As long as you are a Chinese and not living on mainland China you will be considered as an overseas Chinese by mainlanders. Of course being Malaysians we’ll always mentioned that we’re Malaysian Chinese.
I’m Singaporean Chinese. Because our ethnicity is Chinese, Mainland Chinese people consider us to be one of them, and China is overseas-Chinese people’s country 祖国。They even believe Singapore belongs to China, to my disgust, because Singapore was built by Mr Lee Kuan Yew who was Chinese. They believe Singapore is an extension of China’s many small little towns. 😅
