in the
Philippines in 1935 and died in 2009. She served as the eleventh President of the
Philippines and was the first woman ever to hold that office. Often regarded as the
‘Mother of Philippine Democracy,’ she was also the first female ever to serve as a
president in all of Asia. Her ancestry may be traced to her great grandfather, who
immigrated to the Philippines as a young boy in 1841 following the Huashang
pattern of Chinese emigration.
The Huashang pattern has predominated throughout history. The first recorded
Chinese emigration followed the Huashang pattern (Zhu, 1991), occurred during
the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), and was to either Japan or the Philippines.
Whereas the other three patterns we discuss in the following paragraphs occurred
in particular time periods, the Huashang pattern has occurred throughout history
and continues to this very day (Poston et al., 1994; Redding, 1990; Wang, 1991).
The second pattern of Chinese emigration Wang (1991) describes is the Huagong
(Chinese coolie) pattern, which occurred from the 1840s through the 1920s, when
Chinese migrated to North America and Australia. This migration involved ‘coolie
trade’ in low-level occupations concentrated in gold mining and railway building
(Campbell, 1923; Kung, 1962; McKenzie, 1925; Mei, 1979; Stewart, 1951). Pan
352 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
(1990: 61) has written that the Chinese coolie migrants ‘went to work in virgin
territory across the world ...[and] most lived by the sweat of their brow.’ It was the
coolie trade which ‘took the bulk of the Chinese to the New World, with shipload
after shipload reaching Cuba, Peru and ...British Guiana in the years between the
1840s and 1870s’ (Pan, 1990: 67). In the late 1870s and 1880s, many Chinese went
to Hawaii and to California. Pan (1990: 94) estimates that ‘by 1870, one out of
every four workers in California was Chinese.’
Poston and Luo (2007: 328) have written about Huagong migration, noting that
‘during the rapid growth period of the frontier economy in the United States
between 1850 and 1880, thousands of Chinese immigrated, mainly to the western
United States, under the indenture system as miners, railroad workers, and agri-
cultural laborers. They also came as cooks, laundrymen, and in other jobs that
American workers did not want. Later, they were instrumental in building the
western part of the trans-continental railroad.’ Chinese emigrants who fit the
Huagong pattern were usually men of peasant origin, and their migrations were
often temporary because a ‘large proportion of the contract laborers returned to
China after their contract came to an end’ (Wang, 1991: 6).
The third of Wang’s patterns of Chinese emigration is the Huaqiao (Chinese
sojourner) pattern, which mainly describes the emigration of well-educated profes-
sionals. This pattern was dominant for several decades after the fall of the Qing
Dynasty in 1911 and was strongly tied to feelings of nationalism. Education was
largely recognized as a deep commitment to promoting Chinese culture and
national salvation among the overseas Chinese. Fitzgerald has written that the
common belief then was that ‘without Chinese education, there can be no overseas
Chinese’ (Fitzgerald, 1972: 41). Beginning in the 1920s, many teachers went to the
countries of Southeast Asia to instruct the children of Chinese immigrants (Pan,
1990: 206), and this trend continued until the 1950s (Poston and Luo, 2007).
The fourth pattern Wang describes is the Huayi (Chinese descent) pattern,
which is a more recent phenomenon, prevalent since the 1950s. It involves per-
sons of Chinese descent, Huayi, in one foreign country migrating to or remi-
grating to another foreign country. A good example would be the Chinese in
Southeast Asia, many of whom have migrated to Western Europe in recent
decades, ‘especially since the 1950s when some Southeast Asian nations made
those of Chinese descent feel unwanted’ (Wang, 1991: 9). The Chinese are dis-
proportionately overrepresented in the commercial classes of nearly every
Southeast Asian country, and in some of these countries they occupy major
roles in the national economies (Pan, 1990: 226). Their economic successes
are all the more remarkable when one remembers that ‘the Chinese in
Southeast Asia have always been disliked for having profited from the indigen-
ous reluctance to make money’ (Pan, 1990: 226). Thus, when Thailand, and
then the Philippines, followed by Indonesia and later Malaysia, began to expli-
citly lock the Chinese out of various sectors of their economies so as to promote
the prosperity of the indigenous peoples, many Chinese simply left these coun-
tries and moved elsewhere.
Poston and Wong 353
Of the four major patterns, the Huashang is the most elementary and has been
occurring for the longest period of time. Wang has speculated that with few
exceptions, future Chinese migrations ‘will be based on the Huashang pattern
and supplemented by the new Huayi pattern, with some features of the Huaqiao
pattern surviving here and there’ (Wang, 1991: 12). We turn now to a brief review
of our earlier demographic analyses of the overseas Chinese.
