The Chinese-Canadian community in Canada has nearly 250 years of history. The first group of workers from China arrived at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island in British Columbia in the late 1780s. Then Chinese workers began to appear in larger numbers around 1850 as a result of the Gold Rush. 

 

During that time, China was still under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, founded by the Manchu ethnic group in Manchuria, which has ruled China since 1644. The Qing Empire was subsequently overthrown in 1911 with Dr. Sun Yat-sen as the first president of the Republic of China established under the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party of China).

 

The Chinese Communist Party took over the reign in 1949 after it has won the civil war against the Kuomintang and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

 

It can be seen that the government in China has changed hands twice after the first batch of Chinese workers have arrived in Canada: from the Qing Imperial Dynasty to the Republic of China, then to the PRC. 

 

Today, nearly 250 years after the first batch of workers arrived from China, “there is no single Chinese Canadian community in Canada. There is no one definition of ‘Chinese’ that can capture the complex histories of more recent migrants to Canada or reflect the unique identities that are being formed. … There are many different communities who speak vastly different languages and dialects—each with their own histories and stories: Hakka Chinese from India; Sino-Vietnamese refugees; Taiwanese whose ancestors left Fujian over 500 years ago; Chinese Peruvians, Chinese Mexicans; Tsinoys from the Philippines; Peranakan from Malaysia and Indonesia; and Chinese from South Africa, Mauritius, Guyana, El Salvador, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Trinidad. The varying ways in which people with Chinese ancestry understand the meaning and significance of that ancestry is complex and sometimes even contradict each other’s definitions.”

 

Therefore, one should always remember that the PRC today under the Chinese Communist Party does not constitute or represent the Chinese Canadian community, which has a much longer history and a more complex ethnic and cultural ancestry than the CCP regime that only began in 1949. Also worthy of note is that for decades, the PRC and its operatives have been treating Chinese Canadians as if they were PRC subjects and affiliates. This is as erroneous and ludicrous as treating the Americans as if they were the subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of England.