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This article provides a state-of-the-field assessment of a large body of English-language scholarship on Chinese migration to colonial Southeast Asia. It first explores the theoretical literature that grapples with the conceptual utility of “diaspora” as well as the attempted periodization and identities. It then turns the analytical gaze to the paradigm-shifting debates on transnational Chinese capitalism wherein the studies of networks, enterprises, and commerce in the age of empire have questioned the validity of “Chinese-ness” in dominant approaches to Chinese businesses and capital circulations. Finally, it engages with a growing scholarship on the social and cultural histories of Chinese diasporas that captures the diversity of their experiences, family and kinship networks, survival strategies, and Chinese encounters with the colonial powers. Rather than exhaustive, the article selectively focuses on the most …