WI: More Chinese immigration to Sri Lanka

Aurantiacis

Aurantiacis

Gone Fishin'
Historically, the island of Sri Lanka has interacted with the Chinese a considerable amount; both states had holy men and women sent to each other for scholarly purposes dating back centuries, and the Sri Lankan Kingdom of Kotte and the Ming Dynasty engaged in a conflict due to Kotte hampering Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean; with relatively minute Chinese immigrant numbers to Sri Lanka following the 18th century, Chinese descended Sri Lankans are very little in the present day.

However, should Chinese interests in Sri Lanka increase due to their strategic position in the Indian Ocean trade, what would happen? How could we have immigrants of Cantonese, Hakka, and/or Teochew descent to find prosperity on Sri Lanka? What are good PODs for this to happen?
 

GullibleCynic

We have a few options I suppose. Have the chinese merchant class gain some credibility in the eyes of chinese culture at large. They then might be encouraged to do what is profitable, namely trade. With a growing chinese trade network, Sri Lanka could end up home to a notable chinese community (along with a whole lot of other countries)

Another option is the classic Song Dynasty industrialization. That could lead to chinese colonialism in the rest of asia.

I dont think Zheng He is likely to result in much permanent population. Though there are a few places in kenya that trace their heritage to that fleet
 

NotAMyth

Tough ask. Especially if you want the population to be big enough to viably persist into the modern era. Any kind of proto-colonization seems doubtful during and after the Ming period. In fact iirc, Zheng Chenggong's occupation of Taiwan was considered an extremely out-of-the-box idea at the time. Maybe someone else can elucidate here, but I am pretty sure there was a cultural bias against residing anywhere except China.
Just spitballing here, but maybe a 19th Century colonizing power which controls parts of Sri Lanka, and has ports in China, uses Chinese migrants like the Brits did the Indians in West Indies. This requires Europeans to not be dominating India of course, or else there would be no reason for getting manpower from China. This may also correlate with the historic late Qing era Chinese migrations all around the world.
 
Gentian1707

Gentian1707

Aurantiacis said:
Historically, the island of Sri Lanka has interacted with the Chinese a considerable amount; both states had holy men and women sent to each other for scholarly purposes dating back centuries, and the Sri Lankan Kingdom of Kotte and the Ming Dynasty engaged in a conflict due to Kotte hampering Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean; with relatively minute Chinese immigrant numbers to Sri Lanka following the 18th century, Chinese descended Sri Lankans are very little in the present day.

However, should Chinese interests in Sri Lanka increase due to their strategic position in the Indian Ocean trade, what would happen? How could we have immigrants of Cantonese, Hakka, and/or Teochew descent to find prosperity on Sri Lanka? What are good PODs for this to happen?
Click to expand...
Modern day Sri Lankan Chinese are well known for dentistry. Historically they engaged in that profession in Sri Lanka as well. What about a POD, British bring in Chinese workers for tea plantations (experts in growing tea) instead of South Indians ( who are not experts in growing and processing tea)?
 
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