With around 40 million people worldwide, the ethnic Chinese and the Chinese in diaspora form the largest diaspora in the world. The economic reform of China in the late 1970s marked a huge phase of migration from China, and the new migrants, many of whom were well educated, have had a major impact on the local societies and on China.

Introduction Part I Population and distribution 1. The Chinese overseas population Part II Mainland China and Taiwan's policies on the Chinese overseas 2. China's policies on Chinese overseas: past and present 3. The evolution of Taiwan's policies toward the political participation of citizens abroad in homeland governance 4. China's African policy and the Chinese immigrants in Africa Part III Migration: past and present 5. Chinese coolie emigration, 1845-1874 6. Integration and exclusion: The Chinese in multiracial Latin America and the Caribbean 7. Mountains of gold: Canada, North America, and the Cantonese Pacific 8. From sojourning to settlement to transnationalism: transformations of the Chinese immigrant community in America 9. Ethnic Chinese in the European economy: risk and the transnational ethnic enclave 10. Chinese immigration to Australia and New Zealand: government policies and race relations 11. The Chinese in South Africa: five centuries, five trajectories 12. The Chinese in Russia 13. The Chinese in South Asia 14. Negotiating transnational migration: marriage and changing gender roles among the Chinese diaspora Part IV Economic and political involvement 15. Southeast Asian Chinese business and regional economic development 16. The Chinese in Europe: population, economy and links with qiaoxiang in the early twenty-first century 17. Southeast Asian government policies towards the ethnic Chinese: a revisit 18. Globalization and localization of the Chinese diaspora in the United States 19. Stateless or belonging to Taiwan or PRC?:nationality and passport of overseas Chinese 20. Chinese overseas and Communist movements in Southeast Asia Part V Localization, transnational networks and identity 21. Diaspora and hybridity: Peranakan Chinese culture in Indonesia 22. Changing Identities of the Chinese in the Anglophone Caribbean: A Focus on Jamaica 23. New immigrants: a new community? The Chinese community in Peru in complete transformation 24. The Chinese diaspora: from China to Thailand to the United States 25. Tianhou and the Chinese in Diaspora Part VI Education, literature, and media 26. China's rise and (trans)national connections: the global diasporic Chinese mediasphere 27. Chinese education, Chinese media and Chinese overseas 28. Chinese diaspora and their literature in Chinese 29. U.S. immigration laws and Chinese American literature