Description
Northern Ireland’s first census from a century ago showed only two Chinese people among the population. The province remains one of the United Kingdom’s most white and least diverse regions, with as recent as 2001, only 0.8% of the population identifying as non-white. However, the quantum of demographic change and the rate at which Northern Ireland is transforming is one of the highest in Europe. In the capital city of Belfast, less than two percent of the population identified as non-white in 2001. Two decades later, this has jumped to seven percent. In the 2021 census, 1.4% of Belfast residents (or 4,738 people) identified as Chinese. This number is thought to constitute approximately half of the total ethnic Chinese population living in Northern Ireland, although community groups have argued that this figure underrepresents the actual number of people of Chinese background living in the province.Northern Ireland’s ethnic Chinese community is highly diverse. It comprises Hong Kong- and Guangdong-born people who migrated in small numbers to Belfast from the 1960s and 1970s onwards, often coming to the troubled region reluctantly and via previous stints in England or Scotland. Chinese Malaysians and Chinese Singaporeans came as students in the 1980s and 1990s in even smaller numbers, but since the early 1990s, it has been predominantly mainland Chinese who moved to the province as students or professional migrants after the Good Friday Agreement and the return of peace to Northern Ireland. This presentation provided an overview of the current literature and an initial summary of this early-stage research project being developed with Dr Liu Yan.
| Period | 1 Apr 2024 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Hubei Normal University, China |
| Degree of Recognition | International |