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 ( Hùng 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 You River and the upstream areas of theAfter 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 theEarly immigration: 15th–18th centuries
Lê dynasty
After theSouthern and Northern Dynasties (1533–1597)
The Chinese living in the Mekong Delta area settled there before any Vietnamese settled in the region. When theRestored Lê (1533–1789)
Han Chinese Ming dynasty refugees numbering 3,000 came to Vietnam at the end of the Ming dynasty. They opposed the Qing dynasty and were fiercely loyal to the Ming dynasty. Vietnamese women married these Han Chinese refugees since most of them were soldiers and single men. Their descendants became known as Minh Hương and they strongly identified as Chinese despite influence from Vietnamese mothers. They did not wear Manchu hairstyle unlike later Chinese migrants to Vietnam during the Qing dynasty. Hội An was also the first city to take on refugees from the19th–20th centuries
The Thanh Nhan Chinese made their living by exporting rice to other Southeast Asian countries, and their participation increased greatly in the years during the early 18th century after the Tây Sơn rebellion. Under local laws, rice exports to other countries were tightly regulated, but the Chinese largely ignored this rule and exported rice en masse. The prices of rice witnessed an increase of 50–100% in the 1820s as a result of these exports, which irked the Nguyễn court under EmperorStatehood under North Vietnam and South Vietnam: 1950–1975
At a party plenum in 1930, the Indochinese Communist Party made a statement that the Chinese were to be treated on an equal footing with the Vietnamese, specifically defining them as "The workers and laborers among the Chinese nationals are allies of the Vietnamese revolution". One year after the state of North Vietnam was established, a mutual agreement was made between theDeparture from Vietnam: 1975–1990
Following the reunification of Vietnam, the Hoa bore the brunt of socialist transformation in the South. The control and regulation of markets was one of the most sensitive and persistent problems faced by the government following the beginning of North–South integration in 1975. The government, in its doctrinaire efforts to communize the commercial, market-oriented Southern economy, faced several paradoxes. The first was the need both to cultivate and to control commercial activity by ethnic Chinese in the South, especially inĐổi Mới (since 1986)
After Nguyễn Văn Linh initiated the Vietnamese economic reforms in 1986, the Hoa in Vietnam has witnessed a massive commercial resurgence and despite many years of persecution began to regain much of their power in the Vietnamese economy. The open-door policy and economic reforms of Vietnam, as well as the improved economic and diplomatic relations of Vietnam with other Southeast Asian countries, has revived the entrepreneurial presence and economic clout of the predominantly urban Hoa minority in the roles they had historically played in the Vietnamese economy.Trade and industry
Like much of Southeast Asia, the Hoa dominate Vietnamese commerce and industry at every level of society. Before 1975, entrepreneurial savvy Chinese had literally taken over Vietnam's entire economy and have been prospering disproportionately as a result of the country's post-1988 economic liberalization vis-a-vis the Kinh majority. The Chinese in Vietnam have been a market-dominant minority in Vietnam for centuries, historically controlling the country's most lucrative commercial, trade, and industrial sectors. The economic power of the Hoa is far greater than that of their proportion would suggest relative to their small population in addition to the Chinese community being socioeconomically successful for hundreds of years than the indigenous host Kinh population. The Hoa wield tremendous economic clout over their Kinh majority counterparts and play a critical role in maintaining the country's economic vitality and prosperity prior to having their property confiscated by the Vietnamese Communists after 1975.Early history and French colonial rule (3rd century BC–1945 AD)
Chinese economic dominance in Vietnam dates back to 208 B.C., when the renegade Qin Chinese military generalSouth Vietnamese rule (1945–1975)
