Hoa people
The Hoa people, also known as Vietnamese Chinese, are an ethnic minority in Vietnam composed of citizens and nationals of full or partial Han Chinese ancestry. The term primarily refers to ethnic Chinese who migrated from southern Chinese provinces to Vietnam during the 18th century, although Chinese migration to the region dates back millennia. While millions of Vietnamese may trace distant Chinese lineage due to centuries of Vietnam under Chinese rule, the Hoa are defined by their continued identification with Chinese language, culture and community. They remain closely connected to broader Han Chinese identity. "Chinese-Vietnamese" usually refers to these individuals, in contrast to those who have assimilated into Vietnamese society and are no longer regarded as culturally Chinese.
The Hoa have historically maintained a prominent role in Vietnam's commercial and urban life. Under French Indochina, colonial authorities often favoured the Hoa for their commercial acumen. From the late 19th century to the early 1970s, the Hoa dominated the private sector, with estimates attributing 70 to 80 percent of pre-1975 Saigon's privately owned businesses to them. After 1975, the Communist Party of Vietnam seized power and targeted many Hoa businesses and properties for confiscation. Hoa individuals were accused of political disloyalty and collaboration with foreign powers. The situation worsened in the period preceding and throughout the Sino-Vietnamese War, prompting a mass exodus of Hoa as boat people fleeing persecution.
Vietnam's adoption of economic liberalisation from 1987 gradually allowed the Hoa to reestablish a presence in the business sector. Although their influence today is not as pronounced as before 1975, the Hoa remain a commercially resilient group within a diversified Vietnamese economy now open to foreign corporations and global competition. The Hoa continue to embody a distinctly Chinese identity within Vietnam, maintaining cultural traditions and community structures that separate them from assimilated individuals of Chinese ancestry who now identify solely as Vietnamese.
Migration history
Early history
According to folklore, prior to Chinese domination of northern and north-central Vietnam, the region was ruled by a series of kingdoms called Văn Lang with a hierarchical government, headed by Lạc kings, who were served by Lạc hầu and Lạc tướng. In approximately 257 BCE, Văn Lang was purportedly annexed by the Âu Việt state of Nam Cương. These Âu Việt people inhabited the southern part of the Zuo River, the drainage basin of the You River and the upstream areas of the Lô, Gâm, and Cầu Rivers, according to Đào Duy Anh. The leader of the Âu Việt, Thục Phán, overthrew the last Hùng kings, and unified the two kingdoms, establishing the Âu Lạc polity and proclaiming himself King An Dương.In 179 BC, the Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue, which ushered in more than a millennium of Chinese domination. Zhao Tuo incorporated the regions into Nanyue but left the indigenous chiefs in control of the population. This was the first time the region formed part of a polity headed by a Chinese ruler. Zhao Tuo posted two legates to supervise the Âu Lạc lords: one in the Red River Delta, named Giao Chỉ, and one in the Mã and Cả River, named Cửu Chân although it is not known if the locals agreed with this nomenclature or if they were even aware of it. It appears that these legates were mainly interested in trade and their influence was limited outside outposts.
