Asian diaspora

Overseas Chinese people are people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).^[9] As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.^[10] Overall, China has a low percent of population living overseas.

The Chinese people have a long history of migrating overseas, as far back as the 10th century. One of the migrations dates back to the Ming dynasty when Zheng He (1371–1435) became the envoy of Ming. He sent people – many of them Cantonese and Hokkien – to explore and trade in the South China Sea and in the Indian Ocean.

In the mid-1800s, outbound migration from China increased as a result of the European colonial powers opening up treaty ports.^[17]: 137 The British colonization of Hong Kong further created the opportunity for Chinese labor to be exported to plantations and mines.^[17]: 137

During the era of European colonialism, many overseas Chinese were coolie laborers.^[17]: 123 Chinese capitalists overseas often functioned as economic and political intermediaries between colonial rulers and colonial populations.^[17]: 123

The area of Taishan, Guangdong Province was the source for many of economic migrants.^[18] In the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong in China, there was a surge in emigration as a result of the poverty and village ruin.^[19]

San Francisco and California was an early American destination in the mid-1800s because of the California Gold Rush. Many settled in San Francisco forming one of the earliest Chinatowns. For the countries in North America and Australia saw great numbers of Chinese gold diggers finding gold in the gold mining and railway construction. Widespread famine in Guangdong impelled many Cantonese to work in these countries to improve the living conditions of their relatives.

From 1853 until the end of the 19th century, about 18,000 Chinese were brought as indentured workers to the British West Indies, mainly to British Guiana (now Guyana), Trinidad and Jamaica.^[20] Their descendants today are found among the current populations of these countries, but also among the migrant communities with Anglo-Caribbean origins residing mainly in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Some overseas Chinese were sold to South America during the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars (1855–1867) in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong.

Research conducted in 2008 by German researchers who wanted to show the correlation between economic development and height, used a small dataset of 159 male labourers from Guangdong who were sent to the Dutch colony of Suriname to illustrate their point. They stated that the Chinese labourers were between 161 to 164 cm in height for males.^[21] Their study did not account for factors other than economic conditions and acknowledge the limitations of such a small sample.

The Lanfang Republic in West Kalimantan was established by overseas Chinese.

In 1909, the Qing dynasty established the first Nationality Law of China.^[17]: 138 It granted Chinese citizenship to anyone born to a Chinese parent.^[17]: 138 It permitted dual citizenship.^[17]: 138

In the first half of the 20th Century, war and revolution accelerated the pace of migration out of China.^[17]: 127 The Kuomintang and the Communist Party competed for political support from overseas Chinese.^{[17]: 127–128}

Under the Republicans economic growth froze and many migrated outside the Republic of China, mostly through the coastal regions via the ports of Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan and Shanghai. These migrations are considered to be among the largest in China's history. Many nationals of the Republic of China fled and settled down overseas mainly between the years 1911–1949 before the Nationalist government led by Kuomintang lost the mainland to Communist revolutionaries and relocated. Most of the nationalist and neutral refugees fled mainland China to North America while others fled to Southeast Asia (Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines) as well as Taiwan (Republic of China).^[22]

Those who fled during 1912–1949 and settled down in Singapore and Malaysia automatically gained citizenship in 1957 and 1963 as these countries gained independence.^[23][24] Kuomintang members who settled in Malaysia and Singapore played a major role in the establishment of the Malaysian Chinese Association and their meeting hall at Sun Yat Sen Villa. There was evidence that some intended to reclaim mainland China from the CCP by funding the Kuomintang.^[25][26]

After their defeat in the Chinese Civil War, parts of the Nationalist army retreated south and crossed the border into Burma as the People's Liberation Army entered Yunnan.^[17]: 65 The United States supported these Nationalist forces because the United States hoped they would harass the People's Republic of China from the southwest, thereby diverting Chinese resources from the Korean War.^[17]: 65 The Burmese government protested and international pressure increased.^[17]: 65 Beginning in 1953, several rounds of withdrawals of the Nationalist forces and their families were carried out.^[17]: 65 In 1960, joint military action by China and Burma expelled the remaining Nationalist forces from Burma, although some went on to settle in the Burma–Thailand borderlands.^{[17]: 65–66}

During the 1950s and 1960s, the ROC tended to seek the support of overseas Chinese communities through branches of the Kuomintang based on Sun Yat-sen's use of expatriate Chinese communities to raise money for his revolution. During this period, the People's Republic of China tended to view overseas Chinese with suspicion as possible capitalist infiltrators and tended to value relationships with Southeast Asian nations as more important than gaining support of overseas Chinese, and in the Bandung declaration explicitly stated^[where?] that overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation.^{[dubious – discuss]}

From the mid-20th century onward, emigration has been directed primarily to Western countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, Brazil, The United Kingdom, New Zealand, Argentina and the nations of Western Europe; as well as to Peru, Panama, and to a lesser extent to Mexico. Many of these emigrants who entered Western countries were themselves overseas Chinese, particularly from the 1950s to the 1980s, a period during which the PRC placed severe restrictions on the movement of its citizens.