By the 1950s, the Hoa had held enormous sway on Vietnam's economic and political life as the concomitant brunt that came with the societal implications of wielding such vast amounts of economic power and political influence, the Chinese community was stereotypically viewed as "a state within a state", forming a more distinct cosmopolitan and wealthier population than the host Kinh majority. The glaring economic success of the Hoa inflamed and incurred the wrath, resentment, envy, animosity, and outright hostility from their Kinh counterparts. The Hoa had a huge propensity to voluntarily segregate themselves from the Kinh, typically associating themselves with the Chinese community at large, attending Chinese institutions, marrying within the Han Chinese community, while projecting a sense of Han "superiority", " clannishness", and affirmed a distinctive sense of their own Han "ethnic identity,Reunification and Doi Moi (1975–present)
Following Vietnam's reunification in 1976, the socialist and revolutionary Vietnamese government began using the Hoa as a scapegoat for their socio-economic woes. The revolutionary government referred to the enterprising Chinese as "bourgeois" and perpetrators of "world capitalism." Brutal draconian policies instituted against the Chinese involved the ''"Employing the techniques Hitler used to inflame hatred against the Jews"'' as reported by the '' U.S. News & World Report''s Ray Wallace in 1979, led many Hoa being persecuted by fleeing the country or succumbing to death after laboring in Vietnam's so-called "new economic zones." Despite undergoing many years of persecution by the socialist Vietnamese government, the Hoa have begun to reassert and regain much of their economic clout that they once previously held in the Vietnamese economy. Since the early 1980s, the Vietnamese government has gradually reintegrated the Chinese community into laying the groundwork for Vietnam's mainstream economic development. The open-door policy and economic reforms of Vietnam coupled with the country's improved relations with neighboring Southeast Asian countries has resuscitated the entrepreneurial presence and economic clout that the Hoa previously held with regards to the vital roles that they once predominantly played across Vietnam's economy. By 1986, the Hoa were actively encouraged to take part in parlaying the economic development of Vietnam. Since then, the Hoa have once again begun contributing significantly to the expansion of Vietnamese internal markets and capital accumulation for small-scale industrial business development. In the 1990s, the commercial role and influence of Hoa in Vietnam's economy have rebounded substantially since the introduction of Đổi Mới as the Vietnamese government's post-1988 shift to a capitalist-based free-market liberalization that has led to an astounding resurgence of Chinese economic dominance across the country's urban areas. Across the country, enterprising Hoa entrepreneurs and investors have re-asserted their previous economic influence. In Ho Chi Minh City alone, Hoa entrepreneurs are responsible for generating 50 percent of the city's commercial market activity as well as percolating their economic primacy into cornering Vietnam's light industry, import-export trade, shopping malls, and private banking sector. In 1996, Hoa entrepreneurs continued to dominate Vietnam's private industry and were responsible for generating an estimated $4 billion in business output, making up one-fifth of Vietnam's aggregate domestic business output.Modern population
The official census from 2019 accounted the Hoa population at 749,466 individuals and ranked 9th in terms of its population size. 70% of the Hoa live in cities and towns in which they make up the largest minority group, mostly in Ho Chi Minh city while the remainder live in the countryside in the southern provinces. The Hoa had constituted the largest ethnic minority group in the mid 20th century and its population had previously peaked at 1.2 million, or about 2.6% of Vietnam's population in 1976 a year following the end of theAncestral affiliations
The Hoa trace their ancestral origins to different parts of China many centuries ago and they are identified based on the dialects that they speak. In cities where large Chinese communities exist such asDiaspora communities
Today, there are many Hoa communities in Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom and the United States, where they have reinvigorated old existing Chinatowns. For example, the established Chinatowns ofGenetics
Notable Hoa people
Historical people
* Lý Tài, merchant pirate who became a general of Nguyễn Lords and the Vietnamese Ruler Le Thanh Tong. * Trần Văn Lắm, President of the Vietnamese senate and minister for foreign affairs for the Republic of Vietnam during the height of theCelebrities
* Lý Hùng, Vietnamese vovinam artist, actor, film director, producer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, activist, and singer * Lương Bích Hữu, Vietnamese actress and pop singer * Tăng Thanh Hà, Vietnamese actress and model (Real Name: Tăng Thị Thanh Hà) *Hoa diaspora
*See also
* China–Vietnam relations *Chinese
* *Vietnamese
* * *External links
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