number of Chinese immigrants was greatest, and where they came to
constitute the highest percentage of the total population. In the Straits
Settlements of Penang, Malacca (Melaka) and Singapore, the Chinese
population increased from just over 96 000 in 1860 to over 370 000 in
- By then 550 000 more lived in the Malay states, mainly in the
tin mining areas of Perak and Selangor.
In Burma no accurate figures were available prior to the 1911
census, when Chinese numbered 122 000. Most were concentrated in
Rangoon and Upper Burma, where several thousand Chinese were
engaged in the flourishing overland trade with Yunnan. Migration of
Chinese to northern and central Vietnam (Tongking and Annam) was
strictly controlled by the Nguyen emperors until the 1880s, but
encouraged by the French in Cochinchina and Cambodia, where they
made up over 3 per cent of the population. The 1921 census registered
156 000 Chinese in Cochinchina, 39 000 in the rest of Vietnam, and
91 000 in Cambodia. In Siam the estimated 300 000 Chinese and
Sino–Thai in 1850 had increased to nearly 800 000 by 1910,
approaching 10 per cent of the population. Increased Chinese migra-
tion in the 1920s and 1930s pushed all these figures considerably
higher.
Conclusion
At first the European presence in Southeast Asia only minimally dis-
rupted trading patterns between China and the Nanyang, and the
Qing could treat European diplomatic missions arriving in Canton in
the same way as they did seaborne tributary missions from Southeast
Asia. Even as Qing power waned and European, especially British,
power grew, the Qing court clung desperately to the crumbling façade
of the Chinese world order. When finally it collapsed, the only alter-
native was for China to adapt to the Western world system. By that
time all of Southeast Asia, with the exception of Siam, had been
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia