overseas Chinese diaspora

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the approximately 40 to 50 million people of Chinese ancestry living outside mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, with the largest concentrations in Southeast Asia — particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines — where Chinese migrants and their descendants have lived for centuries, often arriving as traders, labourers, and merchants during the periods of European colonial rule; overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia have historically occupied important economic intermediary roles, controlling significant shares of retail trade, manufacturing, and finance, which has at times generated both wealth and resentment culminating in anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia in 1998 and discriminatory policies in Malaysia; Singapore is unique as a majority-Chinese nation-state in Southeast Asia; the overseas Chinese diaspora maintains varying degrees of connection to Chinese language, culture, and identity across generations and geographies