Thread by @tzemingdynasty

Was lining my bin with my free @nzherald last night and was like lolwut 290,000 'Chinese migrants call NZ home'. CUZ! @dchengnz you've been classified as a PRC immigrant in the graphic of your own story. NZ Chinese statsthread for you: 1/

I’m curious about where the @nzherald got the 290,000 figure. I’ve seen rough estimates in the 200,000-250,000 range for *all ethnic Chinese* in NZ, so maybe it’s a very high estimate for the *entire ethnic Chinese population*. 2/

But there is no way there are 290,000 Mainland Chinese migrants in NZ who ‘call NZ home’. I’m also doubtful that there are 290,000 *ethnic Chinese migrants of any kind* in NZ who ‘call NZ home’. 3/

The 2013 Census counted approx 171,000 ethnic Chinese in NZ. Using reported birth country as well (so, losing a couple thousand who did not report this), you can add Taiwan-born who identified themselves as ‘Taiwanese’ not ‘Chinese’ and get to about 175,500 in 2013 4/

More than half of these 175,500 Chinese in 2013 were *not* PRC-born, and 26.5% were NZ-born, i.e. not migrants at all 5/

The Census, remember, counts all those in NZ on Census night, no matter their residency status, so includes international students and even tourists. Who are *not* ‘migrants who call NZ home’, in either an administrative or likely a personal sense. 6/

The 2013 ethnic Chinese pop. count was substantial bump on the previous Census on the order of about 30-40,000 people, but nothing near a leap from 171,000 to 290,000. Hence, my curiosity of where this figure comes from. 7/

We do know that the Mainland population has increased a lot, and the online Census debacle will have hampered the count, but much of the dramatic increase is international students. A relevant population yes, but let’s not confuse the public about who we all are. 8/

The implication from the story context is that the 290,000 figure is ‘Chinese migrants’ from China, since it’s a story about the so-called ‘rift’ in NZ-China relations, which presumably impacts on all of these ‘Chinese migrants’. 9/

Yet half of the ethnic Chinese population are not mainlanders; many are migrants from countries with historical animosity towards the PRC or which have similarly delicate and problematic relationships with the PRC that NZ does. Maybe that is actually the relevant data. 10/

NZ Chinese residents are a diverse lot. Many non-Mainlanders spend plenty of time trash-talking the PRC behind closed doors - in fact, so do some Mainlanders. 11/

The only way in which this issue effects all of us in the same way, is the risk of racist backlash due to, ironically, being all lumped together as a monolith by the media. FIN/