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According to government officials, academics, schools, and business and community associations, the number of Chinese nationals living in Malaysia has nearly doubled in the past three years, thanks to an increase in students and new investors.
“There are easily 150,000, and there could be as many as 200,000” Chinese citizens in Malaysia today, said Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the Institute of Chinese Studies at the University of Malaya, up from about 82,000 in 2022, which he called a “very conservative estimate.”
China’s slowing economic growth and a tougher approach to business have prompted more of its citizens to seek new lives abroad. Wealthy Chinese have flocked to destinations such as Singapore and Malta, where they have acquired citizenship through investment, and are the largest source of golden visa applicants in Portugal and Greece. Chinese citizens also make up one of the largest groups of illegal migrants attempting to enter the United States from Latin America.
In Malaysia, the situation is different. The country is home to a centuries-old Chinese diaspora that makes up about 23 percent of its 34 million citizens. Most of the new Chinese arrivals are middle-class families who see Southeast Asia as a more affordable destination, or students who avoid anti-Chinese sentiment in the West, making Chinese the largest group of foreign students and long-term residents in Malaysia.
Malaysia’s international universities and schools are reporting soaring demand. The nation’s higher education institutions had 44,043 Chinese students enrolled last year, up 35 percent from 2021, according to the education ministry. Financial Times research showed that the number of Chinese students in international schools more than doubled in the same time frame from 2021 to 2023.
More than 56,000 Chinese immigrants now hold long-stay Malaysia My Second Home visas, more than double the number from last year.
Chinese investors are also contributing to the expat boom. There are about 45,000 Chinese business owners, managers and employees in Malaysia, up from about 10,000 in 2021, according to a Chinese trade official.
“Every week, new people are coming,” said a representative of the China Entrepreneurs Association in Malaysia, who pointed to suppliers in the electronics and electric vehicle industries seeking to increase capacity outside China to evade U.S. tariffs. Another official from the group said there has also been a surge in entrepreneurs growing durians for export to China.
Many Chinese students are attracted by lower tuition fees and less competition for college places. “I didn’t do well in the college entrance exam back home. I could only have gotten into a mediocre school and it would have been more expensive,” said Xiaofei, a student at the National University of Malaysia who asked to be referred to only by his first name.
Growth is even steeper in secondary schools, though it’s starting from a lower base. Officials at 15 international schools estimate the share of Chinese students in their student bodies at between 10 and 30 percent, for a total of 2,500 children, nearly triple the number seen in 2021.
Since Malaysia has more than 250 international schools, the total population of Chinese students is likely to be much higher than that sample, said an official from a Chinese community association in Malaysia.
The increase in Chinese residents mirrors a previous trend in Thailand. Sivarin Lertpusit of Bangkok’s Thammasat University said the number of new Chinese immigrants to Thailand was “increasing rapidly,” reaching 110,000-130,000 residents in the country by 2022, most of them entrepreneurs, employees, students and their families, as well as lifestyle migrants.
“Most of them come from low- and middle-income families,” he said.
But the trend could have a greater impact in Malaysia, whose population is half that of its neighbor and where ethnic divisions are more acute.
Unlike Thailand, the Chinese diaspora in Malaysia has not assimilated, and the Malay Muslim majority is resistant to any increase in the influence of ethnic Chinese residents.
The influx is set to continue. In the first five months of 2024, the number of Chinese applicants to Malaysian universities increased by 25 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Education Malaysia Global Services, which markets Malaysian universities abroad.
“Many Chinese students no longer feel welcome in the United States or Australia,” said an official at a Chinese community organization in Malaysia. “There is no attack on China here,” he added, making Malaysia a good option for students who “don’t want to be singled out and demonized every day.”
