Table Of ContentTHECHINESE INEUROPE
A/so byGregorBenton
ANOPPOSITIONISTFOR LIFE
CHINA'S URBAN REVOLUTIONARIES
MEMOIRS OF ACHINESEREVOLUTIONARY
MOUNTAINFIRES
WILD LILY;PRAIRIEFIRE
A/so byFrank N.Pieke
TIlEORDINARY AND TIlEEXTRAORDINARY: An Anthropological
Study ofChinese Reform and the 1989People'sMovementin Beijing
TIlESOCIALPOSITIONOFTIlEDUTCH CHINESE
The Chinese in Europe
Edited by
Gregor Benton
DepartmentofChineseStudies
UniversityofLeeds
and
Frank N. Pieke
Institutefor Chinese Studies
UniversityofOxford
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-26098-0 ISBN 978-1-349-26096-6 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-26096-6
First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-17526-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Chinese in Europe I edited by Gregor Benton and Frank N. Pieke.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-17526-9
I. Chinese-Europe. 2. Chinese-Europe-Ethnic identity.
I. Benton, Gregor, 1957- . II. Pieke, Frank N.
DI056.2.C55C48 1997
940'.04951-dc21 97-9663
CIP
@Gregor Benton and Frank N. Pieke 1998
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998
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Contents
Preface vii
Gregor Benton
Notes 011 the Contributors ix
Introduction
Frank N. Pieke
PART I CHINESE AND EUROPE
2 Transnational Links among the Chinese in Europe:
A Study on European-wide Chinese Voluntary
Associations 21
Li Minghuan
3 Chinese Identity in Europe 42
Flemming Christiansen
PART II CHINESE IN WESTERN EUROPE
4 Chinese People in Britain: Histories. Futures and
Identities 67
David Parker
5 The Chinese Community in France: Immigration.
Economic Activity. Cultural Organization and
Representations 96
Live Yu-Sion
6 The Chinese in the Netherlands 125
N.
Frank Pieke and Gregor Benton
7 Chinese in Denmark 168
Mette Thune
v
vi Contents
8 A Sketch of the Chinese Community in Germany:
Past and Present 197
Erich Giitinger
PART III CHINESE IN SOUTHERN EUROPE
9 The Chinese in Spain 211
Joaquin Beltran Antolln
10 Entrepreneurs of the Chinese Community in Portugal 238
Ana Teixeira
11 The Chinese Presence in Italy: Dimensions and Structural
Characteristics 261
Francesco Carchedi and Mariea Ferri
PART IV CHINESE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
12 Chinese in Russia: An Historical Perspective 281
Alexander G. Larin
13 Chinese Immigration to Russia: A Variation on
an Old Theme 301
Anne de Tinguy
14 Chinese Immigrants in Central and Eastern Europe:
The Cases of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania 320
International Organization for Migration
15 New Migrants, New Community: The Chinese in
Hungary, 1989-95 350
Pal Nyiri
Index 380
Preface
Until recently a volume such as this would have been impossible. Since
the war Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and the
Pacific have been subjected to the scrutiny of historians, anthropol
ogists and sociologists, but those in Europe largely escaped such in
vestigation. The few exceptions - Frederik van Heek's early tour de
force on the Chinese in Holland, Charles Archaimbault's evocative social
history of the Chinese in Paris, James L. Watson's seminal work on
the ties between San Tin in Hong Kong and its British Chinese out
posts - are as rich as they are few, but they are by now dated; further
more, only Watson's book is easily available and in English.
Chinese communities have existed in several European countries for
most of the twentieth century. They are among Europe's oldest immi
grant communities, and are now, in several countries, among the big
gest and, economically, the most powerful. Why, then, this dearth of
studies on them?
