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The Chinese Diaspora. Graphically.

By Dan Harris on Posted in Recommended Reading

The Wall Street Journal has up a fascinating and illuminating graphic on the Chinese diaspora. This graphic depicts where Chinese have settled around the world. I knew Peru had a lot of Chinese, but would never have guessed 1.3 million. I also knew Thailand and Indonesia had a ton of Chinese, but surprised they each have more than 7 million.

Check it out. 

  • anon this time

    Those numbers are suspicious. I lived in Lima, Peru for awhile and know a lot of Peruvians of Chinese heritage and that figure seems rather generous. Perhaps if you counted all the people of Asian heritage (including 3rd and 4th generation) including Japanese, and people who get called “Chinito/a” then maybe you could come up with those numbers. There was a big wave of Chinese immigration to Peru long ago, then a long ebb of very little immigration, and it may be starting up again, but still. I suppose it becomes a matter of semantics and how far you stretch the word diaspora.
    Moreover, the numbers for Africa are WAY too low. Given credible recent news reports, there are more Chinese in just Algeria than they have listed for all the countries in Africa combined. Yes, I know many of them may not have their paperwork in order, however… by most estimates, the number of Chinese in Algeria alone is well over 10,000. And there are only 2000 Chinese in Nigeria????????? As the most populous nation and one of the strongest economies in Africa, I am certain that Nigeria has seen it’s inbound number of Chinese grow. Xinhua estimated that there were 750,000 Chinese in Africa just before the Beijing Olympics, yet the WSJ came up with a much, much smaller number for Africa. Sloppy, and embarrassing that the WSJ can’t do better homework than that.
    Out of curiosity I looked at Wikipedia, and sure enough it had the same numbers for Chinese in Peru as this graphic did. Following Wikipedia, they linked to some PDF written by a Taiwanese outfit and seem to have gleaned their numbers from them. Ugh.
    Well, here are what seem to be better sources, especially the China Daily.
    http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/chinese-algeria-work-quarrels-and-mixed-marriages
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3319909.ece
    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-04/30/content_580916.htm
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/world/africa/17iht-malawi.1.7153926.html

  • http://www.attorneycz.com Cindy Zhang

    Haha, is this kind of population invasion?

  • Andy

    The idea that there is this monolithic “Chinese diaspora” is classic fear mongering. It’s as if all ethnic Chinese get their marching orders from Beijing, which is patently absurd.. it’s kinda like what they used to say about Catholics, and how they would all follow the Pope. The premise of the article is a bit ridiculous.

  • Shanghaiwill

    @Andy: You’ve totally missed the point of the article. The premise of the article is that the Chinese Disapora can partake of the opportunities now available in China, but at their own risk. Where does the article state that “all Chinese get their marching orders from Beijing”? Read it again, more slowly this time.

  • Ethan

    Was anyone at WSJ fact-checking this? As someone said above, the numbers for Africa are WAY too low. I know 40 Chinese citizens in Zambia by name, and I can assure you that that’s a very small percent of the total. If you’re talking about immigration – passport holders of Chinese origin – then perhaps. But for the diaspora in general, current estimates for Africa are around 500,000-800,000.