Prior analyses
Our previous studies of the overseas Chinese (Huang et al., 1998; Poston, 2003;
Poston et al., 1994; Poston and Yu, 1990; Yu and Poston, 1989) have examined
their distribution in the 1980s and 1990s in all the countries of the world. In our
prior research, as in the present study, we defined the overseas Chinese very
broadly as all Chinese persons living outside the Chinese mainland and Taiwan,
and after 1997–1999, outside Hong Kong and Macau. We have found in our cur-
rent and earlier research that the definitions of overseas Chinese vary from country
to country and from scholar to scholar. No definition is unfailingly clear and
concise because the decision on whether or not a person or a group is overseas
Chinese is often made by governments, both Chinese and foreign, by the larger
societies alongside and within which the Chinese settlers live, or by individual
scholars themselves (Poston et al., 1994; Williams, 1966). Thus, our definition
here in this paper and in our earlier research includes all persons with any
Chinese ancestors not living in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and
Taiwan.
The overseas Chinese population of the world numbered between 26.8 and 27.5
million persons in the early 1980s, and 36.8 million in early 1990s. In 1983, the
overseas Chinese population was about three times its number in 1948, and by 1990
it was four times its 1948 count. The 1948–1983 average annual growth rate
exceeded 3 percent, and the average annual growth rate from 1983 to the early
1990s was 2.7 percent. From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, among the contin-
ents, Europe and the Americas had relatively high growth rates, Africa intermedi-
ate growth rates, and Asia and Oceania low growth rates. The individual countries
also had different rates of overseas Chinese population change. Between 1955 and
1982, and between the early 1980s and the early 1990s, the Western European
countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and some of the
Asian countries had higher than average annual growth rates.
Although overseas Chinese in the early 1980s lived in virtually all parts of the
world, their distribution was uneven; from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, they
comprised a small minority in most countries. More than 90 percent lived in Asia in
the early 1980s, and almost 88 percent lived in Asia in the early 1990s. In both
periods, over 80 percent of the overseas Chinese residing outside Asia lived in more
developed countries. The data we report later in this paper will take us forward
another 20 years to c. 2010. In the next section, we will discuss the data on overseas
Chinese that we use in this paper.
354 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
Data
In Table 2, we report for the years 2001 and 2011 the numbers of Chinese residing in
most of the countries of the world outside the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong,
Macau and Taiwan (columns g and c, respectively, show the numbers of overseas
Chinese in c. 2001 and c. 2011). The data for 2011 are mainly from the 2011 Overseas
Chinese Economy Year Book published in 2012 in Taipei, Taiwan by the Overseas
Chinese Affairs Council (2012). Data were not available for some countries in the
published 2011 Year Book; these were typically countries with relatively small total
populations. These countries’ overseas Chinese data were provided to us directly by
the Chief Data Officer of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Council in Taipei, Ms. Jiang
Jia Hui. In the case of a few other countries (e.g. North Korea), c. 2011 data on the
overseas Chinese were obtained from other sources. The sources of all the data for all
the countries for c. 2011 are listed in column (d) of Table 2.
In Table 2, we also report data for c. 2001, on the numbers of overseas Chinese
in various countries. Virtually all the 2001 data were provided to us directly by Ms.
Hui (see above). This was the case because between 2000 and 2002 the Overseas
Chinese Economy Year Books only provided data on the overseas Chinese popu-
lations in thirteen countries, namely, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore,
Japan, United States, Canada, France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands,
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. There were no Economy Year Books
published between 2003 and 2006. The Statistical Yearbook of the Overseas
Compatriot published in Taipei by the Overseas Community Affairs Council
(2013) also provides limited data on the overseas Chinese.
As noted, most of the data in this paper were provided by the Overseas Chinese
Affairs Council in Taiwan. These data are collected from official representatives at
overseas Taiwanese offices, as well as trade offices (e. g. the ‘Taipei Economic and
Cultural Offices’ and ‘World Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce’) located in about
74 countries. These offices perform a wide variety of services in over 263 areas in
the world. Every year, they collect data on the numbers of Chinese residing in their
respective countries and most other countries without representative offices.
To illustrate, let us consider the data-gathering operations in the office in India.
In addition to gathering data on the Chinese in India, the representatives at the
‘Taipei Economic Center’ in India are also responsible for collecting the overseas
Chinese data for the countries of Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and
Bangladesh (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2011).
The primary sources of data are usually the national censuses of the countries,
and the secondary sources include several statistical and data publications from the
United Nations and the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The population size and distribution of the overseas Chinese
In Table 2, we present the numbers of overseas Chinese for c. 2011 and c. 2001 for
every country with at least 5000 overseas Chinese in 2011. Countries with fewer
Poston and Wong 355
Table 2. Distribution of the overseas Chinese in the world: c. 2001 and c. 2011.
