British Chinese
British Chinese, also known as Chinese British or Chinese Britons, are people of Chineseparticularly Han Chineseancestry who reside in the United Kingdom, constituting the second-largest group of Overseas Chinese in Western Europe after France.
The United Kingdom has the oldest Chinese community in Western Europe. The first waves of immigrants came between 1842 and the 1940s, largely through treaty ports opened as concessions to the British for the Opium Wars, such as Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Shanghai. British Chinese communities began to form in British ports in Liverpool, London, Cardiff, and Glasgow. In the Liverpool area, by the end of World War II, an estimated 900 Eurasian children were born to Chinese fathers and white mothers.
Since the middle of the 20th century, many British Chinese have been descended from people of former British colonies, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. This shifted in the late-1970s with new waves of Chinese migrants coming from Vietnam, mainland China, and Hong Kong. Following new national security laws imposed by China onto Hong Kong, the United Kingdom offered a pathway to citizenship for British National status holders residing in Hong Kong – the majority of whom are ethnically Chinese. Two years since the introduction of the BN visa immigration route in 2021, 144,500 Hong Kongers have arrived in the United Kingdom.
According to the 2021 Census, the Chinese ethnic group numbered 502,216, or 0.8% of the United Kingdom population. British Chinese live in every major British city, most notably including London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Cambridge. Compared with most other ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese are amongst the most geographically dispersed. The six cities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Newcastle upon Tyne host Chinatowns.
Overall, as a demographic group, the British Chinese are amongst the highest income earners, the highest academic achievers and the least likely to receive any welfare support from the government. They also place well on socioeconomic metrics with the lowest arrest and incarceration rates, lowest overweight or obesity rates, and the lowest school suspension rates.
Terminology
The term "Asian" in the United Kingdom usually refers to those of South Asian heritage, such as Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Kashmiris. Furthermore, although Chinese have a long history of settling in the United Kingdom, the 1991 census was the first to introduce a question on ethnicity; earlier censuses only recorded country of birth. In the 2001 census, Chinese was not included in the broad 'Asian or Asian British' category, but in the 'Chinese or other ethnic group' category instead. The 'Chinese or other ethnic group' category continues to be used by some public bodies and governmental departments, with those who identify as Chinese not counted under the 'Asian or British Asian' category. In the 2011 census, the question for ethnic group allowed for the option of "Chinese" for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and "Chinese, Chinese Scottish or Chinese British" for Scotland.The terms "British-born Chinese" and "Scottish-born Chinese" have become common ways of describing ethnic Chinese who were born in the United Kingdom. However, the newer term of "British Chinese" began to emerge in the 1990s as a way to articulate a bicultural identity. Diana Yeh argues that the term is also a means to negotiate and offer agency to individuals often rejected as not being "British" or "Chinese" enough, yet also not being as visible as "Black" or "Asian" ethnic minorities. Along with the term "British Chinese," there has been an increasing use of more inclusive umbrella terms such as "British East Asian" and "British East and Southeast Asian", especially in the arts sector and in the face of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic.
History
Britain has been receiving ethnic Chinese migrants more or less uninterruptedly on varying scales since the 19th century. While new immigrant arrivals numerically have replenished the Chinese community, they have also added to its complexity and the already existing differences within the community. Meanwhile, new generations of British-born Chinese have emerged.First Chinese
The first recorded Chinese person in Britain was Shen Fu Tsong, a Jesuit scholar who was present in the court of King James II in the 17th century. Shen was the first person to catalogue the Chinese books in the Bodleian Library. The King was so taken with him he had his portrait painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller and hung it in his bed chamber. The portrait of Shen is in the Royal Collection; it currently hangs in Windsor Castle.William Macao was the earliest recorded Chinese person to settle in Britain. He lived in Edinburgh, Scotland from 1779. Macao married a British woman and had children, and was the first Chinese person to be baptised into the Church of Scotland. He worked for the Board of Excise at Dundas House, St Andrew Square, Edinburgh for 40 years, beginning as a servant to the clerks and retiring as Senior Accountant. He was involved in a significant naturalisation law case and for two years, until the first decision was overturned on appeal, was legally deemed a naturalised Scotsman.
