Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese people or the Chinese diaspora are a diaspora people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 million people living outside mainland China who were born in mainland China. Overall, China has a low percent of its population living overseas.

Huáqiáo (simplified Chinese: 华侨; traditional Chinese: 華僑) refers to people of Chinese citizenship residing outside of either the PRC or ROC (Taiwan). The government of China realized that the overseas Chinese could be an asset, a source of foreign investment and a bridge to overseas knowledge; thus, it began to recognize the use of the term Huaqiao.

Ching-Sue Kuik renders huáqiáo in English as "the Chinese sojourner" and writes that the term is "used to disseminate, reinforce, and perpetuate a monolithic and essentialist Chinese identity" by both the PRC and the ROC.

The modern informal internet term haigui (海归; 海歸) refers to returned overseas Chinese and guīqiáo qiáojuàn (归侨侨眷; 歸僑僑眷) to their returning relatives.^{[clarification needed]}

Huáyì (华裔; 華裔) refers to people of Chinese descent or ancestry residing outside of China, regardless of citizenship. Another often-used term is 海外華人; Hǎiwài Huárén or simply 華人; Huárén. It is often used by the Government of the People's Republic of China to refer to people of Chinese ethnicities who live outside the PRC, regardless of citizenship (they can become citizens of the country outside China by naturalization).

Overseas Chinese who are southerners, such as the Toisanese, Cantonese or Hokkiens refer to themselves as 唐人 (Tángrén). Literally, it means Tang people, a reference to Tang dynasty China when it was ruling. This term is commonly used by the Cantonese as a colloquial reference to southern Han people and has little relevance to the ancient dynasty. For example, in the early 1850s when Chinese shops opened on Sacramento St. in San Francisco, California, United States, the Chinese emigrants, mainly from the Pearl River Delta west of Canton, called it Tang People Street (唐人街) and the settlement became known as Tang People Town (唐人埠) or Chinatown.

The term shǎoshù mínzú (少数民族; 少數民族) is added to the various terms for the overseas Chinese to indicate those who would be considered ethnic minorities in China. The terms shǎoshù mínzú huáqiáo huárén and shǎoshù mínzú hǎiwài qiáobāo (少数民族海外侨胞; 少數民族海外僑胞) are all in usage. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the PRC does not distinguish between Han and ethnic minority populations for official policy purposes. For example, members of the Tibetan people may travel to China on passes granted to certain people of Chinese descent. Various estimates of the Chinese emigrant minority population include 3.1 million (1993), 3.4 million (2004), 5.7 million (2001, 2010), or approximately one tenth of all Chinese emigrants (2006, 2011). Cross-border ethnic groups (跨境民族; kuàjìng mínzú) are not considered Chinese emigrant minorities unless they left China after the establishment of an independent state on China's border.

Some ethnic groups who have historic connections with China, such as the Hmong, may not or may identify themselves as Chinese.