Continent and
country or area
Year
(c. 2011) (a)
Total population
(millions) (1) (b)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands) (2) (c)
Source
(d)
Overseas
Chinese
per 10,000 total
population
(e) ¼10 (c)/(b)
Year
(c. 2001) (f)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands)
(4) (g)
Average annual
growth rate:
2000s
(percentage)
(5) (h)
Asia (N¼35) 29,597.22 26,832.89
Indonesia 2011 248.00 8010.72 3,4 323.01 2001 7163.32 1.12
Thailand 2011 64.26 7512.60 3,4 1169.06 2001 6861.82 0.91
Malaysia 2011 28.73 6540.80 3,4 2266.47 2001 5749.00 1.30
Singapore 2011 5.26 2808.30 3,4 5344.05 2001 2565.30 0.91
Philippines 2011 95.83 1243.16 3,4 129.72 2001 1073.65 1.48
Myanmar 2011 62.42 1053.75 3,4 168.82 2001 1006.00 0.46
Vietnam 2011 89.32 992.60 3,4 111.13 2001 1216.34 2.01
Japan 2011 127.92 674.87 3,4 52.76 2001 335.58 7.24
Laos 2011 6.56 176.49 3,4 269.20 2001 168.51 0.46
Cambodia 2011 14.43 147.02 3,4 101.87 2001 313.96 7.31
India 2011 1206.92 129.74 3,4 1.07 2001 177.72 3.10
United Arab Emirates 2011 5.38 109.50 3,4 203.73 2001 25.13 15.86
Brunei 2011 0.41 51.00 3,4 1231.88 2001 40.00 2.46
Turkey 2011 72.15 41.20 3,4 5.71 2001 50.10 1.94
Korea (South) 2011 48.39 24.06 3,4 4.97 2001 20.60 1.57
Saudi Arabia 2011 28.17 23.00 3,4 8.17 2001 26.58 1.44
Nepal 2011 28.46 10.38 3,4 3.65 2001 0.20 48.42
Korea (North) 2009 24.45 10.00 6 4.09 2003 10.00 –
Israel 2011 7.59 8.07 3,4 10.62 2001 0.04 70.43
East Timor
(Timor-Leste)
2011 1.15 7.56 4 65.49 2001 12.80 5.13
(continued)
356 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
Table 2. Continued
Continent and
country or area
Year
(c. 2011) (a)
Total population
(millions) (1) (b)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands) (2) (c)
Source
(d)
Overseas
Chinese
per 10,000 total
population
(e) ¼10 (c)/(b)
Year
(c. 2001) (f)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands)
(4) (g)
Average annual
growth rate:
2000s
(percentage)
(5) (h)
Mongolia 2011 2.80 6.67 4 23.81 2005 0.00 –
Others (N¼14)
7, 8
557.51
9
15.76 3,4 0.28 16.25
Americas (N¼40) 7503.38 6124.31
United States 2011 313.89 4160.43 3,4 132.54 2001 3014.00 3.28
Canada 2011 34.38 1511.22 3,4 439.51 2001 1159.10 2.69
Peru 2011 30.01 989.77 3,4 329.82 2001 1300.00 2.69
Brazil 2011 194.93 252.25 3,4 12.94 2001 143.00 5.84
Panama 2011 3.59 135.96 3,4 378.71 2001 130.00 0.45
Argentina 2011 40.90 85.48 3,4 20.90 2001 40.00 7.89
Venezuela 2011 29.77 78.36 3,4 26.32 2001 65.00 1.89
Mexico 2011 109.71 60.00 3,4 5.47 2001 20.50 11.34
Costa Rica 2011 4.72 43.70 3,4 92.67 2001 47.17 0.76
Ecuador 2011 15.01 26.80 3,4 17.86 2001 36.00 2.91
Jamaica 2011 2.74 23.11 3,4 84.46 2001 22.50 0.27
Dominican Republic 2011 10.06 19.08 3,4 18.98 2001 16.35 1.56
Guatemala 2011 14.71 16.00 3,4 10.88 2001 17.32 0.79
Chile 2011 17.40 14.57 3,4 8.38 2001 3.72 14.63
Surinam 2011 0.53 13.00 4 245.75 2001 40.00 10.63
Guyana 2011 0.76 11.56 4 152.92 2001 6.50 5.93
Belize 2011 0.34 10.00 3,4 294.99 2001 7.50 2.92
Trinidad and Tobago 2011 1.35 9.10 4 67.57 2001 9.00 0.11
Cuba 2011 11.25 5.89 3,4 5.23 2001 6.00 0.19
(continued)
Poston and Wong 357
Table 2. Continued
Continent and
country or area
Year
(c. 2011) (a)
Total population
(millions) (1) (b)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands) (2) (c)
Source
(d)
Overseas
Chinese
per 10,000 total
population
(e) ¼10 (c)/(b)
Year
(c. 2001) (f)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands)
(4) (g)
Average annual
growth rate:
2000s
(percentage)
(5) (h)
French Guiana 2011 0.24 5.51 4 232.57 2001 7.50 3.03
