Malaysia has only granted citizenship to 103 Chinese nationals in the past decade, contrary to misleading claims on social media that the Chinese population in the country increased by millions. The posts surfaced after a Muslim cleric baselessly claimed hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals were acquiring Malaysian citizenship.
“The birth rate among the Malays is 64.7 percent while among the Chinese it is 9.7 percent,” read a Malay-language TikTok post from November 1, 2024.
“It’s strange that there is a 8 million increase in the number of the Chinese population. Where did so many of them come from?”
The post racked up more than 37,000 views.
Screenshot of the misleading TikTok post, taken November 14, 2024.
A screenshot of the TikTok post spread on Facebook here, here, here and here.
Similar claims about 1.2 million Chinese nationals supposedly acquiring Malaysian citizenship have circulated online since 2022 (archived link).
It was amplified in November by a Muslim preacher who reportedly claimed 1.2 million Chinese nationals were given Malaysian citizenship en masse. Police are now investigating the cleric (archived link).
The resurgence of the claim prompted Malaysia’s Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to rebuff the misleading figures during a parliamentary session on November 7, 2024 (archived link).
He said only 103 Chinese people, not 1.2 million, had been granted Malaysian citizenship since 2013, in accordance with the Malaysian Federal Constitution since 2013.
“Those who were given citizenship were Chinese nationals who are married to locals,” the minister said.
Saifuddin said the 1.2 million figure was “untrue”. He added that 84,817 Chinese nationals currently remained in Malaysia on social visit passes — referring to short-term visas issued to tourists (archived link).
Meanwhile, between January 1, 2018 to November 2024, Malaysia saw more than 8.4 million Chinese tourists enter the country — including 8 million who departed, he said.
The remaining 479,300 included people who stayed in the country for various reasons, including those with long-term visas, special passport applications or those detained by authorities.
Current population
Malaysia is a multiracial country of 34 million people, with an ethnic composition of Malays, Chinese, Indians and other races.
Malays and indigenous peoples, collectively known as Bumiputera, make up 70.4 percent of the population, while Chinese account for 22.4 percent and Indians represent 6.5 percent. Other races make up 0.7 percent of the population.
Screenshot of the Department of Statistics current population estimates taken on November 14, 2024
Meanwhile, the birth rate among Malays stands at 67 percent, or 305,400, while the Chinese made up 9.8 percent, or 44,800. The birth rate among Indians was 4.4 percent, or 20,000 (archived link).