Due to the political dynamics of the Cold War, there was relatively little migration from the People's Republic of China to southeast Asia from the 1950s until the mid-1970s.^[17]: 117

In 1984, Britain agreed to transfer the sovereignty of Hong Kong to the PRC; this triggered another wave of migration to the United Kingdom (mainly England), Australia, Canada, US, South America, Europe and other parts of the world. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre further accelerated the migration. The wave calmed after Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty in 1997. In addition, many citizens of Hong Kong hold citizenships or have current visas in other countries so if the need arises, they can leave Hong Kong at short notice.^{[citation needed]}

In recent years, the People's Republic of China has built increasingly stronger ties with African nations. In 2014, author Howard French estimated that over one million Chinese have moved in the past 20 years to Africa.^[27]

More recent Chinese presences have developed in Europe, where they number well over 1 million, and in Russia, they number over 200,000, concentrated in the Russian Far East. Russia's main Pacific port and naval base of Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners and belonged to China until the late 19th century, as of 2010^[update] bristles with Chinese markets, restaurants and trade houses. A growing Chinese community in Germany consists of around 76,000 people as of 2010^[update].^[28] An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 Chinese live in Austria.^[29]

The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (Japanese: 日系, IPA: [ɲikkeː]) or as Nikkeijin (Japanese: 日系人, IPA: [ɲikkeꜜːʑiɴ]), comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan (and their descendants) residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded as early as the 15th century to the Philippines,^{[30][31][32][33]} but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji period (1868–1912), when Japanese emigrated to the Philippines^[34] and to the Americas.^[35][36] There was significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the period of Japanese colonial expansion (1875–1945); however, most of these emigrants repatriated to Japan after the 1945 surrender of Japan ended World War II in Asia.^[37]

The Korean diaspora consists of around 7.3 million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent emigrants from Korea. Around 84.5% of overseas Koreans live in just five countries: the United States, China, Japan, Canada, and Uzbekistan.^[38] Other countries with greater than 0.5% Korean minorities include Brazil, Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia. All of these figures include both permanent and temporary migrants.^[39]

The South Asian diaspora, also known as the Desi diaspora,^[40] is the group of people whose ancestral origins lie in South Asia, but who live outside the region.^[41] There are over 44 million people in this diaspora.^[42]

Some South Asians lived in other parts of the world for trade purposes. During the Roman Empire, a few South Asians came to Europe.

During the colonial era, over 1 million South Asians were taken to other parts of the world as indentured servants. South Asians also were brought to parts of Southeast Asia as part of the British Empire.

Diaspora members played a significant role in opposing the British Raj as part of the Ghadar Movement.

Some South Asians, mainly from Punjab, migrated to the West Coast in the United States, and mixed with the local Mexican community.

South Asians have emigrated in record numbers since the end of the colonial era in the middle of the 20th century. Many South Asians migrated to the United Kingdom and participated in its post-war economic recovery. Some South Asians went to the Middle East for labour opportunities, though some were mistreated in a racist manner and exploited. After the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that allowed nonwhite immigration was passed, Indian-Americans became the richest ethnic group in the United States, and comprise over 10% of the labour force in computing-related fields.

Because South Asians had already dispersed across the world during the colonial era, a noted aspect of the diaspora is that it has produced several secondary diasporas - some of its members' families transited through several countries over generations to reach a final destination (e.g. a person's ancestors may have come from India to Africa, and then a few generations later from Africa to New Zealand).

The Romani people ( or ), also known as the Roma (: Rom), are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Roma originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of Rajasthan. Their first wave of westward migration is believed to have occurred sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries. They are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are believed to be in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

The Malaysian diaspora are Malaysian emigrants from Malaysia and their descendants that reside in a foreign country. Population estimates vary from seven hundred thousand to one million, both descendants of early emigrants from Malaysia, as well as more recent emigrants from Malaysia. The largest of these foreign communities are in Singapore, Australia, Brunei and the United Kingdom.