In 111 BC, the Han dynasty conquered Nanyue and ruled it for the next several hundred years. The Han dynasty organized Nanyue into seven commanderies of the south and now included three in Vietnam alone: Giao Chỉ and Cửu Chân, and a newly established Nhật Nam. Local Lạc lords, just as under Nanyue, acknowledged Han dominion to be granted authority. "Seals and ribbons" were bestowed upon the local leaders as their status symbol, in return, they paid "tribute to a suzerain" but the Han officials considered this as "taxes". During the first century of Chinese rule, Vietnam was governed leniently and indirectly with no immediate change in indigenous policies. Initially, indigenous Lac Viet people were governed at the local level but with indigenous Vietnamese local officials being replaced with newly settled Han Chinese officials. In fact, indigenous ways of life and ruling class did not experience major Sinitic impact, into the first century CE. Han imperial bureaucrats generally pursued a policy of peaceful relations with the indigenous population, focusing their administrative roles in the prefectural headquarters and garrisons, and maintaining secure river routes for trade. By the first century AD, however, the Han dynasty intensified its efforts to gain money from its new Vietnamese territories by raising taxes and instituting marriage and land inheritance reforms aimed at turning Vietnam into a patriarchal society more amenable to political authority. The native chief paid heavy tributes and imperial taxes to the Han mandarins to maintain the local administration and the military. The ancient Chinese vigorously tried to civilize the Vietnamese either through forced sinification or through brute Chinese political domination. The Han dynasty sought to assimilate the Vietnamese as the Chinese wanted to maintain a unified cohesive empire through a "civilizing mission" as the ancient Chinese regarded the Vietnamese as uncultured and backward barbarians with the Chinese regarding their "Celestial Empire" as the supreme center of the universe with a large amount of success. However, implementation of a foreign administrative system and sinicization was not easy as frequent uprisings and rebellions were indicative of Vietnamese resistance to these changes. Han immigration into Northern Vietnam was also not overwhelming during this time, and population levels were not affected until after the middle of the second century. While enough immigrants existed to form a coherent Han-Viet ruling-class, not enough existed to administratively or culturally dominate the indigenous society. In fact, it appears that "imperial law was never successfully imposed over the Vietnamese, and that during the post-Han era of the Six Dynasties, enfeebled imperial courts were repeatedly forced to compromise their authority and recognize the local power system in Vietnam". Meanwhile, Han colonial officials and settlers found themselves adopting local customs.
A Giao Chỉ prefect, Shi Xie, who was in the sixth generation from his ancestors who migrated to Northern Vietnam during the Wang Mang era, ruled Vietnam as an autonomous warlord for forty years and was posthumously deified by later Vietnamese monarchs. In the words of Stephen O'Harrow, Shi Xie was essentially "the first Vietnamese." His rule gave "formal legitimacy" to those identifying with interests of the local society than with the Chinese empire. And while the Chinese saw Shi Xie as "frontier guardian", the Vietnamese considered him the head of regional ruling-class society. According to Taylor :
A revolt against China was mounted by Ly Bon, whose ancestors were also among the Chinese who fled south to escape the disorders of Wang Mang's usurpation, in the fifth century.
Attempts to civilize the Vietnamese were failed and there was more 'Vietnamization' of Chinese of Vietnamese ancestry than assimilation of the Vietnamese in the first six centuries of Chinese rule. The Chinese of Vietnamese ancestry became assimilated, while still maintaining their Chinese identity, and were absorbed into the "social, economic and political environment" in Northern Vietnam. The insight, skills, customs, and ideas brought in by the Chinese allowed the native to develop an identity, making the probability of their being assimilated to Chinese and Chinese intrusion lower. The strength of localization in ancient Vietnam has thus been widely noted. The policy of assimilation was continually enforced over the 1,000 years of Chinese rule of Vietnam until the Ngô dynasty when the Vietnamese regained their independence from China. The Vietnamese rulers deported some 87,000 Chinese nationals, although a smaller minority applied for permanent residency in Vietnam. Chinese who chose to remain in Vietnam chose to assimilate. The Vietnamese were wedded with Chinese peasantry that later became gentry of Vietnam.
