Chinese emigration

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Chinese diaspora" redirects here. For other uses, see Overseas Chinese.
Map of Chinese Migration during the 1800s - year 1949.
Map of Chinese Migration during the 1800s - year 1949.
This article contains Chinese text.
Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Chinese emigration (also known as the Chinese Diaspora) first occurred thousands of years ago, but the mass emigration that occurred from the 19th century to 1949 was mainly caused by wars and starvation in mainland China as well as political corruption. Most immigrants were illiterate or poorly educated peasants and coolies (Chinese: 苦力, translated: Hard Labour), who were sent to countries such as the Americas, Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Malaya and other places.

According to Lynn Pan's book Sons of the Yellow Emperor, the Chinese coolie emigration began, after slavery had been abolished throughout the British possessions. Facing a desperate shortage of manpower, European merchants were looking to replace African slaves with indentured labourers from China and India. A British Guiana planter found what he was looking for in the Chinese labourers "...their strong physique, their eagerness to make money, their history of toil from infancy..."

Large numbers of unskilled Chinese were sold as labourers, in the coolie trade, to the colonies overseas in exchange for money to feed their families; this type of trading was known as maai jyu jai (selling piglets : 賣豬仔) by the Chinese, and their lives were extremely miserable. Some tricky labor recruiters promised good pay and good working conditions to get them signed onto three year labor contracts. It was recorded on one pepper estate, 50 coolies hired, only 2 survived in half a year. Most coolies were treated badly and many died in route to South America and South Africa because of bad conditions. Usually, they were cheated out of their wages and were unable to return to China after their contracts expired.

Contents

[edit] Chronology of historical emigration

  • 210 BCE, Qin Shi Huang dispatched Xu Fu to sail overseas in search of elixirs of immortality, accompanied by 3,000 virgin boys and girls. History is entangled in legend; Xu Fu may have settled in Japan.
  • 661 CE Tang dynasty, Zheng Guo Xi of Nan An, Fujian was buried at a Philippine island.[1]
  • 7-8th century, the Arabs recorded large numbers of Tang traders residing at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and they had families there.
  • 10th century, Arab trader Masuoti recorded in his Golden Ley, in the year 943, he sailed passed Srivijaya and saw many Chinese people farming there especially at Palembang. These people migrated to Nanyang to evade chaos caused by war in Tang Dynasty China.

[edit] 10-15th century

  • Java: Zheng He's compatriot Ma Huan recorded in his book (Chinese: zh:瀛涯胜览) that large numbers of Chinese lived in the Majapahit Empire on Java, especially in Surabaya (Chinese: 泗水). The place where the Chinese lived was called New Village (Chinese: 新村), with many originally from Canton, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou.
  • Cambodia: Envoy of Yuan dynasty, Zhou Daguan (Chinese: 周达观) recorded in his The Customs of Chenla; Chinese: 真腊风土记), that there were many Chinese, especially sailors, who lived there, with many intermarrying with local women.
  • Siam: According to the clan chart of family name Lim, Gan, Ng, Khaw, Cheah, many Chinese traders lived there. Some of the Siamese envoys sent to China were these people.
  • Borneo: Many Chinese lived there as recorded by Zheng He.
  • 1405 Ming dynasty, Tan Sheng Shou, the Battalion Commander Yang Xin and others were sent to Java's Old Port (Palembang; Chinese: 旧港) to bring the absconder Liang Dao Ming (Chinese: 梁道明) and others to negotiate pacification. He took his family and fled to live in this place, where he remained for many years. Thousands of military personnel and civilians from Guangdong and Fujian followed him there and chose Dao Ming as their leader.
  • 1459 Ming emperor sent Hang Li Po to Malacca along with 500 other female attendants, many attendants later married officials serving Mansur Shah as Li Po married the sultan after she accepted conversion to Islam.

[edit] 20th century: modern emigration

Through most of China's history, strict controls prevented large numbers of people from leaving the country. In modern times, however, periodically some have been allowed to leave for various reasons. For example, in the early 1960s, about 100,000 people were allowed to enter Hong Kong. In the late 1970s, vigilance against illegal migration to Hong Kong was again relaxed somewhat. Perhaps as many as 200,000 reached Hong Kong in 1979, but in 1980 authorities on both sides resumed concerted efforts to reduce the flow.

More liberalized emigration policies enacted in the 1980s facilitated the legal departure of increasing numbers of Chinese who joined their overseas Chinese relatives and friends. The Four Modernizations program, which required access of Chinese students and scholars, particularly scientists, to foreign education and research institutions, brought about increased contact with the outside world, particularly the industrialized nations. Thus, as China moved toward the twenty-first century, the diverse resources and immense population that it had committed to a comprehensive process of modernization became ever more important.

In 1983, emigration restrictions were eased as a result in part of the economic open-door policy. In 1984, more than 11,500 business visas were issued to Chinese citizens, and in 1985, approximately 15,000 Chinese scholars and students were in the United States alone. Any student who had the economic resources, from whatever source, could apply for permission to study abroad. United States consular offices issued more than 12,500 immigrant visas in 1984, and there were 60,000 Chinese with approved visa petitions in the immigration queue.

Export of labor to foreign countries also increased. The Soviet Union, Iraq, and the Federal Republic of Germany requested 500,000 workers, and as of 1986, China sent 50,000. The signing of the United States-China Consular Convention in 1983 demonstrated the commitment to more liberal emigration policies. The two sides agreed to permit travel for the purpose of family reunification and to facilitate travel for individuals who claim both Chinese and United States citizenship. Emigrating from China remained a complicated and lengthy process, however, mainly because many countries were unwilling or unable to accept the large numbers of people who wished to emigrate. Other difficulties included bureaucratic delays and in some cases a reluctance on the part of Chinese authorities to issue passports and exit permits to individuals making notable contributions to the modernization effort.

The only significant immigration to China has been by the overseas Chinese, who in the years since 1949 have been offered various enticements to return to their homeland. Several million may have done so since 1949. The largest influx came in 1978-79, when about 160,000 to 250,000 ethnic Chinese refugees fled Vietnam for southern China, as relations between the two countries worsened. Many of these refugees were reportedly settled in state farms on Hainan Island in the South China Sea.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Spice Route (Sea Route) and ancient Chinese Migration 海上丝路与中国古代的海外移民

This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain. [1]

[edit] References

  • Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora by Lynn Pan ISBN 1-56836-032-0

[edit] External links

Languages