^199,341 is the size of the population in Spain born in China (including those with Spanish citizenship). 223,999 is the size of the foreign population in Spain with Chinese citizenship (thus, with no Spanish citizenship).[1][2]
Chinese people in Spain form the ninth-largest non-European Union foreign community inSpain.[3] As of 2022[update], official figures showed 223,999 Chinese citizens residing in Spain; however, this figure does not include people with origins in otheroverseas Chinese communities, nor Spanish citizens of Chinese origin or descent.[2]
A Chinese wholesale clothing store inZaragoza. The sign is insimplified characters, indicating comparatively recent (andPRC-based) origin of the local Chinese community.
The first recorded arrivals of Chinese people to Spain date from the late 16th century.Bernardino de Escalante in hisDiscurso de la navegación... (one of the first European books on China, published in 1577) says that among his sources of information were "Chinese themselves, who came to Spain" ("los mesmos naturales Chinas que an venido à España").[4]Juan González de Mendoza in hisHistory of the great and mighty kingdom of China, wrote that in 1585 "three merchants of China" arrived in Mexico "and neuer staied till they came into Spaine and into other kingdomes further off."[5]
A legal case was brought before theCouncil of the Indies involving two Chinese men inSeville, one a freeman, Esteban Cabrera, and the other a slave, Diego Indio, against Juan de Morales, Diego's owner. Diego called on Esteban to give evidence as a witness on his behalf.[6][7] Diego recalled that he was taken as a slave by Francisco de Casteñeda from Mexico, to Nicaragua, then toLima in Peru, then to Panama, and eventually to Spain viaLisbon, while he was still a boy.[8][9][10][11] Esteban testified that he knew Diego as a boy in Limpoa (Liampó, the Portuguese name ofNingbo, a Chinese city inZhejiang), which he claimed to be part of the Spanish colonial indies.[12] This was a false claim since Liampo was not under Spanish rule, and it is speculated that Esteban and Diego lied about it in order to help Diego win his freedom, playing on the fact that the Spanish conducting the case were ignorant of Spain's Asian affairs. It worked in their favor and in July 1575 the Council issued a ruling siding with Diego.[13] Juana de Castañeda also testified on behalf of Diego, claiming that she knew Diego in Lima and she also married Esteban during the ordeal.[14][15] Juana was anative woman fromLima.[8][16] Juana was around 40 years old when she testified on behalf of Diego in 1572.[17] Anothernative woman from Panama, Isabel García also testified in favor of Diego, saying she knew him while he was in Panama.[18] Esteban's will dated 15 March 1599 left his property to his daughter Francisca de Altamirana and her husband Miguel de la Cruz who was a tailor and probably Chinese like Esteban.[19] A family of tailors was started by Esteban.[20] Tristán de la China wastaken as a slave by the Portuguese,[21] while he was still a boy and in the 1520s was obtained by Cristobál de Haro in Lisbon, and taken to live in Seville andValladolid. He was paid for his service as a translator on the 1525Loaísa expedition,[22] during which he was still an adolescent.[23] The survivors, including Tristan, were shipwrecked for a decade until 1537 when they were returned to Lisbon by a Portuguese ship.[24] Records from 7 May 1618 show thatHernando de los Ríos Coronel was permitted to bring from thePhilippines to Spain two Chinese slaves, named Cosme and Juan de Terrenate, who was married to a woman named Manuela.[25][26] Several Asians took advantage of laws requiring that the Spanish state pay for their return to their homeland after being trafficked to Spain illegally. A Chinese named Juan Castelindala Moreno petitioned to be sent home in 1632.[27]
Asian slaves who were shipped from the Spanish Philippines in theManila-Acapulco galleons toAcapulco inNew Spain (Mexico) were all called "Chino" which meant Chinese, although in reality they were of diverse origins, including Japanese, Malays, Javanese, Timorese, and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Ternate, and Chinese.[28][29][30][31][32] The people in this community of diverse Asians in Mexico were called "los indios chinos" by the Spanish.[33] Most of these slaves were male and were obtained from Portuguese slave traders who obtained them from Portuguese colonial possessions and outposts of theEstado da India, which included parts of India, Bengal, Malacca, Indonesia, Nagasaki in Japan, and Macau.[34][35] Some Spanish temporarily brought some of these Chino slaves to Spain itself from Mexico, where owning and showing off a Chino slave showed high class since Spanish aristocrats viewed their Chino slaves as fascinating trendy symbols of class. A Spanish woman, Doña María de Quesada y Figueroa,[36][37][38] in New Spain owned a China born Chinese man called Manuel who before being enslaved to her was taken from New Spain to be shown off in Seville until he was transferred to her ownership to be used by her as a slave by the woman's son Doctor D. Juan de Quesada in 1621.[39] Records of three Japanese slaves dating from the 16th century, named Gaspar Fernandes, Miguel and Ventura who ended up in Mexico showed that they were purchased by Portuguese slave traders in Japan, brought to Manila from where they were shipped to Mexico by their owner Perez.[40][41][42] Some of these Asian slaves were also brought toLima inPeru, where there was a small community of Asians including Chinese, Japanese, and Malays.[43][44][45]
