13 New directions for overseas Chinese and migration studies Migrants, state–diaspora relations and transborder governance 1 Yuk Wah Chan New Chinese migrations entail diversiied migration paths and myriad migration geographies. It includes millions of emigrants from mainland China since the 1980s. It also refers to the recent migration of the diaspora groups in other Chinese communities beyond China, including those in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong (HK) and Taiwan. The ongoing movements of the Chinese descendants of the ‘old’ Chi- nese diasporas – those who migrated out from China from the nineteenth century to the late twentieth century – have bred an agile mobility paradigm amidst the overseas Chinese communities. Many of these people, as highlighted in Part III of this volume by Ong, Koh, and Cheong, have complicated the migration geog- raphies of the Southeast Asian Chinese. A large number of them continue to move to cosmopolitan city centres inhabited largely by the ethnic Chinese. On the other hand, quite a number of those who migrated to the West in their 20s and 30s have returned to Asia. The movements of Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and HK Chi- nese also contributes to an evolving subregional and global migration landscape, with many of them moving within Greater China and to many other places in and beyond Asia (see various chapters in Parts I and II). New Chinese migrations as a whole also complicate the old Chinese diaspora hubs (such as the Chinatowns), as pointed out by Wong and Ang in the volume. Studies of new Chinese migrations cannot ignore the ongoing movements of people from these different Chinese communities, their intrinsic relationships with each other and the intertwined geographies of such movements. New efforts amongst scholars of overseas Chinese studies and migration studies, such as those collected in this volume, provide evidence of how Chinese migrations illuminate many important issues in mobility, identity, governance, and the global political economy. More research efforts are required to explore the patterns and trends of such movements, the subsequent cultural dynamics and the relationship between such movements and the transformed governance in China and in the region. In this chapter, I will focus on China as one prominent site for exploring dif- ferent manifestations of state–diaspora dynamics. Discussions will highlight how the Chinese state’s variegated diaspora policies at different historical stages have been shaped by political ideologies and politico-economic needs, and their var- ied effects and consequences on China’s development and impacts on the Chi- nese diaspora communities. An important migrant-sending country, China has