This is the first in-depth study of the Indian community in China in the colonial era. It is not a study of all Indians who were in China in the period from 18 to 1949, but is about two largest socio-economic groups - the merchants on the one hand, and the category of soldiers, policemen, and watchmen on the other hand. It aims to bring to light the factors that brought them to China and kept them there, their activities in China, the nature of their interaction with the Chinese and the British in China, the problems and difficulties they faced, and the factors that eventually impelled them to leave China - in short, the broad range of their experience as aliens in the Chinese environment.