Netherlands Antilles 2006 0.20 5.50 4 270.94 2001 5.50 –
Paraguay 2011 6.53 5.06 4 7.75 2001 6.78 2.88
Others (N¼18)
10, 11
91.22
12, 13
21.05 3,4 2.31 20.88
Europe (N¼29) 2016.41 1970.59
Russia 2011 142.41 447.20 3,4 31.40 2001 998.00 7.71
France 2011 63.09 441.75 3,4 70.02 2001 226.50 6.91
United Kingdom 2011 62.64 401.02 3,4 64.02 2001 271.04 4.00
Italy 2011 60.62 201.74 3,4 33.28 2001 64.50 12.08
Spain 2011 46.14 140.62 3,4 30.47 2001 30.90 16.36
Netherlands 2011 16.69 111.45 3,4 66.78 2001 135.00 1.90
Germany 2011 81.44 91.51 3,4 11.24 2001 102.50 1.13
Sweden 2011 9.45 27.43 3,4 29.03 2001 13.19 7.60
Austria 2011 8.42 20.00 3,4 23.76 2001 40.00 6.70
Ireland 2011 4.58 17.91 3,4 39.09 2001 3.22 18.72
Portugal 2011 10.66 14.46 3,4 13.57 2001 2.73 18.13
Norway 2011 4.96 14.44 3,4 29.10 2001 5.51 10.12
Hungary 2011 9.99 12.65 3,4 12.67 2001 15.16 1.79
Demark 2011 5.54 12.07 3,4 21.79 2001 8.08 4.10
Switzerland 2011 7.84 10.83 3,4 13.82 2001 13.95 2.50
Belgium 2011 10.95 9.01 3,4 8.22 2001 24.80 9.63
Greece 2011 11.19 7.47 3,4 6.68 2001 5.50 3.11
(continued)
358 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
Table 2. Continued
Continent and
country or area
Year
(c. 2011) (a)
Total population
(millions) (1) (b)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands) (2) (c)
Source
(d)
Overseas
Chinese
per 10,000 total
population
(e) ¼10 (c)/(b)
Year
(c. 2001) (f)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands)
(4) (g)
Average annual
growth rate:
2000s
(percentage)
(5) (h)
Romania 2011 21.41 7.05 3,4 3.29 2005 0.00 –
Ukraine 2011 45.55 6.56 3,4 1.44 – – –
Finland 2011 5.40 6.14 3,4 11.37 2001 2.00 11.87
Bulgaria 2011 7.43 5.00 3,4 6.73 – – –
Others (N¼8)
14, 15
58.77 10.09 1.72 8.02
Oceania (N¼18) 962.49 745.52
Australia
16
2011 22.50 754.87 3,4 335.44 2001 556.55 3.09
New Zealand 2011 4.42 149.00 3,4 337.41 2001 140.00 0.62
French Polynesia 2011 0.27 20.26 3,4 739.42 2001 20.00 0.13
Papua-New Guinea 2011 6.66 15.83 3,4 23.76 2001 9.07 5.73
Fiji 2011 0.89 5.55 3,4 62.04 2001 4.94 1.17
Guam 2006 0.18 5.18 4 284.62 2001 5.18 0.00
Others (N¼12)
17
1.42
18
11.81 83.03 9.78
Africa (N¼27) 248.89 137.22
South Africa 2011 50.59 110.22 3,4 21.79 2001 45.00 9.37
Mauritius 2011 1.29 30.00 3,4 232.74 2001 30.29 0.10
(continued)
Poston and Wong 359
Table 2. Continued
Continent and
country or area
Year
(c. 2011) (a)
Total population
(millions) (1) (b)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands) (2) (c)
Source
(d)
Overseas
Chinese
per 10,000 total
population
(e) ¼10 (c)/(b)
Year
(c. 2001) (f)
Number of
overseas
Chinese
(thousands)
(4) (g)
Average annual
growth rate:
2000s
(percentage)
(5) (h)
La Re
´union 2011 0.83 28.00 3,4 338.57 2001 25.00 1.14
Nigeria 2011 160.34 25.42 3,4 1.59 2001 4.14 19.90
Malagasy (Madagascar) 2011 21.85 18.00 3,4 8.24 2001 28.00 4.32
Zimbabwe 2011 12.75 6.10 4 4.78 2001 0.20 40.75
Gabon 2011 1.53 5.64 4 36.77 2001 0.10 49.67
Kenya 2011 0.04 5.13 4 1233.84 2001 0.10 48.27
Others (N¼19)
19, 20
323.93 20.37 0.63 4.39
World total (N¼148) 40,328.39 3.91 35,810.54
Sources (as cited in the column headings and in col. D):
1
Total population estimates for the countries (2011) are provided by the United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs Population Division, ‘World
Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, Highlights and Advance Tables.’ (Working Paper No. ESA/P/WP.220) and other sources (see #9, 12, 13 & 18), if there were
no estimates reported by the ‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’ ( Huaqiao Jingji Nianjian).
