Indians in China


The Indians in China are migrants from India to China and their descendants. Historically, Indians played a major role in disseminating Buddhism in China. In modern times, there is a large long-standing community of Indians living in Hong Kong, often for descendants with several generations of roots, and a growing population of students, traders, and employees in Mainland China.

History

Antiquity and Middle Ages

In the Records of the Grand Historian, Zhang Qian and Sima Qian make references to "Shendu 身毒", which may have been referring to the Indus Valley, originally known as "Sindhu" in Sanskrit. When Yunnan was annexed by the Han Dynasty in the first century, Chinese authorities reported an Indian "Shendu" community living there. After the transmission of Buddhism from India to China from the first century onwards, many Indian scholars and monks travelled to China, such as Batuo —founder of the Shaolin Monastery—and Bodhidharma—founder of Chan/Zen Buddhism. There was also a large Tamil Indian community in Quanzhou city and Jinjiang district who built more than a dozen Hindu temples or shrines, including two grand big temples in Quanzhou city. In 1271, a visiting Italian merchant recorded that the Indians “were recognised easily.” “These rich Indian men and women mainly live on vegetables, milk and rice,” he wrote. The mass foreign influx forced all locals of Quanzhou to immigrate to Fuzhou or Ningde to get away from the indians and other foreginers, while only Quanzhou's Tanka untouchables remained. As retribution for supporting the Ispah rebellion, Chen's provincial armies exterminated most of the Tamil Indians, the small remainder of them who survived were deported to other parts of the Quanzhou region like Jinjiang or Nan'an or further south of Fujian. Many Indians gave their children to local farmers to save them from slaughter where they were raised up as Hokkiens. These have created north and south culture differences, Fuzhou and Putian northerners are stereotyped as stingy, intelligent and reserved while Hokkien southerners are stereotyped as vulgar, tolerant and friendly

Colonial Era

Indians were among the crew of the Portuguese ships trading on the Chinese coast
beginning in the sixteenth century. For example, Galeote Pereira, one of the Portuguese smugglers captured off the Fujian coast in 1549 and exiled to Guangxi, mentions Gujarati servants among his companions.
In the same century Indians from former Portuguese Indian Colonies settled in Macau in small numbers.
The history of the Indians in Hong Kong could be drawn back since the day of British occupation. When the Union flag of the United Kingdom was hoisted on 26 January 1841, there were around 2,700 Indian troops participated. They had played an important role for the development of Hong Kong in early days. The most mentionable were the contributions of the set up of the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Also, the Star Ferry was founded by Indians in 1888. In 1952, business leaders of the Indian community have founded The Indian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong. It aimed at promoting and improving the image of India trade in Hong Kong and southern China.

Mainland China

The number in the Mainland is growing rapidly with the Sixth National Population Census of the People's Republic of China recording 15,051 Indian nationals living in mainland China as of 2010. Other sources report more with a columnist for the Economic Times stating that the number of Indians in China was 45-48,000 in 2015. Many Indians in China are students, traders and professionals employed with MNCs, Indian companies and banks. There are three Indian community associations in the country.

Medical Students

There are a total 23,000 Indian students in China in 2019 and among them 21,000 study medicine. Students from Andhra Pradesh are particularly well represented with 5,000 medical students in China reported in 2011.
The growth of Indian medical students at Chinese medical universities started in 2003 after the Medical Council of India accepted Chinese medical degrees for qualification in India. For the academic year 2019-20, MCI recognised English language degrees from 45 universities and colleges in China. Chinese medical schools are attractive because of better infrastructure, labs and equipment, and lower cost with annual tuition around $4,000 in 2020, about half of the cost of private medical schools in India.

Hong Kong

Most Indians stepped into the fields like international companies, banking, airlines, travel agents, medical, media and insurance sector. The banking and financial sector had the strongest presence of Indian professionals. Information technology and telecommunications have also interested highly qualified Indians. In the 1950s, tailoring had become an industry that was popular with Indians and around 200 tailoring shops were owned by them at that time.

Taiwan

Indian culture

The Indian Embassy has been organising the Festival of India in China over the years. An important component of it has been the food festivals held in Indian restaurants, spread over nearly 45 Chinese cities.
The Chinese government has invited the Swaminarayan Trust that runs the Akshardham temples in Delhi and in Gandhinagar, to build an Akshardham temple. A huge piece of land has been earmarked in the Guangdong province, which will not only house the temple but also an Indian cultural centre which will include a traditional Indian music learning centre and also various Indian language teaching centres on this temple premises.

Notable people

Ancient