Chinese people in the Netherlands

[6] Early Chinese labour migration to the Netherlands was drawn primarily from two sources: peddlers from Qingtian, Zhejiang who began arriving in the country after World War I, and seamen of Guangdong origin drawn from among the British Chinese community; the latter had initially been brought in as strikebreakers in 1911.

Their numbers dropped as a result of voluntary outmigration and deportations; by World War II, fewer than 1,000 remained.

From a group of 20 in 1911, their numbers continued to increase, interrupted only by World War II; in 1957, out of the roughly 1,400 ethnic Chinese from Indonesia in the Netherlands, 1,000 were students.

[6] In 1911, these students established the Chung Hwa Hui, which was in contact with various Chinese organizations and political parties in Europe.

[7] Largely of Peranakan origin, the students tended to speak Indonesian local languages as their mother tongues, and had already done their early education at Dutch-medium schools.

Most went to China, the United States, or Australia, but those who had been educated in Dutch preferentially chose the Netherlands as their destination; there are no exact statistics, but the migrants themselves estimate that about 5,000 arrived during this period.

[12] As of 2012[update], figures from the Netherlands' Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek showed: Totalling 80,198 persons.

The number of persons of mainland Chinese background grew by 152% over that same period, with both overseas-born and Dutch-born segments showing a similar level of growth.