There is a considerable literature on the emigration of the Chinese, much of it focusing on the communities which they founded, the travails they endured to get there and to co-exist with host societies, and the patterns of chain migration which they established. There had been movement into mainland and island Southeast Asia for many centuries, but these early traders and settlers have attracted little attention from scholars, and almost all writings deal with the 19th and 20th centuries when increased contact with the West exacerbated economic and political turmoil in China and at the same time opened up new opportunities abroad. Despite the fact that from the early 18th century until 1893 it had been illegal (on pain of death) for Chinese citizens to leave the country, many were undeterred and it is estimated that over two million did so between 1840 and 1900 alone.
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