Abstract
Overseas Chinese have been an important factor in the modern Asia-Pacific economy. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, remittances by overseas Chinese have gradually influenced the economy of the region; they have been important not only in amount but also in the effect of their multiple uses for trade and investment. In the latter sense, remittances by overseas Chinese have had a huge impact.
Geographically, remittance funds flowed from throughout the Asia-Pacific to South China via Hong Kong. For example, Cantonese remittance houses in South East Asia, the Americas, and Oceania remitted funds to Hong Kong, from where they were retransferred to the Pearl River Delta. Such funds were used for purchase or investment in Canton or in other Chinese cities through the Cantonese networks. This is just one example. Each Chinese group had different routes and means of remittance but all funds, with different objectives, crossed paths in Hong Kong.
This paper focuses mainly on the connection mechanisms of Cantonese Chinese remittances from Singapore to the Pearl River Delta via Hong Kong.
