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.

About the Author

Meredith Oyen is Assistant Professor of History at University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Reviews

Oyen makes a brilliant effort to bridge diplomatic history and Chinese migration history by bringing into sharp focus the diplomacy of migration and its impact on the triangular relationship between the United States, Nationalist China, and Communist China.

-- Mao Lin * H-Net Reviews *

Offers a new conceptual bridge between two related subfields: foreign relations history and transnational migration history.... The book is deeply researched, beautifully written, and makes a number of important contributions to our understanding of Sino-American relations and Asian American studies from WWII to the Cold War.... This book deserves the attention of scholars of American foreign relations, especially Chinese-American relations, Asian American history, and transnational migration history.

* Pacific Historical review *

Makes a valuable contribution to the study of international relations and the Chinese diaspora and rightfully places migration policy as a significant factor in determining the dynamics of power and politics between governments and nations.

* Pacific Affairs *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501700149
Author Meredith Oyen
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g