In France, the addition of “China and the Chinese Diaspora” to history and geography syllabuses for the CAPES and Agrégation courses has opened the way for the prompt publication of books aimed at non-specialists. The widening of the proposed subject-matter has led most of these studies—of very unequal craftsmanship—to concentrate on the geographical aspects of China and to deal only peripherally with the question of the “Chinese of the Diaspora”; this strengthens the impression that the subj..