Indians in China
| Total population | |
|---|---|
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Mainland China: 15,051 (2010 Census) Hong Kong: 28,600 |
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| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
The Indians in China are migrants from India (either British India or modern India) and their descendants. Historically, Indians played a major role in disseminating Buddhism in China. In modern times, there is a large long-standing community of Indians living in Hong Kong, often for descendants with several generations of roots, and a growing population of students, traders, and employees in Mainland China.
In the Records of the Grand Historian, Zhang Qian (d. 113 BC) and Sima Qian (145-90 BC) make references to "Shendu", which may have been referring to the Indus Valley (the Sindh province in modern Pakistan), originally known as "Sindhu" in Sanskrit. When Yunnan was annexed by the Han Dynasty in the first century, Chinese authorities reported an Indian "Shendu" community living there. After the transmission of Buddhism from India to China from the first century onwards, many Indian scholars and monks travelled to China, such as Batuo (fl. 464-495 AD)—founder of the Shaolin Monastery—and Bodhidharma—founder of Chan/Zen Buddhism.
Indians (as well as people from elsewhere in the Portuguese colonial empire) were among the crew of the Portuguese ships trading on the Chinese coast beginning in the sixteenth century. For example, Galeote Pereira, one of the Portuguese smugglers captured off the Fujian coast in 1549 and exiled to Guangxi, mentions Gujarati servants among his companions. In the same century Indians from former Portuguese Indian Colonies (notably Goa) settled in Macau in small numbers.
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