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Trade between China and Britain existed as far back as Roman Britain|Roman times, although the first permanent settlement of Chinese people dates from the early 19th century, in port towns such as London (particularly the Limehouse area) and Liverpool. The biggest wave of Chinese immigration took place in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly of male agricultural workers from Hong Kong and the surrounding Guandong province, in response to the post-World War II|war labour shortage. The rise in popularity of Chinese cuisine in the UK led to the growth of the Chinese catering industry mainly in restaurants and takeaways. This lead to the formation of "Chinatown" areas in several major British cities where restaurants became the focal points of the larger settled communities. Since the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, restrictions have been placed on immigration from British colonies and ex-colonies, and these have been tightened by successive governments. Nevertheless, there was still significant Chinese migration to Britain, for relatives of settled Chinese, and those qualified for skilled jobs, until the end of the 1970s. Today, a significant proportion of British Chinese people are second- and third-generation descendants of these post-war immigrants. The 1981 British Nationality Act 1981|British Nationality Act deprived Hong Kong British passport holders of the right of abode in the UK, an issue that caused controversy in the years leading up to the territory's handover to People's Republic of China|China in 1997. More recently, there has been an increase in "people smuggling" into the UK from mainland China, with economic migrants being smuggled and then exploited as cheap illegal labour (usually in agriculture) by organised crime|criminal gangs. Inevitably, this had highly publicised and tragic consequences; in June 2000, 58 Chinese immigrants were found asphyxia|suffocated to death in a lorry in Dover, and in February 2004, 23 Chinese cockle-pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay after being caught in a high tide. At the last United Kingdom Census 2001|UK census in 2001, there were 247,403 Chinese people living in the UK - 0.4% of the total population, or 5.3% of the minority ethnic population. Unlike most ethnic minorities in the UK, the Chinese tend to be more widespread and decentralised. However, significant centres of British Chinese people can be found in:
British Chinese people, like overseas Chinese in many other Western nations, are noted for academic and professional achievement. Chinese pupils gain higher marks at General Certificate of Secondary Education|GCSE than any other ethnic group, and a British Chinese person is also more likely to possess a university academic degree|degree, own a house, or hold a job in the top managerial/professional class, than the average Briton http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/foe2004/Ethnicity.pdf. However, this success has not been reflected in 'high profile' jobs - unlike Britons of Afro-Caribbean or South Asian origin, there are exceedingly few, if any, well-known British Chinese politicians, actors or sportspersons. But Vanessa Mae is one example of a musician. See List of British Chinese people.
Diaspora
Culture
Community Organisations
Media
Welfare & Health
Category:Overseas Chinese groups Category:Ethnic groups of the United Kingdom This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "British Chinese".
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