Chinese in Fiji

The Chinese diaspora in Fiji is a small but influential community in the multiracial society that makes up modern-day Fiji. In the early 2000s their numbers were estimated at around 6,000, or a little over half of one percent of Fiji's population. The most recent estimation puts the population at 7,500 making the concentration of Chinese in Fiji at around one percent. Around 80% of Chinese in Fiji speak Cantonese and around 16% speak Shanghainese as their native language. Chinese in Fiji also speak the local Fijian language. There are also a considerable number of Fijians who are of partial Chinese extraction, being descended from marriages between Chinese and indigenous Fijians. For electoral purposes, Chinese people used to be counted as General Electors, an omnibus category for Fijian citizens not of indigenous, Indian, or Rotuman descent, who were allocated three seats in the 71-member House of Representatives. This classification became redundant with the 2013 Constitution, which abolished ethnic representation in Parliament. The history of Chinese people in Fiji dates to the year 1855, when Moy Ba Ling, also known as Houng Lee, reached Fiji in a sail boat from Australia and settled in Levuka. He later returned to China, before bringing his relatives and some others to settle in Fiji, in connection with the gold rush. Later arrivals came looking for sandalwood and beche-de-mer. According to Dixon Seeto, President of the Chinese Association of Fiji in the early 2000s, the first shops in rural areas of Fiji were opened by Chinese merchants. Chinese people were enfranchised for the first time in 1964. The former European roll was redefined to include other minority groups and renamed the General Electors roll. Despite being only a splinter of the electorate, General Electors were then allocated 10 of the 36 seats in the Legislative Council, as the legislature was then known, though this figure has gradually been reduced since independence in 1970.