The Chinese diaspora: The current distribution of the overseas Chinese population

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 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 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.