A Chinese man known as John Anthony was brought to London in 1799 by the East India Company to provide accommodation for the Lascar and Chinese sailors in Angel Gardens, Shadwell in London's East End. Antony had left China around 11 years of age in the 1770s making several journeys between London and China. He was baptised into the Church of England, about six years before his death, and anglicised his name, settled in London, and married Ester Gole in 1799. Wishing to buy property, but unable to do so while an alien, in 1805 he used part of the fortune he had amassed from his London work to pay for an Act of Parliament to naturalise him as a British subject; thus being the first Chinese person to gain British citizenship. However, he died a few months after the Act was passed.
1800s to World War II
Chinese migration to Britain has a history of at least a century and a half. From the 1800s until 1945, it is estimated 20,000 had emigrated to Britain. The British East India Company, which controlled the importation of popular Chinese commodities such as tea, ceramics and silks, began employing Chinese seamen in the middle of the 19th century. Those who crewed ships to Britain had to spend time in the docks of British ports while waiting for a ship to return to China, establishing the earliest Chinatowns in Liverpool and London.In 1901 there were 387 Chinese people living in Britain, and which grew to 1,219 in 1911. These communities consisted of a transnational and highly mobile population of Cantonese seamen and small numbers of more permanent residents who ran shops, restaurants, and boarding houses that catered for them.
During this time period, mixed marriages between Chinese men and white women were increasingly commonplace in Britain. Such relationships often attracted racist attention. In nineteenth century portside communities, for example, the wives of Chinese men were often given nicknames such as "Canton Kitty" and "Chinese Emma" to ridicule their interracial relationships. Racist attitudes continued into the twentieth century as Chinese men were increasingly vilified and associated with the "Yellow Peril," a racist stereotype that depicts people from East and Southeast Asia as an existential threat to the West.
Yellow Peril imagery was used to shame mixed marriages, portraying Chinese men as a danger to white women and "the purity of the Anglo-Saxon blood".
In World War II as more men were required to crew British merchant ships, the Chinese Merchant Seamen's Pool of approximately 20,000 was established with its headquarters in Liverpool. However, at the end of the war few Chinese who had worked as merchant seamen were allowed to remain in Britain. The British Government and the shipping companies colluded to forcibly repatriate thousands of Chinese seamen, leaving behind British wives and mixed-race children.
More than 50 years later in 2006, a memorial plaque in remembrance for those Chinese seamen was erected on Liverpool's Pier Head.
Post-World War II
In the 1950s, they were replaced by a rapidly growing population of Chinese from the rural areas in Hong Kong's New Territories. Opening restaurants across Britain, they established firm migration chains and soon dominated the Chinese presence in Britain. In the 1960s and 1970s, they were joined by increasing numbers of Chinese students and economic migrants from Malaysia and Singapore.Chinese migration to Britain continued to be dominated by these groups until the 1980s, when rising living standards and urbanization in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia gradually reduced the volume of migration from the former British Colonies. After the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, a new wave of Hong Kong migrants settled in Britain, some of whom were civil servants. Many of these migrants were skilled professionals or business owners, and the migration continued into the 2000s. At the same time in the 1980s, the number of students and skilled migrants from the People's Republic of China began to rise. Since the early 1990s, the UK has also witnessed a rising inflow of economic migrants from areas in China without any previous migratory link to the UK, or even elsewhere in Europe. A relatively small number of Chinese enter Britain legally as skilled migrants. However, most migrants arrive to work in unskilled jobs, originally exclusively in the Chinese ethnic sector, but increasingly also in employment outside this sector. Migrants who enter Britain for unskilled employment are from both rural and urban backgrounds. Originally, Fujianese migrants were the dominant flow, but more recently increasing numbers of migrants from the Northeast of China have arrived in the UK as well. Migrants now tend to come from an increasing number of regions of origin in China. Some Chinese unskilled migrants enter illegally to work in the black economy, in dangerous jobs with no employment rights, as the Morecambe Bay tragedy of February 2004 showed. Some claim asylum in-country, avoiding deportation after exhausting their appeals.
In July 2020, following the implementation of new national security laws in Hong Kong by China, the United Kingdom offered a pathway to citizenship for British Nationals status holders in Hong Kong – the majority of whom are ethnically Chinese. As of the end of the first quarter of 2024, over 173,500 applications for the BN visa immigration route have been submitted by Hong Kongers and their dependants, over 164,900 visas were granted and around 144,400 people have arrived.