2
Countries with more than 5000 overseas Chinese are reported individually. Countries with less than 5000 overseas Chinese are grouped into the ‘Other’ category.
3
‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’, Taiwan ( Huaqiao Jingji Nianjian, 2011).
4
Data were provided to us directly by Jiang JiaHui, Chief Data Officer, ‘Overseas Chinese Affairs Council’, Taiwan.
5
The rates are exponential rates (see Discussion in the text).
6
Chosun (2013) (estimates of North Korea 2011 total population, 10 October 2009).
7
The 14 other Asian countries are: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Sikkim, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syrian, Bahrain and Qatar.
8
Hong Kong and Macau became a part of China after 1997 and 1999, respectively. The number of overseas Chinese in these two areas as well as Ryukyu and Cyprus
were not reported by the ‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’ or recorded by the ‘Overseas Chinese Affairs Council’ (c. 2000 and c. 2010).
9
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Population Density, Provisional Population Totals: Sikkim (2011 total population; http://censu-
sindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/prov_data_products_sikkim.html).
10
The other American countries or territories are: Columbia, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bahamas, Haiti, Uruguay, Barbados, Bolivia, St Lucia, St Christopher
and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St Martin Island, Martinique, Aruba, Dominica and Micronesia.
360 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
11
The number of overseas Chinese in the British Virgin Islands was not reported by the ‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’ or recorded by
the ‘Overseas Chinese Affairs Council’ (c. 2000 and c. 2010).
12
Federated States of Micronesia 2010 Census Preliminary Population Counts (Pohnpei 2011 total population), Office of Statistics (2010).
13
The World Bank (2011b) (Saint Martin 2011 total population), Data Bank.
14
The 8 other European countries are: Czech Republic, Poland, Luxembourg, Iceland, Latvia, Macedonia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
15
The number of overseas Chinese in Malta was not reported by the ‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’ or recorded by the ‘Overseas
Chinese Affairs Council’ (c. 2000 and c. 2010).
16
Australia includes Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Island, and Norfolk Island.
17
The 12 other Oceania countries or territories are: Nauru, Vanuatu, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Tuvalu, American Samoa,
Guam and Saipan.
18
Population of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) by Village (Saipan 2011 total population): 2010 with 2007 Election Districts. CNMI
Department of Commerce (2010).
19
The 19 other African countries are Lesotho, Ghana, Sa
˜o Tome
´and Prı
´ncipe, Egypt, Swaziland, Malawi, Uganda, Togo, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles, Angola,
Ivory Coast, Libya, Chad, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Namibia, and Gambia.
20
The number of overseas Chinese in Congo, Liberia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Niger, Cameroon, and Zaire were not reported by
the ‘Overseas Chinese Economy Year Book Editorial Committee’ or recorded by the ‘Overseas Chinese Affairs Council’ (c. 2000 and c. 2010).
Poston and Wong 361
than 5000 overseas Chinese are grouped by continent into a residual category
(‘others’) and are identified by name in the notes for Table 2.
We show in Table 2 that there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese in 148
countries around 2011, and over 35.8 million in 143 countries around 2001, repre-
senting an increase of almost 5 million in the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, or an
annual rate of growth of around 1.2 percent. In our earlier research we estimated
average annual growth rates of 2.7 percent for the 1990s and 2.5 percent for the
1980s (Poston et al., 1994; Poston and Yu, 1990). If the current annual growth rate of
1.2 percent for the overseas Chinese worldwide were to remain unchanged, the
number of overseas Chinese would double to about 80 million in another 58 years.
Of the approximately 40.3 million overseas Chinese in 148 countries in 2011,
about 29.6 million, or 73.3 percent, were in 35 Asian countries. The percentage of
overseas Chinese residing in Asian countries was 74.9 in 2001 (see the top row of
Table 2). In c. 2011, 18.6 percent of the overseas Chinese lived in 40 countries of the
Americas, as compared to 17.1 percent in c. 2001. With respect to the European
countries, they contained 5.0 percent in 2011 and 5.5 percent in 2001. In 2011, the
countries of Oceania contained 2.4 percent of the overseas Chinese, versus 2.1
percent in 2001. African countries in 2011 had just 0.6 percent of the overseas
Chinese, compared to 0.4 percent in 2001.
Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of the 40.3 million overseas Chinese resided in
four countries in 2011 (see Figure 1): there were 8.0 million Chinese in Indonesia
Figure 1. Ten countries with the largest overseas Chinese population and percentage of world
total of overseas Chinese, c. 2010.
362 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
(19.9 percent of the total overseas Chinese population), 7.5 million (18.6 percent) in
Thailand, 6.5 million (16.2 percent) in Malaysia, and 4.2 million (10.3 percent) in
the United States. Three of the four countries with the largest numbers of overseas
Chinese are in Asia. In addition to these three Asian countries, the 10 countries
with the largest overseas Chinese populations include four more Asian countries,
namely, Singapore, the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam, and three countries in
the Americas, namely, the United States, Canada, and Peru. These 10 countries
contained 86.3 percent of the total overseas Chinese population in 2011. The
remaining 13.7 percent, a little more than 5.5 million Chinese, resided in 138
other countries.
