Sharp rise in Chinese emigration to Malaysia since 2022, says report

The number of Chinese nationals flocking to Malaysia has almost doubled in the past three years, a trend which could have a greater impact on Malaysia compared to other top destination countries for people from the mainland, reports the Financial Times (FT).

The paper said this is due to the fact that ethnic divisions are "more "sensitive" in Muslim-majority Malaysia compared to other top destinations of people from the mainland.

"Unlike in Thailand, Malaysia’s Chinese diaspora has not assimilated and the Muslim Malay majority is resistant to any increase in the influence of ethnic Chinese residents," it said.

This comes as Putrajaya embarks on an aggressive campaign to attract five million tourists from China this year, three times the 1.5 million Chinese tourists who visited Malaysia last year.

In the first five months of this year alone, nearly 1.2 million Chinese tourists came to Malaysia, a 200% increase over the same period last year.

This is mainly due to the 30-day visa waiver for tourists from China until the end of 2026.

Malaysia does not publish official statistics on new immigrants and it remains unclear exactly how many Chinese have settled in the country.

However, FT estimates that the number of Chinese nationals living in the country has risen from around 82,000 in 2022 to 200,000 currently, citing government statistics and other community sources.

It also cited the presence of the local Chinese community, affordability, the search for alternatives in the wake of anti-Chinese sentiment in the West and the government's Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme as factors encouraging Chinese citizens to emigrate to Malaysia.

"Many Chinese students no longer feel welcome in the US or Australia," FT quotes a representative of a local Chinese organisation as saying. "Here, there is no China- bashing."

The number of Chinese nationals taking advantage of the MM2H programme has more than doubled, the paper added, with more than 56,000 of them now holding the long-term visa.

At the same time, the number of business owners, managers and employees in Chinese companies has quadrupled, from 10,000 in 2021 to 45,000 currently.

"New people are arriving every week," the paper quoted a spokesman from the China Entrepreneurs Association in Malaysia as saying.

Nowhere is the surge in the number of Chinese nationals more evident than in the education sector, where government statistics last year showed a 35% increase in Chinese student enrolment at universities compared to 2021, while FT's research found that the number of Chinese students at international schools has more than doubled in the past two years.

The paper said up to 2,500 Chinese students were enrolled in 15 international schools, three times as many as in 2021.

The students were attracted by "lower fees and less competition" for places, it added.

"I didn’t do well in the university entrance exam back home. I could have only gotten into a mediocre school and it would have been more expensive,” the report quoted a Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia student from China who only wants to be identified as Xiaofei.

In March, Singapore-based China-focused news portal ThinkChina said Malaysia was more attractive to migrants from China than Singapore.

"The cost of living in Malaysia is lower compared with Singapore, while Malaysia has an unassimilated Chinese population and a relatively safer environment compared with Thailand," it said.