Chinese Nationalism - Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese

Chinese nationalism has had mutable relationships with Chinese living outside of Mainland China and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese were strong supporters of the 1911 revolution.

After decolonization, overseas Chinese were encouraged to regard themselves as citizens of their own nations rather than as part of the Chinese nationality. As a result ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia have sharply divided the concept of ethnic Chinese from the concept of "political Chinese" and have explicitly rejected being part of the Chinese nationality.

During the 1960s, the People's Republic of China and Republic of China (ROC) maintained different attitudes toward overseas Chinese. In the eyes of the PRC government, overseas Chinese were considered capitalist agents; in addition, the PRC government also thought that maintaining good relations with southeast Asian governments was more important than maintaining the support of overseas Chinese. By contrast, the ROC desired good relations with overseas Chinese as part of an overall strategy to avoid diplomatic isolation and maintain its claim to be the sole legitimate government of China.

With the reforms under Deng Xiaoping, the PRC's attitude toward overseas Chinese became much more favorable, and overseas Chinese were seen as a source of capital and expertise. In the 1990s, the PRC's efforts toward overseas Chinese became mostly focused on maintaining the loyalty of "newly departed overseas Chinese", which consisted of mostly graduate students having emigrated, mostly to the United States. Now, there are summer camps, in which overseas Chinese youths may attend to learn first-hand about Chinese culture. Textbooks for Chinese schools are distributed by the government of the People's Republic of China.