Among these 138 remaining countries in 2011, sixteen each have at least 100,000
Chinese residents: 754,900 in Australia; 675,900 in Japan; 447,200 in Russia;
441,800 in France; 401,000 in the United Kingdom; 252,300 in Brazil; 201,700 in
Italy; 176,500 in Laos; 149,000 in New Zealand; 147,000 in Cambodia; 136,000 in
Panama; 130,000 in India; 110,000 in the United Arab Emirates; 140,600 in Spain;
111,500 in the Netherlands; and 110,200 in South Africa (see Table 2).
In only one country, Singapore, do the Chinese comprise the majority popula-
tion; Figure 2 presents the percentage of the total population that is overseas
Figure 2. Overseas Chinese as a percentage of a country’s total population: 12 countries, c.
2010.
Poston and Wong 363
Chinese for those 12 countries with the largest percentages. More than 53 percent
of the Singapore population is Chinese, followed by the populations of Malaysia at
23 percent, Kenya and Brunei at 12 percent each, and Thailand at just under 12
percent. In the 136 host countries not shown in Figure 2, overseas Chinese repre-
sent less than 3.2 percent of their total populations.
Changes between 2001 and 2011 in the sizes of overseas
Chinese populations
In the top panel of Table 3, we present data on the size of the overseas Chinese
population by continent for various time periods through c. 2011. The bottom
panel of Table 3 presents average annual growth rates for various intervals from
1948–1952 to the 2000s. We calculated the growth rates using an exponential rate
of change based on continuous compounding, the preferred method when assum-
ing constant rates of change (Rowland, 2003: 53). The average annual growth rates
reported for the continents and for the world for the 2000s have been weighted by
the size of the overseas Chinese population c. 2001.
We see that the size of the overseas Chinese population has increased from 8.7
million in 1948 to over 40.3 million in 2011. As always, the largest numbers of
overseas Chinese are in Asia.
In the world as a whole, the highest rate of overall population growth of
overseas Chinese occurred during the 1948–1952 period, which was right before
and after the birth of the People’s Republic of China. The size of the overseas
Chinese population increased from 8.7 million in 1948 to 12.5 million in 1952,
an annual rate of increase of 9.1 percent. A large portion of this increase was
attributable to emigration from China right before and after October 1, 1949
when the People’s Republic of China was formally founded. The rate then
dropped to 2.6 percent for the period 1952–1960, and was even lower for the
next two time periods. In the next period, the decade of the 1980s, the rate
increased to 2.7 percent. Some of this increase from 1948–1952 was also due to
fertility, but the fertility of overseas Chinese people is low; the bulk of the
increase was due to emigration from China.
The decade of the 1990s shows a decline of 0.3 percent in the size of the overseas
Chinese population worldwide; the number of overseas Chinese dropped from
almost 36.8 million in 1990 to 35.8 million in c. 2001. This was due almost entirely
to a change in the definition of China that occurred in the late 1990s. That is,
Chinese people living in Hong Kong and Macau prior to the late 1990s were con-
sidered overseas Chinese. In 1997 and 1999, respectively, Hong Kong and Macau
were returned to China, and then officially became parts of China. Thus, persons
residing in Hong Kong after 1997 and in Macau after 1999 were no longer defined
as overseas Chinese. In 1990, the population of Hong Kong was 5.9 million and
that of Macau was around 400,000. In the count of the overseas Chinese in 2001
these 6.3 million persons were no longer included, resulting in a negative rate of
change for the 1990–2000 period; this effect of dropping Hong Kong and Macau
364 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
Table 3. Numbers of overseas Chinese (a) and their annual growth rates (b) in the world and by continent, for various time periods between
1948 and c. 2011.
(a) Continent 1948 1952 1960 1970 C. 1980 C. 1990 C. 2001 C. 2011
Asia 8379.7 12,228.5 14,880.1 18,342.6 24,764.0 32,287.8 26,832.9 29,597.2
Americas 209.0 203.9 406.6 711.2 1333.0 3226.6 6124.3 7503.4
Europe 53.8 11.5 15.8 112.1 622.0 769.5 1970.6 2016.4
Oceania 63.8 60.9 42.2 68.5 176.4 373.9 745.5 962.5
Africa 14.9 31.3 40.6 59.4 76.9 108.0 137.2 248.9
World 8721.2 12,536.2 15,385.2 19,293.8 26,972.4 36,765.8 35,810.5 40,328.4
(b)
1948—1952 1952—1960 1960—1970 1970—1980 1980s 1990s 2000s
Asia 9.4 2.5 2.1 2.0 2.4 -1.8 1.0
Americas —0.6 8.6 5.6 7.8 8.0 6.6 2.1
Europe —38.6 4.0 19.6 15.4 3.2 9.9 0.2
Oceania —1.2 —4.6 4.8 4.3 8.5 7.1 2.6
Africa 18.6 3.3 3.8 2.3 2.1 2.4 6.1
World 9.1 2.6 2.3 2.5 2.7 -0.3 1.2
Sources: Numbers from 1948 to 1980 are taken from Poston and Yu (1990); numbers for c. 1990 are taken from Poston et al. (1994); other data are from Table 2; all
rates are computed using exponential rates of increase.
