Chinese people in the Netherlands
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Chinese people in the Netherlands form one of the largest
overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
populations in
continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
. In 2018 official statistics showed 92,644 people originating from the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
(PRC) (including
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
) and
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
(ROC), or people with at least one such parent. However, these statistics do not capture the whole size of the Chinese community, which since its earliest days has included not just migrants from China, but people of Chinese ethnicity drawn from among
overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
communities as well.


Migration history

Early Chinese labour migration to the Netherlands was drawn primarily from two sources: peddlers from
Qingtian Qingtian (), is a county in southeastern Zhejiang Province, on the middle-lower reaches of the Ou River which flows 388 kilometers (241 mi) before finally reaching the city of Wenzhou and emptying into the East China Sea. The county is known ...
,
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...
who began arriving in the country after
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and seamen of
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
origin drawn from among the
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. T ...
community; the latter had initially been brought in as
strikebreakers A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the str ...
in 1911. During the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, many of the seamen were laid off and also took to street peddling, especially of (peanut cakes); the Dutch referred to them as "" ("peanut man"). Their numbers dropped as a result of voluntary outmigration and deportations; by
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, fewer than 1,000 remained. Another group of early ethnic Chinese in the Netherlands were students; they were largely not from China, however, but were instead drawn from among Chinese communities in the Dutch East Indies. From a group of 20 in 1911, their numbers continued to increase, interrupted only by
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
; in 1957, out of the roughly 1,400 ethnic Chinese from Indonesia in the Netherlands, 1,000 were students. In 1911, these students established the Chung Hwa Hui, which was in contact with various Chinese organizations and political parties in Europe. Largely of
Peranakan The Peranakans () are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia, known as Nanyang (), namely the British Colonial ruled ports in the Malay Peninsula, th ...
origin, the students tended to speak Indonesian local languages as their mother tongues, and had already done their early education at Dutch-medium schools. However, with increasing tensions in
Indonesia–Netherlands relations Indonesia and the Netherlands established diplomatic relations in 1949. Both countries share a special relationship, embedded in their shared history of colonial interactions for centuries. It began during the spice trade as the Netherlands establ ...
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the number of students dropped off sharply. Though the number of Chinese students from Indonesia dropped off, tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese were forced to leave the country due to the violent political situation in Indonesia in 1965. Most went to China, the United States, or Australia, but those who had been educated in Dutch preferentially chose the Netherlands as their destination; there are no exact statistics, but the migrants themselves estimate that about 5,000 arrived during this period. As with the students, these migrants tended to speak no Chinese, with Indonesian languages as their mother tongues and Dutch as their academic language. In the late 1970s and early 1980s,
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
also became a significant source of Chinese migrants to the Netherlands, with about 600 to 800 per year, falling off to around 300 to 400 per year by the late 1980s. Also in the 1980s, the Netherlands began to become a popular choice for students from
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
. Factors which influenced this popularity included the tuition fees, which were relatively lower than those in the United Kingdom, and the ease of obtaining a student visa as compared to the United States. In the beginning, these were PRC government-financed students, consisting of top students selected by examination, and gained admission at prestigious Dutch universities such as
Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...
. However, in the 1990s, more privately financed students, students on Dutch scholarships, and short-term exchange students began to arrive. By 2002, embassy figures showed roughly 4,000 PRC students in the Netherlands.


Demographic characteristics

, figures from the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
'
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (''Central Agency for Statistics''), often ...
showed: *Persons born outside of the Netherlands: **41,533 mainland China-born persons (19,466 men, 22,067 women) **9,757 Hong Kong-born persons (4,808 men, 4,949 women) **83 Macau-born persons (31 men, 52 women) **2,254 Taiwan-born persons (830 men, 1,424 women) *Persons born in the Netherlands: **17,564 persons with at least one parent born in China (9,002 men, 8,562 women) **8,440 persons with at least one parent born in Hong Kong (4,300 men, 4,140 women) **36 persons with at least one parent born in Macau (18 men, 18 women) **531 persons with at least one parent born in Taiwan (273 men, 258 women) Totalling 80,198 persons. This represents growth of 92.8% compared to the population in 1996, the earliest year for which statistics are available. However, the various groups within the population show sharply differing growth trends. The number of persons of mainland Chinese background grew by 152% over that same period, with both overseas-born and Dutch-born segments showing a similar level of growth. In contrast, the number of persons of Hong Kong background has shown only mild growth, entirely due to natural increase rather than additional migration; in fact the stock of Hong Kong migrants fell by 5.6% during the same period. There is also migration of Surinamese Hakkas to the Netherlands who constitute about 10% of the Chinese population. The Chinese in the Netherlands are not particularly geographically concentrated; more than half work in the restaurant trade, and because they prefer to open
Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is an establishment that serves a Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese style, due to the history of the Overseas Chinese, Chinese diaspora and adapted to local taste preferences, as in t ...
s where they have less competition, they tend to spread out to towns all over the country.
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
has a
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
, but it is purely a commercial district, rather than a mixed-use residential/commercial district as in Chinatowns in other countries.
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
and
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
also have similar districts.


