page_title: Overseas Chinese
section_title: Qing Dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: Overseas Chinese / History / Qing Dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Malaysia: Chinese merchants grouped outside their club house on Penang Island.
context_page_description: Overseas Chinese are people of ethnic Chinese birth who reside outside the territories of the People's Republic of China, its special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as the Republic of China. Although a vast majority are Han Chinese, the group represents virtually all ethnic groups in China.
context_section_description: When China was under the imperial rule of the Qing Dynasty, subjects who left the Qing Empire without the Administrator's consent were considered to be traitors and were executed. Their family members faced consequences as well. However, the establishment of the Lanfang Republic (Chinese: 蘭芳共和國; pinyin: Lánfāng Gònghéguó) in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a tributary state of Qing China, attests that it was possible to attain permission. The republic lasted until 1884, when it fell under Dutch occupation as Qing influence waned.
caption: Chinese merchants in Penang Island, Straits Settlements (present-day Malaysia), c. 1881.
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