Many of these invested in restaurants, retailing, and market gardening (mostly in Kalabu, Tamavua, Delaivalelevu, Vikoba, Sawani and Waibau), and have intensified horticulture around Suva.
Many of the more recent immigrants have opened bakeries and other food outlets in Fijian villages, creating employment for local people, says Fiji Times editor Samisoni Kakaivalu.
A 357-kilogram heroin bust in 2000 and a Suva drug laboratory, with a value estimated at close to F$1 billion, in 2004, raised public concerns about the activities of some of the more recent Chinese immigrants.
The activities of a few of them, says Fiji Law Society President Graeme Leung, have unfairly stigmatized the Chinese community in the eyes of the public.
He alleged that bribery in the office of the Registrar General had resulted in massive falsification of documents, with Chinese immigrants being falsely identified as ethnic Fijians.
Dixon Seeto spoke out on 15 December against violent attacks made against Chinese market gardeners and farmers.
Well-known persons of whole or partial Chinese descent include former Cabinet Minister Pio Wong, former Senators Kenneth Low and James Ah Koy, Peter Lee (former long serving General Manager of Coca-Cola Fiji and currently heading Fiji's largest conglomerate - Carpenters) and prominent lawyer Graeme Leung.