Poston and Wong 365
residents from the count of overseas Chinese is seen more dramatically in the
negative rate of change for the 1990s for Asia (1.8 percent).
In the most recent period, from c. 2001 to c. 2011, the number of overseas
Chinese has increased from 35.8 to 40.3 million, an annual rate of increase of
1.2 percent. We noted earlier that if this rate continues unchanged, the number
of overseas Chinese will double to over 80 million in another 58 years. Some of this
increase was due to natural change.
With regard to variation in the growth patterns of the overseas Chinese by
continent, from the late 1940s to the early 1950s the Chinese population increased
in Asia and Africa and declined somewhat in Europe, Oceania and the Americas.
But since the 1960s, the numbers have increased on every continent in every period
(except, as already mentioned, Asia in the 1990s, which was an artifact of the
changing geography of the country of China). The European Chinese population
had a negative rate of increase between the late 1940s and the early 1950s (38.6
percent), but then a very rapid increase in the 1960s (19.6 percent) and 1970s (15.4
percent). In the 1980s, the European population of overseas Chinese experienced a
moderate increase of 3.2 percent, and then a greater increase of 9.9 percent in the
1990s.
In the 2000s, the numbers of overseas Chinese have increased on all the world’s
continents. By far the largest percentage increase was in Africa (6.1 percent). This
was due mainly to the tremendous expansion by China in the past decade or so of
its economic and political ties with African countries. China is now Africa’s largest
trading partner, having edged out the United States in 2010. China’s trade with
Africa reached $114 billion in 2010, up from $10 billion in 2000 and $1 billion in
1980. In 2012 it reached $200 billion. In 2010 Chinese firms accounted for 40
percent of all corporate contracts signed in African countries, compared to 2 per-
cent for US firms (French, 2014; Wonacott, 2011). The Chinese in Africa these days
‘have rapidly penetrated every conceivable walk of life: Farmers, entrepreneurs
building small and medium-sized factories, and practitioners of the full range of
trades, doctors, teachers, smugglers, prostitutes’ (French, 2014: 5).
In 2011 there were less than 250,000 overseas Chinese in Africa, the smallest
number in all continents (Table 3). But if the annual population growth rate of
Chinese in Africa of 6.1 percent remains unchanged, the numbers will double
every 11 years, to 500,000 in 2022 and to 1,000,000 in 2033. The number of
Chinese in Africa will never reach the level of Chinese in Asia, but it is in
Africa where the greatest relative increases will likely occur over the next few
decades.
Characteristics of the host countries
Finally, we consider whether there are any noticeable regularities with respect to
the locations of the overseas Chinese. For instance, are more overseas Chinese
found in richer or in poorer countries? Are more found in urban or in rural
countries? Are Chinese more prevalent in large or in small countries? Also, does
366 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
the number of overseas Chinese in a country decline with increasing distance from
China?
Ecological theories of migration and settlement patterns (Hawley, 1950; Poston
and Frisbie, 2005) suggest that there should be more overseas Chinese in richer
countries, in urban countries, and in large countries (both in terms of population
size and geographic area). Furthermore, the classic distance–decay theory of migra-
tion (Ravenstein, 1885; Zipf, 1946) would suggest that the farther a country is from
China, the smaller the population of overseas Chinese should be in that country.
We measured the size of the overseas Chinese population using the absolute
population figures in Table 2, column e. We opted to use the absolute population
size of overseas Chinese, rather than their relative population size because a relative
number tends to minimize the presence of overseas Chinese in countries with large
overall populations and exaggerates their presence in small countries. For example,
Indonesia is the country with the largest number of overseas Chinese, over 8
million, but the Chinese only comprise just over 3 percent of Indonesia’s overall
population. Conversely, Brunei has only 51,000 overseas Chinese but they com-
prise over 12 percent of Brunei’s population. Indonesia’s overseas Chinese popu-
lation has much greater worldwide and national demographic, economic and
political impacts with regard to Chinese activities, and the in-migration of
Chinese to Indonesia, than that of Brunei’s overseas Chinese population. Yet the
relative size of the overseas Chinese population in Brunei is four times that in
Indonesia.
