BEIJING, Dec 17, 2015: China is to implement a “Chinese Card” for overseas born Chinese. Plans are currently on going to build an Overseas Chinese Township between Meizhou City and Songkou.
Southeast Asia has the world largest population of ethnic Chinese born overseas.
The programme could possibly attract a million ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia to migrate to China. This would including many ethnic Chinese who currently reside in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, India, Mauritius and Vietnam.
About 80 to 150 years ago, 1.5 million Hakka Chinese left Songkou River Town, going to Shantou en-route to Southeast Asia.
Meizhou City has the same population as George Town but the district of Meizhou is four times larger than Singapore, so there is plenty of space to develop, said the online Hongkong daily.
The plan is expected to attract a million overseas Chinese migrants and may spark the interest of Malaysian Chinese developers.
Since 2004, China has implemented a permanent residence card system for expatriates, commonly known as the “Chinese green card”. However due to high standards and stringent controls the average number of Chinese green cards issued annually is only 248.
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