Integration and community

Chinese students themselves, comparing the Netherlands to the United States, state that the Netherlands offers a peaceful and not-particularly-challenging life, but fewer opportunities; one popular saying among them is that excellent students find the Netherlands too small to fulfill their ambitions, and leave of their own volition, while average and below-average students are forced out of the country entirely. Chinese in the Netherlands are often perceived to be "snakeheads", participating in smuggling Chinese migrants from Eastern Europe to the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, the Dutch government, considering the poor Dutch language abilities and lack of integration by many members of the Chinese community, began to consider officially recognising them as a disadvantaged minority, similar to Moroccan or
Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...
migrants. This proved to be extremely controversial among the Chinese community; the widespread discussions in Dutch media of the problems in the community led to public perception of the Chinese as illegal migrants working for low pay and incapable of solving their own community problems, strongly embarrassing members of older generations who had stressed "invisibility and self-reliance". In the end, the government did not grant the Chinese official minority status as the Chinese did not want government subsidies and minority status. However, stereotypical mainstream views only strengthened, especially as a result of several heavily publicised tragedies such as the
2000 Dover incident On 18 June 2000, just before midnight, 58 dead bodies were found in a lorry in the port town of Dover, United Kingdom. Two people were found alive but injured and taken to hospital. Incident The Dutch lorry came from a ferry that had arrived ...
, in which 58 Chinese migrants suffocated in a
refrigerated container A refrigerated container or reefer is an intermodal container (shipping container) used in intermodal freight transport that is capable of refrigeration for the transportation of temperature-sensitive, perishable cargo such as fruits, vegetabl ...
on their way from the Netherlands to
Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. There are also some intra-community tensions between recent expatriates, especially students, and the older
overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
. The latter are largely
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
-speaking, while the former use
Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
as their ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
''. The divide shows up most clearly in the education of children; few international students send their children to the schools established by the old overseas Chinese, deriding them as low-quality schools "for the children of the restaurant families" and employing low-quality teachers. In contrast, the old overseas Chinese describe the students as arrogant, and view themselves as the "real representatives of the Chinese community in the Netherlands". The descendants of Indonesian-speaking Chinese tend to stay out of such conflict; having largely entered the liberal professions they also look down on the "restaurant Chinese", but in return other Chinese often view them as not "really Chinese". They rarely join any of the associations set up by other Chinese migrants or their descendants, instead preferring their own associations.


Notable individuals

* Calvin Jong-a-Pin * Cerezo Fung a Wing * Etienne Shew-Atjon *
Ricardo Moniz Ricardo Moniz (born 17 June 1964) is a Dutch professional football manager and former player who is the head coach of Hungarian Nemzeti Bajnokság I club Zalaegerszeg. Career He played for RKC Waalwijk, HFC Haarlem, Helmond Sport and FC Eindh ...
*
Tahith Chong Tahith Jose Girigorio Djorkaef Chong (born 4 December 1999) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Birmingham City. Chong joined the Manchester United Academy aged 16, after progressing through the Feyenoord youth ...


See also

*
Pao An Tui Pao An Tui () sometimes incorrectly spelled Po An Tui or Poh An Tui, was a self-defense force of the Chinese-Indonesian community during the Indonesian Revolution (1945–1949). The group has often been accused of pro-Dutch sympathies in the ...
* China–Netherlands relations


References


Notes


Sources

* * * * * *Klaas Stutje, 'The Complex World of the Chung Hwa Hui: International Engagements of Chinese Indonesian Peranakan Students in the Netherlands, 1918-1931.' Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 171.4 (2015): 516-542.


Further reading

* * * *


External links


The Chinese of Amsterdam
a webpage from the International Institute of Social History {{DEFAULTSORT:Chinese People In The Netherlands Asian diaspora in the Netherlands Ethnic groups in the Netherlands
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
Chinese diaspora in Europe