Han Chinese in Mongolia

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The Chinese in Mongolia have not been very well-documented. Mongolia's 1956 census counted ethnic Chinese as 1.9% of the population; the United States government estimated their proportion to be 2% in 1987, or roughly 40,000 people.^[1] The 2000 census showed 1,323 permanent residents of Chinese descent; this figure does not include naturalised citizens, temporary residents, nor illegal immigrants.^[2] Illegal immigrants from China were estimated at 10,000 in the 1990s; some use Mongolia as a transit point into Russia.^[3]

1 History of settlement
2 See also
3 References
- 3.1 Notes
- 3.2 Sources

[edit] History of settlement

Chinese settlement in Mongolia dates back to 1725, when farmers moved there by decree of the Qing Dynasty to grow food for soldiers fighting the Dzungars. They settled in the Orkhon and Tuul river basins, and in 1762, in the Khobdo region. However, they withdrew after the fighting ended, and the Qing closed off Mongolia to immigration.^[4] Historically, the Gobi served as a barrier to large-scale Chinese settlement in what was, before 1921, called Outer Mongolia; the unsuitability of most of the territory for agriculture made southern settlement less attractive. The small Chinese population in the early 1920s consisted of merchants or peddlers, artisans working for Buddhist monasteries or Mongol aristocrats, and a few market gardeners near Ulan Bator and the smaller population centers of the Selenge region. Many of the Chinese married or formed liaisons with Mongol women. Their children, who spoke Mongolian as their first language, were regarded as Chinese by the rules of patrilineal descent common to both Chinese and Mongols.^[1]

In the early 1980s, Ulan Bator was reported to have a small Chinese community, which published a Chinese-language newspaper and which looked to the Chinese embassy there for moral support. However, in 1983, Mongolia systematically began expelling some of the 7,000 ethnic Chinese in Mongolia to China. They were accused of "preferring an idle, parasitic way of life" to honest labor on the state farms to which they had been assigned. Many of them had lived in Mongolia since the 1950s, when they were sent there to assist in construction projects. At the same time, ethnic Chinese who had become naturalized citizens were reported to be unaffected. Because the presence and the status of Chinese residents in Mongolia were politically sensitive subjects, Mongolian sources usually avoided mentioning the Chinese at all.^[1]

After the introduction of democracy, negative sentiments against Chinese immigrants remain; China is seen as a potential threat to Mongolia's security and cultural identity.^[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Library of Congress 1989
^ Batbayar: 221
^ Bedeski 1999
^ Batbayar 2006: 216
^ Asian Economic News 2007-02-23

[edit] Sources

Batbayar, Tsedendamba (2006). "Foreign migration issues in Mongolia". Crossing National Borders: Human Migration Issues in Northeast Asia: 215-235, United Nations University Press. ISBN 9280811177.
Bedeski, Robert (November 1999). "The Chinese Diaspora, Mongolia and the Sino-Russian Frontier". JPRI Working Paper. Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
"Anti-Chinese sentiment swelling in Mongolia", Asian Economic News, 2005-04-11. Retrieved on February 23, 2007.
(June 1989). "Country Studies: Mongolia". United States Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2007-02-28. See section "Ethnic and Linguistic Groups: Chinese, Russians, and Others.