Abstract

The present article draws attention to the significance of the “Christian” component in researching Chinese migrants’ presence in post-1989 Hungary within the framework of Chinese globalization and the globalization of Chinese Christianity. After a brief review of the dynamics of Chinese migration to Hungary and special focus on the formation of Chinese Christian Communities, the article examines how the concept of diaspora and the rhetoric built around it is used by missionaries to create new ways of understanding the world from migrants’ perspective and interpreting migration experiences as empowering and liberating divine arrangements for the well-being of their current residence and beyond. The case of Chinese migration to Hungary shows that the concept of diaspora implies a diverse range of community formation practices and the complexity of negotiating Chineseness, which highlights the need of revisiting the very concept of diaspora as reduced to a homogeneous and ethnically essentialized community.