Abstract
For centuries, many Chinese migrations have been identified in South-East Asia. It was mostly the initiative of particular elites: economic, like wealthy merchants or political and military, with envoys like Zheng He. The exchanged volume of merchandise traded steadily increased: pepper, clove, nutmeg, precious woods were the most common subject for trade. Altogether, seventy official missions were sent only during the first quarter of the 15th century. They aimed at protecting the trade and all its protagonists: indeed, many sailors and merchants had settled there. In the 17th century, many thousands of Chinese are present in future Indochina, Malaysia or Indonesia.
However, this migration remains a voluntary one whereas a diaspora is defined as a movement of dispersion of an ethnic group of people with strong features of identity, as a result of forced migration. The main aspect of a diaspora is that a moved population, in spite of distance and time, conserves cultural, affective and possibly political ties with the country of origin.