In Table 4 we report zero-order correlations among the host countries between
the logged population size of their overseas Chinese population and several vari-
ables reflecting the ecological characteristics mentioned earlier: their per capita
gross national product (GNP); their percentage of urban population; their popu-
lation density per square kilometer; their size in terms of both logged population
size and geographic area in square kilometers; and their distance in kilometers from
Guangzhou (Canton), the capital city of Guangdong Province, the major province
from which Chinese emigration historically has been initiated (Kwong, 1987; Pan,
1990; Redding, 1990).
The correlations in the first column of Table 4 refer to all 148 host countries; the
correlations in the second column pertain to those 77 host countries with overseas
Chinese populations of over 5000.
Among all 148 host countries, the correlations in Table 4 show a positive asso-
ciation between the logged values of the size of the overseas Chinese population
and the logged values of the host country’s total population and its geographic
area; the larger the population and geographic area of a country, the larger the
number of overseas Chinese in the country. And the farther the country is from
Guangzhou, the smaller its number of overseas Chinese. We found no statistically
significant correlation between the number of overseas Chinese and either percent-
age urban or population density.
Turning next to the relationships among those 77 receiving countries with at
least 5000 overseas Chinese, we find the same results regarding the correlations
Poston and Wong 367
between the number of overseas Chinese and the size of the host country (both
population and geographic area) and the distance of the country from
Guangzhou. However, there are two differences in the correlations for the 77 coun-
tries compared to those for all 148 countries. First, we find no significant association
between the number of overseas Chinese and the country’s GNP, a different situ-
ation from the statistically significant positive correlation we found among all 148
countries. Overseas Chinese were found to be more numerous in the richer countries
when we focused on all 148 countries. However, when we restrict the focus only to
those 77 countries with at least 5000 overseas Chinese the relationship becomes
insignificant; this is because most of the poorer countries, that is, those with lower
values of GNP, with fewer overseas Chinese, are no longer included in the analysis.
Second, when focusing on the 77 countries with at least 5000 overseas Chinese,
we find a significant correlation between the number of overseas Chinese and
population density per square kilometer; r¼0.232. The more densely populated
the country, the greater the number of overseas Chinese. However, this association
is highly conditioned by the extreme outlier of Singapore, the country with the
highest population density of all the countries. Indeed, Singapore’s density of 7539
persons per square kilometer is more than four times greater than that of the
country with the second highest population density, Bahrain. Singapore also has
the fifth largest number of overseas Chinese globally. When we remove Singapore
from the analysis, the correlation coefficient between the number of overseas
Chinese and population density declines to a level of insignificance; r¼0.027.
Conclusion
Chinese emigrants began to move to other Asian countries, particularly Southeast
Asia, more than 2000 years ago. Large numbers of Chinese migrated from China to
virtually every other country in the world during the 19th century and early 20th
Table 4. Zero-order correlation coefficients between the number of overseas Chinese (logged)
and six demographic and ecological characteristics of the host countries, c. 2011.
Demographic/ecological
characteristics of the host country
Correlation coefficients
148 countries 77 countries with
5000 þChinese
Gross national product 0.233** 0.090
Percentage urban 0.151 0.055
Population density 0.113 0.232*
Population size (log) 0.540*** 0.579***
Geographic area (km
2
) 0.354*** 0.395***
Distance (in km) from Guangzhou -0.160* -0.282**
*p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001.
368 Chinese Journal of Sociology 2(3)
century. By around 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese residing in
148 countries. Overseas Chinese are now minorities in all countries except
Singapore, where they comprise just over half of the population. More than 73
percent of the overseas Chinese live in Asia, especially Southeast Asia, and over
80 percent of the Chinese who live outside Asia reside in more developed countries.
There is no reason to believe that the distribution of overseas Chinese in the world
as described in this paper will change dramatically in the near future. The percent-
age growth rate in Africa will likely continue to be high, with the other continents
maintaining their lower, albeit positive, rates of change.
Today, the direction and magnitude of Chinese international migration are very
much influenced by the migration policies of the sending and receiving countries.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States are the main host coun-
tries for Chinese immigrants. Immigration today, however, is strictly limited and
enforced in most countries of the world.
The mortality rates of overseas Chinese have declined in recent decades in the
developed and most of the developing countries. Chinese fertility in most countries
is as low as, or lower than, the fertility rates of most other groups in the host countries.
These low fertility and mortality rates, for the most part, suggest that unless stringent
emigration laws are implemented in China, and, more importantly, unless restrictive
immigration laws are imposed in the host countries, the growth patterns of the over-
seas Chinese will likely tend to be more affected by international emigration and
immigration policies than by the demographic processes of fertility and mortality.
The overseas Chinese population in the world as of 2011 numbered over 40.3
million, a population size larger than the total populations of Poland (38.2 million)
and Canada (34.9 million), and almost as large as the population of Argentina
(40.8 million). The Chinese diaspora is the third largest in the world, behind those
of Ireland and Germany. Thus, overseas Chinese have had, and continue to have,
important and significant influences in many host countries and are certainly not an
inconsequential population.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial,
or not-for-profit sectors.
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