Maybe Qing China get hit with a very very very bad plague and it largely depopulated in the seventeenth century.
Europeans make up at least 20% of the population by 1900 but I'm not sure how plausible that is.
I can't see why large numbers of Europeans would make the trip unless they were forcibly resettled. The Mongols massacred 48,000 in Kiev in 1240 and 24,000 in Moscow in 1382. Maybe if they instead move them all to China, but that would be the longest distance human migration ever. Even if this happened, they would all be Chinese now like the Kaifeng Jews.
This is a post-1900 POD, but you might see a sizable Russian refugee population in China in a Nazi victory scenario. Perhaps, if Mao still takes over China, China "joins" the USSR with their new capital in Beijing, of course practically speaking this is China annexing the USSR.
There is a short story by Jack London that was written during the Yellow Peril era called the unparelled invasion. In 1910 I believe. Basically the Chinese threaten Europeans and America by becoming more powerful and populous so the combined work of the Europeans/Americans is to develop a bioweapon and basically slaughter all the Chinese.One can argue that the over 3 million Russians and Ukrainians in what was once China (the Russian Far East) might count for something. Same thing with the former Outer Northwest, which has a large number of Russians/Europeans and formerly even more during the Soviet era.
But otherwise no. Europeans had plenty of open space after the Black Death, plenty of open space in Russia, and even more open space in the Americas.
How are Europeans going to get there in numbers that big? Any way to get Europeans in large numbers to China is going to involve some sort of conquest plus mass death. And that mass death is almost ASB without some new sort of plague evolving. Even depopulating one province (a coastal region, say) is pretty ridiculous.
Even then, why are Europeans going to go all the way there, to a colony still full of hostiles, when they could go to the Americas or Australia instead? Or even Africa.
This too. They'd probably make up a Christian group of Chinese, with European ancestry (as the Hui have Middle Eastern ancestry), but otherwise all Chinese-speaking and likely somewhat heterodox from European Christians.
There is a short story by Jack London that was written during the Yellow Peril era called the unparelled invasion. In 1910 I believe. Basically the Chinese threaten Europeans and America by becoming more powerful and populous so the combined work of the Europeans/Americans is to develop a bioweapon and basically slaughter all the Chinese.
Is that plausible?
The story takes place in the 1970s IIRC. After a bioweapon is loosed on China something like 95% of the population dies and then western armies come in and exterminate the remainder of the Chinese.That's pretty early for a bioweapon, and then as with any highly effective bioweapon, you'll kill more than the Chinese. And would there even be a concept of "China" if there were no Chinese there?
A localized plague storm on the scale of the Virgin Soil Epidemics of the Americas could do the trick.* If 80% of the Ming Dynasy's population were to die it would still have a population larger than France, so Chinese culture would not be wiped out and Chinese would likely still remain the majority in the event of a foriegn power conquering China, but there would be enough land now left uncultivated that it could entice european colonists. Perhaps this way you could get a European minority of 10% or so.I thought this could be an interesting premise. As a large part of Eastern Europe was under Mongol rule along with most of China, could've it been possible for large swaths of Europeans to migrate to China?
The problem with a European population in China is that to have a early presence is likely necessary to make it large and a early presence won't stay European looking. One idea I could have are defining European as Indo European, in that case we could see a large Indo-Iranian population. Another idea are a worse devastation of northern China by the Mongol and they repopulate Inner Mongolia, Manchuria and large areas south of the Great Wall with the Rus, who are forced to migrate there. It could be that the Mongols doesn't trust the Han to keep from rising up from their rule, so by bringing in a alien population will make it harder for a revolt to threat their core territories.
Which is why I think for such a population to stay "racial" distinct, we would need large parts of China depopulated, so they're the vast majority of the population in those regions.China had its share of foreign migrations. One of the "Five Barbarians" that invaded China was believed to be Indo-Scythian. The Sasanian royal court and retinue moved to China after the Abbasid conquest. In fact in literature you had occasional mention of characters with red hair or being hairy chested outsider types. Not assimilating after centuries though is unheard of. When the Jews showed up in China, they were taking the civil service exams after one generation.
Which is why I think for such a population to stay "racial" distinct, we would need large parts of China depopulated, so they're the vast majority of the population in those regions.
China went through population losses. Look at the scale here, even at the low ebbs you're talking about tens of thousands of European migrants in a country of tens of millions of highly productive farmers. Unless you're going to a pre-agriculture POD, a foreign migration will not be able to compete with re-populating natives. The only way for this migrant population to remain distinct is to isolate themselves in some mountainous backwater. People want the good life, they don't walk to China so they can live on a freezing hilltop, unless they are forced to do so.
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