The first large wave of Chinese immigrants came to Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, working as itinerant peddlers. AfterWorld War II, they branched out into the restaurant industry, and later into textiles and trade.[46] However, the vast majority of Chinese residents in Spain started arriving in the country around the 1980s. According to Xu Songhua, president of the Association of Chinese in Spain (Asociación de Chinos en España), established in 1985, there are 13,000 Chinese-owned businesses in Spain, including 4,000 restaurants, 3,200 "dollar shops", 1,500 fruit shops, 600 wholesale warehouses, 80 Chinese groceries, 200 textile factories, and 120 photo processing shops.[47] Nowadays, Madrid and Barcelona are home to the largest Chinese communities of Spain. Unlike earlier waves of Chinese immigrants in other countries, over 80% of the Chinese in Spain come fromZhejiang'sQingtian County, with smaller numbers fromGuangdong andFujian. Others have come fromHong Kong,Macau, and Chinese communities ofSoutheast Asia,Latin America, andEurope.[47]
The age structure of Chinese in Spain is skewed very young; 2003 figures showed only 1.8% aged 65 or older, compared to 7% of thePeople's Republic of China's population and 17.5% of Spain's,[48] while over 17% were under the age of 15.[47] As a result of the small proportion of elderly, combined with long working hours and the illegal status of some, Chinese are reported to use medical services at a far lower rate than other ethnic groups in Spain.[49]
Foreign population of Chinese citizenship in Spain
ATaoist temple was opened in 2014 by the Chinese community ofBarcelona, led byTaoist priest Liu Zemin, a 21st-generation descendant of poet, soldier and prophet Liu Bowen (1311-1375). The temple, located in the district ofSant Martí and inaugurated with the presence of the People's Republic of China consul Qu Chengwu, enshrines 28deities of the province of China where most of the Chinese in Barcelona come from.[51][52]
In September 2004, protests inElche over cheap imported shoes from China undercutting local shoe markets resulted in the burning of a Chinese-owned shoe warehouse.[53] Crime is a problem in the Chinese community due to thetriads, which are involved inhuman trafficking and extortion of Chinese business owners. However, the Triads have not established themselves as drug distributors due to competition from other groups.[54]
^Juan González de Mendoza,[1] The history of the great and mighty kingdom of China and the situation thereof. English translation by Robert Parke, 1588, in an 1853 reprint by Hakluyt Society. Page 95. Alsoquoted byDonald F. Lach. Modern annotations (as in the 1944 Spanish edition) note that this fact is absent in the first Spanish edition (Rome, 1585) but appears in the next Spanish edition (Madrid, 1586), meaning that Mendoza added a current fact to the new edition.
^abHernández Palomo, José Jesús; Torres Ramírez, Bibiano, eds. (1983).Andalucía y América en el siglo XVI: actas (illustrated ed.). Sevilla: Escuela de estudios hispano-americanos, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. p. 553.ISBN8400056647.ISSN0210-5802. Retrieved2 February 2014.
^Wolfgang Binder, ed. (1993).Slavery in the Americas. Vol. 4 of Studien zur "Neuen Welt" (illustrated ed.). Königshausen & Neumann. p. 100.ISBN3884797131. Retrieved2 February 2014.
^Déborah Oropeza (Autumn–Winter 2009)."Ideas centrales en torno a la esclavitud asiática en la Nueva España"(PDF).Historia Mexicana (in Spanish) (1). Encuentro de Mexicanistas 2010 (La esclavitud asiática en el virreinato de la Nueva España, 1565-1673): 2. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014.
^Guillermo Lohmann Villena; Francisco de Solano (1993).Los Americanos en Las órdenes Nobiliarias. Vol. 7 (Colección Biblioteca de Historia de América) (illustrated ed.). Editorial CSIC - CSIC Press. p. 342.ISBN8400073517. Retrieved2 February 2014.
^Guillermo Lohmann Villena (1947).Santiago. Vol. 1 (Los americanos en las órdenes nobiliarias, Los americanos en las órdenes nobiliarias). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científícas, Instituto "Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo". p. 342. Retrieved6 January 2014.
^Leslie Bethell (1984). Leslie Bethell (ed.).The Cambridge History of Latin America. Vol. 2 (The Cambridge History of Latin America: Colonial Latin America. I-II) (illustrated, reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 21.ISBN0521245168. Retrieved2 February 2014.
^abcGómez, Luis (27 March 2005),"El poder chino en España" [The Chinese power in Spain],El País (in Spanish),archived from the original on 22 January 2013, retrieved8 December 2006
Nieto, Gladys (2003), "Overseas Chinese associations building up a national identity: specific cases in Spain", in Fernández-Stembridge, Leila (ed.),China Today: Economic Reforms, Social Cohesion, and Collective Identities, United Kingdom: Routledge, pp. 173–195,ISBN0-415-31267-1
