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Ethnic group of Chinese origins in Mauritius

Mauritians of Chinese origin, also known as Sino Mauritians or Chinese Mauritians, are Mauritians who trace their ethnic ancestry to China.

Like members of other communities on the island, some of the earliest Chinese in Mauritius arrived involuntarily, having been "shanghaied" from Sumatra in the 1740s to work in Mauritius in a scheme hatched by the French admiral Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing; however, they soon went on strike to protest their kidnapping. The authorities responded by deporting them back to Sumatra.

In the 1780s, thousands of voluntary Chinese migrants (estimated to be more than 3000) set sail for Port Louis from Guangzhou on board British, French, and Danish ships; they found employment as blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers, and tailors, and quickly formed a small Chinatown, the camp des Chinois, in Port Louis. Even after the British takeover of the island, migration continued unabated. The first wave of migration from China to Mauritius occurred in the early 1800s, the Chinese migrants who came to Mauritius were mainly from the Xiamen in Fujian province. Most of these migrants from Fujian were merchants and therefore according to the law they were not allowed to bring their families with them, were not allowed to buy lands unless they abandoned their Chinese citizenship and adopted a British citizenship; therefore, this led to many intermarriages with women of the Creole and Indian communities in order to build their own families or buy lands under the name of their spouses.

A second wave of migration from China came from Canton; they mainly came from the city of Guangzhou (Canton). In the mid 1800s, they more precisely came from the district of Shunde.

During the 1880s, despite the continuous influx of immigrants, Mauritius' Chinese population declined; Chinese traders, legally unable to purchase land in Mauritius, instead brought their relatives from China over to Mauritius. After training them for a few years to give them a handle on the business and to introduce them to life in a Western ruled colonial society, the traders sent those relatives on their way, with capital and letters of introduction, to establish businesses in neighbouring countries. For example, between 1888 and 1898, nearly 1,800 Chinese departed from Port Louis with ports on the African mainland—largely Port Elizabeth and Durban—as their destinations. In the late 19th to early 20th century, Chinese men in Mauritius married Indian women due to both a lack of Chinese women and the higher numbers of Indian women on the island. These Chinese were mostly traders. Until the 1930s, Chinese migrants continued to arrive in Port Louis, but with the strain on the local economy's ability to absorb them, many found that Mauritius would only be their first stop; they went on to the African mainland (especially South Africa), as well as to Madagascar, Réunion, and Seychelles. After World War II, immigration from China largely came to an end.

Between 1950s and 1980s, there was a considerable reduction of contacts with China due to the establishment of the People's Republic of China; nearly all Chinese migration from China was stopped. Along with the investors came a new influx of Chinese migrant workers, who signed on for three year stints in the garment factories. After the 1980s, China reopened up and migration from China to Mauritius slowly restarted and therefore, the old marriage network of the Hakka was re established, allowing Hakka women from Meixian to marry the local Hakka Sino Mauritians.) in Port Louis. After the Franco Mauritian population, they form the second wealthiest group on the island. They own restaurants, retail and wholesale shops, and import and export firms. Chinese restaurants have greatly influenced Mauritian culture, and Chinese food is consumed all over the island by people of all backgrounds. Fried noodles is one of the most popular dishes. Mauritians from all ethnic origin and background also enjoy the various vegetables and meat balls (Niouk Yen, Sow Mai, Van Yen, Fee Yen) which originate from the Hakka cuisine in Meixian. In a 2001 Business Magazine survey, 10 of the 50 largest companies were Chinese owned.

Most Sino Mauritian youth are at least trilingual: they use Mauritian Creole and French orally, while English—the language of administration and education—remains primarily a written language. In the 1990 census, roughly one third of Sino Mauritians stated Mauritian Creole as both their ancestral and currently spoken language. The other two thirds indicated some form of Chinese as their ancestral language although only fewer than one quarter of census respondents who identified Chinese as their ancestral language also indicated it as the language spoken in the home. Few Sino Mauritian youth speak Chinese; those who do use it primarily for communication with elderly relatives, especially those who did not attend school and thus had little exposure to English or French. None use it to communicate with their siblings or cousins. Among those members of the community who do continue to speak Hakka, wide divergence with Meixian Hakka has developed in terms of vocabulary and phonology. Other of varieties of Chinese spoken in Mauritius aside Hakka are: Hokkien, Cantonese, and Standard Mandarin. The Chung Hwa Middle School (中华中学), established by Kuomintang cadres on 20 October 1941, grew to enroll 500 students, but by the end of the 1950s, that had shrunk to just 300; they stopped classes entirely in the 1960s, although their alumni association remains prominent in the Sino Mauritian community. The Chinese Middle School also faced the problem of falling student numbers, as more Sino Mauritians sent their children to mainstream schools, and in the 1970s stopped their weekday classes, retaining only a weekend section. However, their student numbers began to experience some revival in the mid 1980s; in the 1990s, they established a weekday pre school section. Most of their teachers are local Sino Mauritians, though some are expatriates from mainland China. A monthly news magazine also began publication in 2005. The newspapers are printed in Port Louis, but not widely distributed outside the city. It stopped publishing in the 1960s, and merged with the China Times.

The Chinese Daily News (中华日报) is a pro Kuomintang newspaper. It was founded in 1932. The rivalry between Beijing friendly and Taipei friendly newspapers reached its peak in the 1950s; then editor in chief of the Chinese Daily News, Too Wai Man (杜蔚文), even received death threats.

The China Times (formerly 中国时报; now 华侨时报) was founded in 1953. The editor in chief, Long Siong Ah Keng (吴隆祥), was born in 1921 in Mauritius; at age 11, he followed his parents back to their ancestral village in Meixian, Guangdong, where he graduated from high school and went on to Guangxi University. After graduation, he signed on with the Chinese Commercial Gazette and returned to Mauritius. He left Mauritius again in 1952 to work for a Chinese paper in India, but a position at the China Times enticed him back.