Talk:Overseas Chinese

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This article was nominated for deletion on 20 March 2008. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

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On 10 September 2025, it was proposed that this article be moved to Chinese diaspora. The result of the discussion was not moved.

Bandung Conference

Where in the final communiqué of the Bandung Conference does it say that “overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation, rather than to China”? I can only find “Zhou Enlai announced at the Bandung Conference in 1955 that the Chinese government would offer a nationality agreement similar to that of Indonesia to any country with which China had diplomatic relations”[1] – Kaihsu (talk) 10:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism by user MrStephenLeon

Editors will have noted the recent edit warring by user MrStephenLeon.

This user continues to attempt to add figures to the infobox population table without citations. In particular, the user has now on more than 15 occasions attempted to insert a figure for the number of Mexicans of Chinese ancestry that is many times more than can be supported in any source, and has not even included a citation.

Worse than this, on the page Chinese immigration to Mexico, the user has made a claim that there are 1.9 or 2.3 million Mexicans of Chinese ancestry (when the only source cited on that page that gives a figure says 70,000) and has included citations which when opened, do NOT give a figure for the population of Mexicans of Chinese ancestry - the user included the citations on that page purely to mislead in circumstances where they have no relation or support to the number claimed.

It goes without saying that unsourced figures will be deleted as they are against Wikipedia policy. Furthermore, in light of the above conduct, any attempts by the user MrStephenLeon to add statistical figures to this page will be scrutinised very carefully.StormcrowMithrandir 00:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

unnecessary paragraph

in the section titled "Waves of emigration in late Qing Dynasty" why does this article randomly start talking about height variation, it doesn't seem relevant. Badpagenoticer (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Picture Bamboo Network

I wonder whether the values in the Figure with caption "Share of economy and population held by Chinese people" are reliable. The linked source in the Wikimedia Commons page is nothing like a peer-reviewed scientific article nor official statistics, it's a Powerpoint presentation that does not cite any sources. Otrebor81 (talk) 16:55, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 10 September 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) veko. (user | talk | contribs) he/him 16:44, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Overseas Chinese → Chinese diasporaChinese diaspora – The proper term is diaspora not overseas. Overseas can mean anything. Main category uses term diaspora. Even the lead sentence uses the word diaspaora. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:59, 10 September 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Tenshi! (Talk page) 13:11, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. "Overseas Chinese" is a much more common term for this concept. See also the previous discussion here: Talk:Overseas Chinese/Archive 2#Requested move 4 March 2018. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:15, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sources or evidence that support this as a commonname? Previous discussion did not provide evidence for such opposition. For instance the article about Indians overseas is now Indian diaspora. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think with any reasonable familiarity with the English-language literature on the subject, it's clear which term is more common. Anyway, here's some evidence: "Overseas Chinese" is 3-4 times more common in recent publications on Ngrams[2] and about seven times more common on Google Scholar[3][4]

The Indian diaspora article is about a different topic and isn't relevant to determining the common name for this topic. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:25, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See below. Then perhaps the article in itself is not diaspora related then. Because if the name Chinese diaspora like Indian, French, or Japanese diaspora articles are of a different subject matter than diaspora information shouldn't be included, then Huáqiáo or literally Overseas Chinese should be confined to it outside of what we have currently. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 20:35, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. There isn’t even a prima facie plausible wp:policy-based argument here. What is the proper term meant to mean? My overseas Chinese relatives speak perfectly good English and use the term, both formally and informally. Why could ‘overseas’ mean anything—and what’s different about ‘diaspora’? Maybe in citing the main category name there’s some hint of a demand for wp:consistency, but the wp:common name generally is used even when inconsistent (see WP:Consistency in article titles § Relationship between consistency and other considerations), and there isn’t even the slightest attempt to demonstrate that ‘overseas Chinese’ isn’t the wp:common name. Docentation (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your relatives are not an relevant argument or a RS. Overseas is just a word for a location. For instance in the article's case, Chinese diplomats can be considered Overseas Chinese, but the term is for expatriates as indicated by categorization of country A's ambassador cats in county B. The word Huaqiao refers to people of Chinese citizenship residing outside of either the PRC or ROC (Taiwan) - as stated in the article. No mention of people who are of Chinese descent from PRC or Taiwan. Overseas Chinese is a literal translation. Huáyì (华裔; 華裔) refers to people of Chinese descent or ancestry residing outside of China, regardless of citizenship. A diaspora is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Not necessarily people from the place of origin, but also people of the populations background, i.e. ethnicity. One source.

The vast majority of articles use diaspora and the categorization uses the word as well. I doubt that other articles that use the word diaspora is wrong.

However, I think the concept of Overseas Chinese is more a political term and the article at points looks as an article for a political term incorporating diaspora information. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please cite a wp:policy and explain how it justified your proposed move. Not only do you seem entirely unfamiliar with the standard use of the term ‘overseas Chinese’, but it’s also hard to see how your individual claims about its use are meant to justify the RM. Docentation (talk) 01:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Overseas Chinese seems to be a narrow translation of Huáqiáo (华侨; 華僑). However, as the article describes, it covers much more than just the topic of Chinese citizens outside China. It addresses the topic of those who have been naturalized as a citizen of another country and lost their PRC citizenship, as well as descendants of Chinese emigrants. Thus, as the article addresses the entire scope of the Chinese diaspora, that would be a more appropriate article title.

Secondarily, there is a WP:CONSISTENT argument in favour of the move, as <ADJECTIVE> diaspora is the most commonly used format for titling similar articles. Tomiĉo (talk) 10:15, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Overseas Chinese is the most common term in English for ethnic Chinese in other countries, including (to use your phrasing) "those who have been naturalized as a citizen of another country and lost their PRC citizenship, as well as descendants of Chinese emigrants". Both 华侨 and 华裔 are overseas Chinese. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 11:22, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

‘Overseas Chinese’ is regularly used to describe ethnic Chinese who do not have citizenship of the PRC or ROC. Just look at the references. Here are the first three easily accessible ones.

[5] talks about ethnic Chinese overseas who retain ties after many generations, most of whom have local rather than PRC/ROC citizenship.
[6] describes people both citizens and not citizens of the PRC as ‘Chinese overseas’.
[7] refers to Singaporean Chinese as overseas Chinese (most of whom are not PRC/ROC citizens).

Docentation (talk) 15:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom as the current title fails WP:CONSISTENT. Interestingly, the relevant category for the article is Category:Chinese diaspora. - Amigao (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose there is a difference between ethnicity and citizenship which Overseas Chinese does convey. Lightoil (talk) 01:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Clearly not the common name per Mx. Granger's Ngrams and Scholar searches. Using a commonly recognizable name overrides concerns about consistency with other articles, as the former matters a lot more to readers. Being the common name, the current title is more recognizable and natural, which are two of the WP:article title criteria against one (consistency). (In concision and precision both titles are evenly matched.) The citizenship thing is a red herring. Toadspike [Talk] 22:05, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.