Chinese Filipino

Chinese Filipinos (sometimes referred as Filipino Chinese in the Philippines) are Filipinos of Chinese descent with ancestry mainly from Fujian province, but are typically born and raised in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos are one of the largest overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.

Chinese immigration to the Philippines occurred mostly during the Spanish colonization of the islands between the 16th and 19th centuries, attracted by the lucrative trade of the Manila galleons. In the 19th century, migration was triggered by the corrupt and bad governance of the late Qing Dynasty, combined with economic problems in China due to the Western and Japanese colonial wars and Opium Wars. It subsequently continued during the 20th century, from American colonial times, through the post-independence era to Cold War, to the present. In 2013, according to older records held by the Senate of the Philippines, there were approximately 1.35 million ethnic (or pure) Chinese within the Philippine population, while Filipinos with any Chinese descent comprised 22.8 million of the population. However, the actual current figures are not known since the Philippine census does not usually take into account questions about ethnicity. Accordingly, the oldest Chinatown in the world is located in Binondo, Manila founded on December 8, 1594.

Chinese Filipinos are a well established middle class ethnic group and are well represented in all levels of Filipino society. Chinese Filipinos also play a leading role in the Philippine business sector and dominate the Philippine economy today. Most in the current list of the Philippines' richest each year comprise Taipan billionaires of Chinese Filipino background. Some in the list of the political families in the Philippines are also of Chinese Filipino background, meanwhile the bulk are also of Spanish-colonial-era Chinese mestizo (mestizo de Sangley) descent, of which, many families of such background also compose a considerable part of the Philippine population especially its bourgeois, who during the late Spanish Colonial Era in the late 19th century, produced a major part of the ilustrado intelligentsia of the late Spanish Colonial Philippines, that were very influential with the creation of Filipino nationalism and the sparking of the Philippine Revolution as part of the foundation of the First Philippine Republic and subsequent sovereign independent Philippines.