关键词: 中国, 海外移民类型, 移民族群特征

Abstract: There was a long migration history of overseas Chinese. The largest scale of the migration appeared in the last hundred years. At present the population of ethnic Chinese amounted to over 30,000 thousand. Ethnic Chinese have exerted important impacts on social and economic development of many countries and regions. This paper briefly reviews the migration history of overseas Chinese which emigrated in different patterns, analyzes its distribution pattern in the world and how it came into being. On the basis of revealing the important contribution of ethnic Chinese to the local resources exploitation, economic development, social progress and national independence, research on the following aspects of the ethnic Chinese was done: their Chinese national consciousness, cultural attribute, traditional social structure, their political, racial and cultural identification, their distinctive characteristics in different regions and different patterns of degrees to which ethnic Chinese integrated themselves into the mainstream of local society. The paper emphasizes that at present the position and the role of ethnic Chinese in different regions should be deeply understood, in the process of China's vitalization, the Chinese government should highly appreciate the ability of these ethnic groups.

Key words: China, overseas migration pattern, migratory ethnic groups’ characteristics