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Fujian Merchants

Fujian Province lies along China's southeastern coast, facing Taiwan Province across the Taiwan Straits to the east. It has a very long and colorful recorded history, dating at least as far back as the Warring States Period (475-221BC).

At that time the State of Yue, located approximately in present-day Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, was defeated by the State of Chu, which ruled the areas of today's Hubei and Hunan provinces. After their defeat, the Yue people were forced to move southward and settled in the areas now known as Fujian and Guangdong provinces, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam. Those that went to Fujian were called Min Yue, and the province itself Dong Yue.

Later, Emperor Shihuang of the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) set up a prefecture in Fujian and changed the province's name to Min. Even today this word is used as an abbreviation for Fujian, and people in the south of the province speak a dialect called the Minnan (southern Fujian) dialect.

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Min merchants have been one of the ten most influential regional merchant groups in the country's history. Since the opening-up policy in the late 1970's, Min merchants have grown rapidly to become one of the most active regional merchant groups on modern China's economic stage.

Among Min merchants, the overseas ones form an important force, with eye-catching economic success. They take up a fourth of the 40 million overseas Chinese merchants, with their business reaching more than 160 countries around the world. The total assets of these overseas Min merchants are estimated to be approximately US$300 billion.
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