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British Chinese

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British Chinese, or, alternatively, Chinese British, Chinese Briton, British Born Chinese (abbreviated as BBCs) are overseas Chinese born or naturalised[#endnote_naturalised] in the United Kingdom[#endnote_rightofabode]. Most of these Chinese are people from, or descended from people from, former British territories, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Contents

History

The first settlement of Chinese people dates from the early 19th century, in port towns such as London (particularly the Limehouse area) and Liverpool.

The biggest wave of Chinese immigration took place in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly of male agricultural workers from the New Territories in Hong Kong and indirectly via Hong Kong the surrounding Guangdong province, in response to the rise in popularity of Chinese cuisine in the UK [[Citing sources citation needed]], which led to the growth of the Chinese catering industry mainly in restaurants and takeaways. This lead to the formation of "Chinatown" areas in several major British cities where restaurants became the focal points of the larger settled communities.

Since the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, restrictions have been placed on immigration from British colonies and ex-colonies, and these have been tightened by successive governments. Nevertheless, there was still significant Chinese migration to Britain, for relatives of settled Chinese, and those qualified for skilled jobs, until the end of the 1970s. Today, a significant proportion of British Chinese people are second- and third-generation descendants of these post-war immigrants.

The 1981 British Nationality Act deprived Hong Kong British passport holders of the right of abode in the UK, an issue that caused controversy in the years leading up to the territory's handover to China in 1997.

After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, it was considered necessary to devise a British Nationality Selection Scheme to enable some of the population to obtain British citizenship to maintain confidence in Hong Kong and to counteract the effects of the emigration of many of its most talented residents. The United Kingdom made provision to grant citizenship to 50,000 families whose presence was important to the future of Hong Kong under the British Nationality Act (Hong Kong) 1990.

See also: British nationality law, British nationality law and Hong Kong.
More recently, there has been an increase in illegal economic migrants from mainland China entering the UK, who pay "snakeheads" to smuggle them into Western countries. Most work in the black economy. Due to historical and social reasons, a sizeable proportion originate from Fujian province. Many are employed as illegal cheap labour (usually in agriculture) by criminal gangs. Inevitably, this had highly publicised and tragic consequences; in June 2000, 58 Chinese immigrants were found suffocated to death in a lorry in Dover, and in February 2004, 23 Chinese cockle-pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay after being caught in a high tide.

Demographics

At the last UK census in 2001, there were 247,403 Chinese people living in the UK - 0.4% of the total population, or 5.3% of the minority ethnic population. It should be noted, however, that in the United Kingdom, Asian demographics and Chinese demographics are separate. In UK usage, "Asian" usually refers to those from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Unlike most ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese tend to be more widespread and decentralised. However, significant numbers of British Chinese people can be found in:

In terms of educational achievement, in 2002 Chinese pupils were more likely to gain five or more GCSE grades A*-C than any other ethnic group. A British Chinese person is also more likely to possess a university degree, or hold a job in the top managerial/professional class, than the average Briton. Conversely, British Chinese have the third highest proportion with no qualifications (20%), and Chinese men have the highest rate of economic inactivity of all males at 35% (the majority of whom are students) [link]. Unlike Britons of Afro-Caribbean or Asian (south) origin, there are exceedingly few well-known British Chinese politicians, actors or sportspersons. Vanessa Mae, however, is one example of a musician.

See also: List of British Chinese people.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ In British Nationality Law, a person can be naturalised or registered as a British Citizen. This difference in the law is not important in this article.
  2. ↑ Normally ethnic Chinese people holding a British National (Overseas) passport are not considered to be "British Chinese", as they do not normally hold the right of abode in the UK. Ethnic Chinese people who obtained British Citizenship in Hong Kong prior to handover and do not normally live in the UK are not the main concern of this article.

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