The Chinese migrants themselves were for a long time in no rush to
seek the limelight. Instead, they preferred to lead their lives out of
sight of government (which it was their habit not to trust) and of the
institutions of a society that they often experienced as hostile and dis
criminatory. Historians and social scientists who might otherwise have
been drawn to writing about them knew no Chinese, while those who
did know Chinese were concerned with mainstream sinological pur
suits, were unfamiliar with social science techriiques, and had neither
the time nor the means to reflect on the Chinese around them.
In more recent times, the situation has begun to change. The Chi
nese groups themselves have matured, and produced their own intel
lectuals equipped to articulate community concerns. At the same time,
the wall that once sealed sinology from other scholarship has here and
there fallen down. Today, many people trained in sinological skills are
also versed in the social sciences, while some social scientists learn
Chinese.
Society, too, has changed, and so has China's position in the world.
InEurope, the rise ofethnic studies and multicultural politics has cre
ated a new interest in and perspective on Chinese immigrants, whose
numbers have grown enormously since the 1970s. China is today a
powerful state with a strong nationalist agenda that includes cultivating
vii
viii Preface
Chinese overseas. Overseas Chinese capital dominates parts of South
east Asia, is influential throughout the world, including Europe, and
fuels the China boom. A combination of the new self-consciousness of
the Chinese in Europe and a growing interest in them on the part of
governments, which see them as a relatively successful, largely self
reliant ethnic minority and a business phenomenon, has finally made
visible the group whose sociological sobriquet was always 'the invis
ible minority'.
It was never possible to understand Chinese migration to Europe
solely at the level of the individual European states. Their communi
ties must be analysed as an accommodation both to European national
entities and to the wider European context, now institutionalized in
the European Union. Chinese migrants have always shown scant re
gard for the lines drawn thickly and apparently at random across Asia's
European promontory. Inthat respect, they were Europeans before the
Europeans. Their pan-European ties are another reason for the new
interest in them.
This book brings together for the first time studies on overseas Chi
nese across Europe, in their national settings and in continental scope.
Many of the authors are younger scholars who are working on, or
have recently finished, research theses on the Chinese community in
their different countries. With few exceptions, their work has up to
now been unavailable or available only in languages other than English,
scattered here and there across restricted sources. This volume is a
first flowering of Europe-wide scholarship on the overseas Chinese,
and a further step towards the coordination of such research at the
European level. As such, it is part of a worldwide trend towards the
consolidation of Overseas Chinese Studies as an international field of
research in its own right.
GREGOR BENTON
Notes on the Contributors
Joaquin Beltran Antolin is a social anthropologist teaching history
of Oriental Asia at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He is
completing a book on Zhejiang Chinese in Europe and Spain.
Gregor Benton is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of
Leeds. He has published many books, mainly on Chinese Communist
Party history. He is directing a project for the ESRC on Chinese com
munities in Europe.
Francesco Carchedi is the President of Parsec (Research and Social
Intervention) in Rome. He has published extensively on immigration
in Italy. He is theeditor (withGiovanna Campani and Alberto Tassinari)
of L'tmmigrazione silenziosa: Le comunita cinesi in Italia (The silent
immigration: The Chinese community in Italy, 1994).
Flemming Christiansen is Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the Uni
versity of Leeds. His publications include Chinese Politics and Society
(with Shirin Rai, 1996) and Village Inc.: Chinese Rural Society in the
1990s (with Zhang Junzuo, forthcoming).
Mariea Ferri is a postgraduate student in sociology at the University
of Rome.
Erich Giitinger teaches Chinese and German in Berlin. His research
interest is on the Chinese community in Germany.
Frank Laczko is a Senior Research Officer with the International Or
ganization for Migration (10M) in Budapest. He is responsible for the
research and information programmes of the 10M's Technical Coop
eration Centre for Europe and Central Asia. He is the author (with C.
Philipson) of Changing Work and Retirement (1991).
Alexander G. Larin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of
Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
His research interests include international relations in East Asia, China,
and the overseas Chinese in Russia. He is co-author of several books,
ix