Emigration from Malaysia is a complex demographic phenomenon existing for decades and having a number of reasons, with institutional racism being one of the major factors. The process is the reverse of the immigration to Malaysia. Malaysia does not keep track of emigration, and counts of Malaysians abroad are thus only available courtesy of statistics kept by the destination countries. As of 2019, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the population of the Malaysian diaspora stands at 1,730,152.^[44]

An overseas Filipino (Filipino: Pilipino sa ibayong-dagat) is a person of full or partial Filipino origin who trace their ancestry back to the Philippines but are living and working outside of the country. They get jobs in countries, and they move to live in countries that they get jobs in, or if they want to migrate to somewhere else, This term generally applies to both people of Filipino ancestry and citizens abroad. As of 2019, there were over 15 million Filipinos overseas.^[45]

Overseas Thai people (Thai: คนไทยพลัดถิ่น, คนไทยในต่างแดน) number approximately 1.1 million persons worldwide. They can be roughly divided into two groups:

A "non-resident Thai" is a citizen of Thailand who holds a Thai passport and has temporarily emigrated to another country for employment, residence, education or any other purpose. The Bank of Thailand estimates that, as of 2016^[update], 1,120,837 Thais worked overseas.^[46]

Overseas Vietnamese (Vietnamese: người Việt hải ngoại, Việt kiều or kiều bào) are Vietnamese people who live outside Vietnam. There are approximately 5 million overseas Vietnamese, the largest community of whom live in the United States.

The term Việt Kiều is used by people in Vietnam to refer to Vietnamese living outside the country and is not a term of self-identification.^[47] However, many overseas Vietnamese also use the terms Người Việt hải ngoại ('Overseas Vietnamese'), which is also a neutral term, or Người Việt tự do ('free Vietnamese'), which has a political note.^[48]

Arab diaspora is a term that refers to descendants of the Arab emigrants who, voluntarily or as forcibly, migrated from their native lands to non-Arab countries, primarily in the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.

Immigrants from Arab countries, such as Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories, also form significant diasporas in other Arab states.

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The Iranian diaspora (collectively known as Iranian expats or expatriates) is the global population of Iranian citizens or people of Iranian descent living outside Iran.^[49]

In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran published statistics which showed that 2 to 4,037,258 Iranians are living abroad, an increase from previous years.Though many of these people are of Iranian ancestry in UAE, Kuwait, Israel, Turkey and Bahrain, not necessarily recent migrants but people who moved out hundreds of years ago or at least prior to the revolution. These numbers also include half and people with only partial ancestry as well. ^[50][51] Over one million of these people and their extended families live in the United States, with anywhere between 100k-500k living in countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Further populations exist in numerous other regions, including many European nations, China, India, and the United Arab Emirates, along with several other Middle Eastern and Levantine nations.^[52][53] Many of these individuals relocated to other countries following the Iranian Revolution of 1979.^[54][55]

Iran has experienced waves of emigration since 1979. The creation of a ministry of immigration has been proposed, after reports indicated critical statistics, largely due to political instability.^[56][57][58]

The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: גוֹלָה, romanized: gōlā), dispersion (Hebrew: תְּפוּצָה, romanized: təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: גָּלוּת gālūṯ; Yiddish: golus)^[a] is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.^[61][62]

In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" (יְהוּדִים, or Yehudim).^[63][64]

The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V. The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II.

The Turkish diaspora (Turkish: Türk diasporası or Türk gurbetçiler) refers to ethnic Turkish people who have migrated from, or are the descendants of migrants from, the Republic of Turkey, Northern Cyprus or other modern nation-states that were once part of the former Ottoman Empire. Therefore, the Turkish diaspora is not only formed by people with roots from mainland Anatolia and Eastern Thrace (i.e. the modern Turkish borders); rather, it is also formed of Turkish communities which have also left traditional areas of Turkish settlements in the Balkans (such as Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, etc.), the island of Cyprus, the region of Meskhetia in Georgia, and the Arab world (such as Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon).

In particular, most mainland Turkish migration has been to Western and Northern Europe. Meanwhile, almost all the Turkish minorities in former Ottoman lands have a large diaspora in Turkey, many having migrated as muhacirs (refugees); furthermore, the Cretan Turks have migrated throughout the Levant; Cypriot Turks have a significant diaspora in the English-speaking countries (especially the UK and Australia); the Meskhetian Turks have a large diaspora in Central Asia; and Algerian Turks and Tunisian Turks have mostly settled in France. Since Bulgarian Turks and Romanian Turks gained EU citizenship in 2007, their diasporas in Western Europe significantly increased once restrictions on movement came to a halt in 2012.