This course examines the fluid and multifaceted Chinese diaspora experience in Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific, the local identities of communities identified as 'Chinese' and their complex relationship with China. It will explore various interfaces of the Chinese diaspora with peoples and states where they settled, their positions in economies, societies and politics, and their global positioning. We will trace both the history of Chinese emigration of the last millennium and the more recent waves of Chinese emigration since the 1990s to see how and in what way recent emigrants differ from the Chinese overseas in earlier centuries; we will examine Chinese as citizens of Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific countries and their roles in politics, both in the countries there they reside and in China. We will also look at the migration of the non-Han Chinese diasporic communities such as the Tibetans, Mongols, Uyghur and those from the southern regions such as the Hmong and Aka. Together they problematize the image of a single, discrete and patriotic diasporic Chineseness and at the same time pose challenges to the countries in which these people have settled.