The diplomacy of migration : transnational lives and the making of U.S.-Chinese relations in the Cold War / Meredith Oyen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oyen, Meredith, 1978- author.

Series:

United States in the world.

United States in the World

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese--United States.

Chinese.

Cold War.

United States--Foreign relations--China.

United States.

China--Foreign relations--United States.

China.

United States--Emigration and immigration--Government policy.

China--Emigration and immigration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, New York ; London, [England] : Cornell University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the Cold War, both Chinese and American officials employed a wide range of migration policies and practices to pursue legitimacy, security, and prestige. They focused on allowing or restricting immigration, assigning refugee status, facilitating student exchanges, and enforcing deportations. The Diplomacy of Migration focuses on the role these practices played in the relationship between the United States and the Republic of China both before and after the move to Taiwan. Meredith Oyen identifies three patterns of migration diplomacy: migration legislation as a tool to achieve foreign policy goals, migrants as subjects of diplomacy and propaganda, and migration controls that shaped the Chinese American community. Using sources from diplomatic and governmental archives in the United States, the Republic of China on Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, and the United Kingdom, Oyen applies a truly transnational perspective. The Diplomacy of Migration combines important innovations in the field of diplomatic history with new international trends in migration history to show that even though migration issues were often considered "low stakes" or "low risk" by foreign policy professionals concerned with Cold War politics and the nuclear age, they were neither "no risk" nor unimportant to larger goals. Instead, migration diplomacy became a means of facilitating other foreign policy priorities, even when doing so came at great cost for migrants themselves.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Floating Population and Foreign Policy

Part I. Migration Diplomacy at War

1. Unequal Allies: Renegotiating Exclusions

2. The Diaspora Goes to War: Human Capital and China's Defense

3. A Fight on All Fronts: The Chinese Civil War, Restored Migration, and Emigration as National Policy

Part II. Migrant Cold Warriors

4. Chinese Migrants as Cold Warriors: Immigration and Deportation in the 1950's

5. Remitting to the Enemy: Transnational Family Finances and Foreign Policy

6. Crossing the Bamboo Curtain: Using Refugee Policy to Support Free China

Part III. Shifting Exclusions

7. Cold War Hostages: Repatriation Policy and the Sino-American Ambassadorial Talks

8. Visa Diplomacy: The Taiwan Independence Movement and Changing U.S.-Chinese Relations

Conclusion: Coming in from the Cold

Note on Sources

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781501701467

1501701460

9781501701474

1501701479

OCLC:

927140789