We're often asked who we are.

Instead of telling 'I'm a Malaysian', we would normally tell "I'm a Chinese" "He's a Malay" "She's an Indian"

But personally, I think that we should instead, just tell the fact.

The fact is:

I'm a Malaysian (the first fact that you can't deny, it's on my IC)
and
I'm a Chinese descendant (the second fact that many foreigners won't care much)

I'm not a Chinese as I'm not born in China, and of course, without a Chinese citizenship.