Nearly 30 to 40 million people of Han Chinese descent live in Southeast Asia.[86] According to a population genetic study, Singapore is "the country with the biggest proportion of Hans" in Southeast Asia.[87] Singapore is the only country in the world where Overseas Chinese constitute a majority of the population and remain a cultural, economic and politically dominant majority vis-à-vis the non-Han minorities.[88][89][84] Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in Eastern and Southeastern China (especially the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, Yunnan and Zhejiang in particular).[87]
In 1644, the Ming capital, Beijing, was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant rebels and the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide. The Manchus of the Qing dynasty then allied with former Ming general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing. Remnant Ming forces led by Koxinga fled to Taiwan and established the Kingdom of Tungning, which eventually capitulated to Qing forces in 1683. Taiwan, previously inhabited mostly by non-Han aborigines, was sinicized during this period via large-scale migration accompanied by assimilation, despite efforts by the Manchus to prevent this, as they found it difficult to maintain control over the island. In 1681, the Kangxi Emperor ordered construction of the Willow Palisade to prevent Han Chinese migration to the three northeastern provinces, which nevertheless had harbored a significant Chinese population for centuries, especially in the southern Liaodong area. The Manchus designated Jilin and Heilongjiang as the Manchu homeland, to which the Manchus could hypothetically escape and regroup if the Qing dynasty fell.[116] Because of increasing Russian territorial encroachment and annexation of neighboring territory, the Qing later reversed its policy and allowed the consolidation of a demographic Han majority in northeast China.
Y-chromosome haplogroup O2-M122 is a common DNA marker found among modern Han Chinese, as it appeared in China in prehistoric times. It is found in more than half of all present-day Han males (204/361 = 56.5%[225]), with proportions in published samples ranging from as low as 29.7% (30/101) in a pool of samples of Pinghua speakers from Guangxi[226] and 32.5% (13/40) in a sample of Guangdong Han[227][228] (but 18/35 = 51.4% in a sample of Han from Meixian in northeastern Guangdong[229]) to as high as 60.0% (33/55) in a sample of Fujian Han,[230] 61.1% (215/352) in a pool of samples of Taiwan Han,[230] 62.0% (189/305) in a sample of Han from Zibo, Shandong,[231] 65.7% (23/35) in a sample of Han from Harbin,[229] 65.8% (123/187) in another sample of Shandong Han,[232] and 65.9% (29/44) in a sample of Han from Shanxi or Shaanxi[227][228].[229][233] Other Y-DNA haplogroups that have been found with notable frequency in samples of Han Chinese include O-P203 (15/165 = 9.1%, 47/361 = 13.0%), C-M217 (10/168 = 6.0%, 27/361 = 7.5%, 187/1730 = 10.8%, 20/166 = 12.0%), N-M231 (6/166 = 3.6%, 18/361 = 5.0%, 117/1729 = 6.8%, 17/165 = 10.3%), O-M268(xM95, M176) (54/1147 = 4.7%,[234] 8/168 = 4.8%, 23/361 = 6.4%, 12/166 = 7.2%), and Q-M242 (2/168 = 1.2%, 49/1729 = 2.8%, 12/361 = 3.3%, 48/1147 = 4.2%[234]). However, the mtDNA of Han Chinese increases in diversity as one looks from northern to southern China, which suggests that the influx of male Han Chinese migrants intermarried with the local female non-Han aborigines after arriving in what is now modern-day Guangdong, Fujian, and other regions of southern China.[235][236] Despite this, tests comparing the genetic profiles of northern Han, southern Han, and non-Han southern natives determined that haplogroups O1b-M110, O2a1-M88 and O3d-M7, which are prevalent in non-Han southern natives, were only observed in some southern Han Chinese (4% on average), but not in the northern Han genetic profile. Therefore, this proves that the male contribution of the southern non-Han natives in the southern Han genetic profile is limited, assuming that the frequency distribution of Y lineages in southern non-Han natives represents that prior to the expansion of Han culture which originated two thousand years ago from the north.[235][77] In contrast, there is evidence that consistently shows the strong genetic similarities in the Y chromosome haplogroup distribution between the modern southern and northern Han Chinese population, and the result of principal core component analysis indicates that almost all modern Han Chinese populations form a tight cluster in their Y chromosome. However, other biological research findings have also demonstrated that the paternal lineages Y-DNA O-M119,[237] O-P201,[238] O-P203[238] and O-M95[239] are found in both Southern Han Chinese and Southern non-Han minorities, but more commonly in the latter. In fact, these paternal markers are in turn less frequent in northern Han Chinese.[240] Another study puts the Han Chinese into two groups: Northern and southern Han Chinese, and it demonstrates that the core genetic characteristics of the present-day northern Han Chinese was already formed more than three-thousand years ago in the Central Plain area.[241]
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