Australians in Shanghai : Race, Rights and Nation in Treaty Port China

In the first half of the twentieth century, a diverse community of Australians settled in Shanghai. There they forged a ‘China trade’, circulating goods, people and ideas across the South China Sea, from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Sydney and Melbourne. This trade has been largely forgotten in contemporary Australia, where future economic ties trump historical memory when it comes to popular perceptions of China. After the First World War, Australians turned to Chinese treaty ports, fleeing poverty and unemployment, while others sought to ‘save’ China through missionary work and socialist ideas. Chinese Australians, disillusioned by Australian racism under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese nation building and ended up forging business empires which survive to this day. This book follows the life trajectories of these Australians, providing a means by which we can address one of the pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the twentieth century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of white settler societies. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of Figures 10 Preface and Acknowledgements 12 Note on Chinese Language Use 18 Abbreviations 20 Maps 21 Introduction 24 Part I Building Empires, Crossing Borders 36 1 The Kwok Family in Treaty Port China, 1880–1949 38 2 The Kwok Family After Liberation 64 Part II Finding Work in the Eastern Markets 80 3 Work and Surveillance in Australian Expatriate Communities 82 4 Class and Commerce in Australian Expatriate Communities 100 Part III ‘Liberating’ China, ‘Saving’ Australia 122 5 Socialists, Missionaries and Internationalists 124 6 Trade Unionists, Patriots and Anticolonialists 140 Conclusion 154 Index 159 Race, Rights and Nation in Treaty Port China