Includes statistics.

Concepts and patterns of Chinese migration are often described with terms such as guigen (归根, return to one’s original roots), shenggen (生根, sprout local roots), shigen (失根, lose original roots), wugen (无根, without roots), and duogen (多根, many roots). These terms, linked to the Mandarin word gen (根, roots), carry various meanings including home, citizenship, ethnicity, as well as local language, culture and society. In Southeast Asia, the predominant patterns of migration are shenggen/shigen, guigen, shenggen/shigen, wugen and/or duogen. These concepts represent the mainstream patterns during various periods, which may admittedly exist concurrently. The pattern in each particular period is influenced by an array of internal and external factors, such as colonial and subsequently government policies directed at migrants, as well as forces and opportunities afforded by globalization. Since the 1980s, the wugen or duogen concept has been at the forefront as Chinese migrate or even remigrate to developed countries. Notably, these migrants may be descendants of previously assimilated Chinese migrants from earlier periods.

A concise and compelling survey of Chinese migration in global history centered on Chinese migrants and their families.

The Chinese in Southeast Asia, with their growing economic clout, have been attracting attention from politicians, scholars and observers in recent decades. The rise of China as a global economic power and its profound influence over Southeast Asia has cast a spotlight on the role of Southeast Asian Chinese in the region''s economic relations with China.The Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic force and their growing importance with China are, to a certain extent, determined by the nature and development of their communities. This book uses a multifaceted approach to unravel the forces that helped to transform the communities in the past. Containing 17 papers written within a span of six and a half years, from 2000 to 2006, the book focuses on the social, economic and political aspects of these communities, with special emphasis on the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.

In this book, distinguished historian Philip A. Kuhn tells the remarkable five-century story of Chinese emigration as an integral part of China's modern history. Although emigration has a much longer past, its "modern" phase dates from the sixteenth century, when European colonialists began to collaborate with Chinese emigrants to develop a worldwide trading system. The author explores both internal and external migration, complementary parts of a far-reaching process of adaptation that enabled Chinese families to deal with their changing social environments. Skills and institutions developed in the course of internal migration were creatively modified to serve the needs of emigrants in foreign lands. As emigrants, Chinese inevitably found themselves "among others." The various human ecologies in which they lived have faced Chinese settlers with a diversity of challenges and opportunities in the colonial and postcolonial states of Southeast Asia, in the settler societies of the Americas and Australasia, and in Europe. Kuhn traces their experiences worldwide alongside those of the "others" among whom they settled: the colonial elites, indigenous peoples, and rival immigrant groups that have profited from their Chinese minorities but also have envied, feared, and sometimes persecuted them. A rich selection of primary sources allows these protagonists a personal voice to express their hopes, sorrows, and worldviews. The post-Mao era offers emigrants new opportunities to leverage their expatriate status to do business with a Chinese nation eager for their investments, donations, and technologies. The resulting "new migration," the author argues, is but the latest phase of a centuries-old process by which Chinese have sought livelihoods away from home.

The current waves of migration sweeping the Chinese world may seem like new phenomena, the outcome of modernization and industrialization. However, this concise and readable book convincingly shows that contemporary movements are just the most recent stage in a long history of migration, both within China and beyond its borders. Distinguished historian Diana Lary traces the continuous expansion and contraction of the Chinese state over more than four millennia. Periods of expansion, which involved huge movements of people, have been interspersed with periods of inward-turning stasis. Following a chronological framework, the author discusses the migrations themselves and the recurrent themes within them. We see migration as a broad spectrum of movement, from short-term and short-range to permanent and long-range, and as a powerful vehicle for the transfer of commodities, culture, religion, and political influence. The Confucian tradition treated migration as undesirable. It praised the delights of staying at home: “A thousand days at home are good, half a day away is hard.” Lary argues that, despite this view, migration has been a key element in the evolution of Chinese society, one that the state disparages and encourages at the same time. Her book will be compelling for all readers who want to understand the context for the present internal and international migrations that have changed the face of China itself and its international relations.