In the Liverpool area, by the end of World War II, an estimated 900 Eurasian children were born to Chinese fathers and white mothers.

[22] Diana Yeh argues that the term is also a means to negotiate and offer agency to individuals often rejected as not being "British" or "Chinese" enough, yet also not being as visible as "Black" or "Asian" ethnic minorities.

The first recorded Chinese person in Britain was Shen Fu Tsong (c. 1657 – 1691), a Jesuit scholar who was present in the court of King James II in the 17th century.

He worked for The Board of Excise at Dundas House, St Andrew Square, Edinburgh for 40 years, beginning as a servant to the clerks and retiring as Senior Accountant.

[35] These communities consisted of a transnational and highly mobile population of Cantonese seamen and small numbers of more permanent residents who ran shops, restaurants, and boarding houses that catered for them.

[37] Yellow Peril imagery was used to shame mixed marriages, portraying Chinese men as a danger to white women and "the purity of the Anglo-Saxon blood".

After the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, a new wave of Hong Kong migrants settled in Britain, some of whom were civil servants.

Some Chinese unskilled migrants enter illegally to work in the black economy, in dangerous jobs with no employment rights, as the Morecambe Bay tragedy of February 2004 showed.

[2] The five local authorities with the largest proportion of British Chinese were the City of London (6.35%), Cambridge (4.37%), Tower Hamlets (3.31%), Westminster (3.24%) and Camden (3.20%).

[68][70][71][4] Historically, British Chinatowns originated as enclaves of Chinese communities and can be found in many major cities, such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Aberdeen.

Since 2000, the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided an important forum for many of them to grapple with questions concerning their identities, experiences, and status in Britain.

[59] There are Chinese community centres in Chinatown, Kensington and Chelsea, Southwark, Westminster, Camden, Greenwich, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets.

[80] Other activities include a family show in Trafalgar Square with dragon and lion dances and traditional and contemporary Chinese arts by performers from both London and China.

[9] Government reports in early 2001 highlighted the smuggling of illegal meat as a possible source for the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, some of which was destined for a Chinese restaurant.

Just before the lockdown in February 2020, British Chinese children recalled experiences of fear and frustration due to bullying and name calling in their schools.

A grassroots group known as Britain's East and Southeast Asian Network was formed to promote positive representation of the community in the UK.

[102][103] Since the relatively elevated immigration of the 1960s, the Chinese community has made rapid socioeconomic advancements in the UK over the course of a generation.

[111][112] In the three-year period to 2022/23, 45% of children in households from a Chinese ethnic group were experiencing child poverty after housing costs.

[113] The British Chinese community place an exceptionally high value on post-secondary educational attainment; emphasise effort over innate ability; give their children supplementary tutoring irrespective of financial barriers; and restrict their children's exposure to counter-productive influences that might hinder educational attainment via the Confucian paradigm and the sole belief of greater social mobility.

When it comes to the distinguished category of being recognized as the "paragon immigrants", British Chinese are also more likely to take maths and science-intensive courses such as physics and calculus.

These latter have not been negligible: research has shown that the Chinese as a group face both discrimination and problems accessing public and social services.

[118] Due to the rigorous primary and secondary school system in East Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Britons of Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese descent rank within the top 5 in British as well as international scholastic mathematical and scientific aptitude tests and tend to score better in these subjects than the general population average.

British Chinese remain rare among most Special Educational Needs types at the primary and secondary school level, except for Speech, Language and Communication needs, where first-generation Chinese pupils are greatly over-represented with the influx of first-generation immigrants coming from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

[120] Trevor Phillips, former Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has argued that Chinese and Indian-heritage pupils achieve high standards of academic attainment regardless of the school attended or poverty levels.

However, British Chinese women were also more likely to experience more pay penalties than other ethnic groups in the United Kingdom despite possessing higher qualifications.

[133][134] A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2011 found that British Chinese have one of the lowest poverty rates among different ethnic groups in Britain.

Of the different ethnic groups studied, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Black Africans had the highest rates of child and adult poverty overall.

Language difficulties and long working hours in the catering trade present major obstacles to many Chinese people in accessing mainstream health provision.

The centre, based close to London's Chinatown, provides a range of services designed to tackle both the physical and psychological aspects of health.

[150] British Chinese film and television productions include: Huang Yongjun, the founder and General Manager of New Classic Press (UK) has acted as a major advocator of the "China Dream" in the United Kingdom.