After independence
Sporadic Chinese migration into Vietnam continued between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. The Vietnamese court during the Lý dynasty and the Trần dynasty welcomed ethnic Chinese scholars and officials to fill into its administrative and bureaucratic ranks, but these migrants had to renounce their Chinese identity and assimilate into Vietnamese society. The Vietnamese court also allowed Chinese refugees, which consisted of civilian and military officials with their family members to seek asylum in Vietnam. However, these Chinese settlers were not allowed to change their place of residence without the Court's permission and were also required to adopt Vietnamese dress and culture. During the Early Lê dynasty some Chinese were captured in 995 after the Vietnamese raided the border. During the Lý dynasty Vietnam raided Song dynasty China to enslave Chinese, who were forced to serve in the Vietnamese army as soldiers. In 1050, the Cham dedicated some Chinese slaves to their goddess Lady Po Nagar at the Po Nagar temple complex, along with Thai, Khmer and Burmese slaves. It has been speculated by Professor Kenneth Hall that these slaves were war captives taken by the Cham from the port of Panduranga after the Cham conquered the port and enslaved all of its inhabitants, including foreigners living there. In the South, the Daoyi Zhilue also mentioned Chinese merchants who went to Cham ports in Champa, married Cham women, to whom they regularly returned to after trading voyages. One notable example of such intermarriages was Chinese merchant from Quanzhou, Wang Yuanmao, who in the 12th century traded extensively with Champa and married a Cham princess. Chinese prisoners were returned to China for captured districts in 1078 after China defeated Đại Việt and overran several of Cao Bằng Province's districts.The founder of the Lý dynasty, Lý Thái Tổ, at least on his paternal side has been accepted by Vietnamese historian Trần Quốc Vượng.
The ancestors of the Trần clan originated from the province of Fujian before they migrated under Trần Kinh to Đại Việt, where their mixed-blooded descendants established the Trần dynasty which ruled Đại Việt. The descendants of the Trần clan who came to rule Đại Việt were of mixed-blooded descent due to many intermarriages between the Trần and several royal members of the Lý dynasty alongside members of their royal court as in the case of Trần Lý and Trần Thừa, the latter whose son Trần Thái Tông would later become the first emperor of the Trần dynasty. Their descendants established the Tran dynasty, which ruled Vietnam. Some of the mixed-blooded descendants and certain members of the clan could still speak Chinese, as when a Yuan dynasty envoy met with the Chinese-speaking Tran Prince Trần Quốc Tuấn in 1282. The first of the Trần clan to live in Đại Việt was Trần Kinh, who settled in Tức Mặc village who lived by fishing.
Professor Liam Kelley noted that people from Song dynasty China like Zhao Zhong and Xu Zongdao fled to Tran dynasty ruled Vietnam after the Mongol invasion of the Song. The ancestor of the Tran, Trần Kinh had originated from the present-day Fujian Province of China as did the Daoist cleric Xu Zongdao who recorded the Mongol invasion and referred to them as "Northern bandits". He quoted the Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư which said "When the Song was lost, its people came to us. Nhật Duật took them in. There was Zhao Zhong who served as his personal guard. Therefore, among the accomplishments in defeating the Yuan , Nhật Duật had the most".
Southern Song Chinese military officers and civilian officials left to overseas countries, went to Vietnam and intermarried with the Vietnamese ruling elite and went to Champa to serve the government there as recorded by Zheng Sixiao. Southern Song soldiers were part of the Vietnamese army prepared by emperor Trần Thánh Tông against the second Mongol invasion.
A Vietnamese woman and a Chinese man were the parents of Phạm Nhan. He fought against the Tran for the Yuan dynasty. Dong Trieu was his mother's place.
Fujian was the origin of the ethnic Chinese Tran who migrated to Vietnam along with a large amount of other Chinese during the Ly dynasty where they served as officials. Distinct Chinese last names are found in the Tran and Ly dynasty Imperial examination records. Ethnic Chinese are recorded in Tran and Ly dynasty records of officials. Clothing, food and language were all Chinese dominated in Van Don where the Tran had moved to after leaving their home province of Fujian. The Chinese language could still be spoken by the Tran in Vietnam. The ocean side area of Vietnam was colonized by Chinese migrants from Fujian which included the Tran among them located to the capital's southeastern area. The Red River Delta was subjected to migration from Fujian including the Tran and Van Don port arose as a result of this interaction. Guangdong and Fujian Chinese moved to the Halong located Van Don coastal port during Ly Anh Tong's rule in order to engage in commerce. The usurpation of the Ly occurred after they married with the fishing Fujianese Tran family.
China's province of Zhejiang around the 940s was the origin of the Chinese Hồ/Hú family from which Hồ dynasty founder Emperor Hồ Quý Ly came from.
The Chinese elites who were descended from mixed marriages between Chinese and Vietnamese viewed others as beneath them and inferior due to Chinese influence.