Why are 70% Chinese Americans (overseas Chinese) from Guangdong? What is the historical background?

Guangdong is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese in China. At present, there are about 22 million overseas Chinese in Guangdong in more than 0/00 countries and regions on five continents, accounting for about 70% of the total overseas Chinese in the world. Overseas Chinese mainly come from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the United States, Singapore, Canada, the Philippines, Australia, Britain and Peru. There are about 20 million returned overseas Chinese and their relatives. Overseas Chinese organizations in Guangdong have great scale and influence, such as the World Hakka Congress, the International Tide Society and the World Zhongshan Middle School Association. In addition, Guangdong is adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, and there are about 5 million Hong Kong and Macao compatriots whose ancestral home is Guangdong.

Guangzhou has a long history of emigrating overseas. With the development of transportation and trade between China and foreign countries, Guangzhou people have traveled all over the world for a long time and settled down to become overseas Chinese and Chinese. According to records, after the Tang Dynasty, the number of Guangzhou people living abroad increased day by day. In the middle of Kangxi, the sea ban was opened, and more people made a living abroad. In modern times, there was a climax of emigration in Guangzhou. The main reasons are as follows: first, the livelihood of the broad masses of people is becoming increasingly difficult, and they can't bear the persecution and slaughter of the Qing government. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Guangdong authorities in the Qing Dynasty suppressed the Guangdong Heaven and Earth Society Uprising and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution by cruel slaughter, and many uprising participants and their relatives fled overseas to take refuge and settle down. Second, the western colonialists were in urgent need of labor and lured China workers to China. According to statistics, during the five years from 1848 to 1852, more than 30,000 China laborers were lured in Guangzhou and its vicinity.

The vast number of overseas Chinese have a tradition of loving their country and hometown, and they have made indelible contributions to the motherland and hometown. First, they enthusiastically supported and actively participated in the revolutionary movement and all patriotic activities of the motherland. During the whole period of the old democratic revolution and the new democratic revolution, from the democratic revolutionary movement led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the people's liberation war in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and all the patriotic democratic movements against imperialism and feudalism, the vast number of patriotic overseas Chinese almost lost their jobs, and many people lost their money and sacrificed their lives to help them out. Second, actively invest in the establishment of modern industrial enterprises, which opened the prelude to the establishment of state-owned enterprises in Guangzhou. 1860, Li Mou, an overseas Chinese from Peru, and others founded the Export Bank of Bandung Bank in Guangzhou, creating a precedent for overseas Chinese to invest. 1872, Chen Qiyuan, an overseas Chinese from Nanyang, founded the first machine silk reeling factory in China in Nanhai. Then, overseas Chinese living in the United States set up the first household electric lamp company in Guangzhou. At the beginning of the 20th century, Malaysian overseas Chinese founded the first rubber enterprise in China in Guangzhou, and American and Canadian overseas Chinese invested and founded the first public automobile company in Guangzhou. The third is to spread western culture widely and promote cultural exchanges between China and the West in Guangzhou.