The Chinese Diaspora

I am a member of the Chinese diaspora, and proud of my heritage. The fact that I grew up overseas, in a different culture from the mainland Chinese, means I am effectively bicultural and bilingual as well. The extent of our spread can be seen in the article Strangers at Home, and it took my breath away.

Taking majority-Chinese Singapore (2,684,900)as the benchmark, we have the following countries with significant numbers of overseas Chinese.

  1. Taiwan (China considers it part of itself) 22,563,477

  2. Indonesia 7,566,200

  3. Thailand 7,053,240

  4. Malaysia 6,187,400

  5. USA 3,376,031

I will have to mention Peru, with a surprising 1,300,000 overseas Chinese. It is the outstanding blob in the graphic that tends to cluster around South-east Asia.

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