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"With the population of Chinese living outside of its borders expected to reach 52 million by 2030, China has one of the most mobile populations on earth, shaping economies, cultures, and politics throughout Asia, the Americas, and the South Pacific. As China's international influence continues to grow, Trans-Pacific Mobilities charts how the cross-border movement of Chinese people, goods, and images affects notions of place, belonging, and identity, particularly in Canada. Three waves of Chinese migration to Canada--labour migration, the exodus from Hong Kong prior to the 1997 handover, and the current swell of moneyed immigration from Mainland China--have resulted in 1.5 million inhabitants of Chinese descent, and Canada is currently the second most popular destination for Chinese settlement. The interdisciplinary cast of contributors to this volume draws on the new mobilities paradigm to explore this massive movement of people through five lenses, charting historic, cultural and symbolic, highly skilled, family and gendered, and transnational Chinese mobilities. As Canada's policy of multiculturalism continues to shape the nation's politics, this timely volume is an invaluable resource for those interested in historical and contemporary Chinese mobilities and related issues of immigration, ethnicity, and transnationalism."--

Examines the impact of the recent mass-scale emergence of transnationalism in Canada on the types of communities with which individuals & institutions identify, especially in light of arguments that multiculturalism & transnationalism have promoted a "thin" citizenship that involves minimal shared values & a weak sense of belonging to Canada. A look at the various ways in which transnationalism & active citizenship are conceptualized is followed by an exploration of divergent & contradictory practices of both processes. An analysis of data from the ethnic diversity survey conducted by Statistics Canada & Canadian Heritage shows that there is absolutely no relationship between transnationalism & active citizenship when transnationalism is measured as both single & dual Canadian citizenship & active citizenship is measured as membership or participation in groups/social organizations. It is also indicated that there is no relationship between transnationalism & people's sense of belonging to Canada. Factors other than transnationalism which serve as predictors of active citizenship & a sense of belonging to Canada are considered. Tables. J. Lindroth

AbstractThis article explores the migration of Taiwanese immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada and their transnationalism. Their presence in Canada is documented and described with statistical data on their demographic characteristics, human capital, and economic capital. An assessment of their transnationalism is provided by primary qualitative data gathered through in‐depth interviews. Overall, the review of the literature on Taiwanese migration to various countries, and their transnationalism, indicates that research has primarily been conducted in Australia and the United States, while it remained understudied in Canada. The article makes a case for contextualizing Taiwanese entrepreneurial migration in terms of a global immigration marketplace and the specific business migration programmes in Australia, United States, and Canada. Further, the article argues for the appropriateness of conceptualizing these Taiwanese entrepreneurs as operating within the theoretical framework of transnational social space. The findings on transnational social space include the importance of transnational familial networks, transnational business circuits, and transmigration. Transnational familial networks constitute a form of "capital" as the dispersal is a "resource". The transnational business circuits include three types: (1) Asian production‐North American distribution; (2) retail chains; and (3) import‐export, all spatially distributed with their multiple national sites. In selected areas of the presentation and discussion of the data the policy implications of the findings are explored. These include discussion of the implications of this transnationalism on Canadian policies such as immigration, multiculturalism, business development, international trade, economic development, and citizenship. There is clearly a lack of harmonization among migration policy and other social and economic policies in Canada. While Canadian multiculturalism policy facilitates transnationalism, Canadian citizenship policy is shown to conflict with and discourage transnational practices.

This paper examines business migration to Australia, Canada and the United States by integrating the concepts of a global immigration marketplace and the commodification of citizenship into global political economy theory. It finds that state business migration policies constitute "offers" to potential businesspersons, in a discourse of "competition" and simultaneously regulate the process. In the sorting process of potential migrants across countries many businesspersons have a rational "choice" of the country they want to emigrate to. This competition and choice provide evidence of a global immigration marketplace and data show that only Australia and Canada are active competitors with Canada having an advantage. An analysis of Chinese business migration from China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore indicate substantial numbers in the tens of thousands in the early 1990s but this has decreased in recent years due to several economic and political factors. Currently there are moderate levels of Chinese business migration with China now as the major source country. Since businesspersons are not a homogenous group the paper concludes with some suggested policy changes to make business migration more accessible and transformative.

This article examines Chinese capitalist migration from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Canada which took place under the auspices of the Canadian Business Immigration Program. It begins by setting the context of this migration of Chinese capitalists and their capital through a description of the Program and applying sociological theory to explain the process. More specifically, structural models of migration, world systems, political economy and transnationalism are applied which provide an insight and explanation for this migration. Then the role of the state is examined in relation to mediation and social reproduction. The article ends with a trend analysis of this Chinese capitalist migration and its effect on class, cultural transformation, and race and ethnic relations in Canada.