MIGRATION IN EAST ASIA
Taiwan's Migration Diplomacy towards Mainland Chinese Migrants and Refugees
This research agenda involves a second book project and a series of peer-reviewed journal articles regarding how Taiwan manages its international standing and its relations with the People’s Republic of China through its policies towards refugees and migrants. In this project, I examine why Taiwan has not formed consistent immigration policies for migrants from Mainland China. Using textual analysis of Taiwanese government legislation and publications, my primary argument is that Taiwan uses its migration policies as a way to manage its foreign relations with Mainland China. Central to Taiwan’s policies towards Mainland Chinese (PRC -People’s Republic of China) refugees and migrants is its Nationality Act stipulating that every person of Chinese heritage outside the People’s Republic of China is theoretically a Taiwanese (ROC - Republic of China) national irrespective of generation counts and thus eligible for jus sanguinis (right of citizenship based on heritage) preferential treatment for immigration. This does not mean that the Nationality Act does not consider those from Mainland China to be Republic of China nationals. What this does mean in practice is that the Nationality Act excludes residents of Mainland China (including Hong Kong and Macau) from the legal definition of refugees, who must be foreign nationals. As a result, repatriation of Chinese people whom the Taiwanese government find to be acceptable is an effective workaround for the Taiwanese government both domestically and internationally. The project contributes an important case study of jus sanguinis immigration laws, migration diplomacy, as well as the immigration policies of a (new) liberal democracy within a non-Western region of the world that is underrepresented in the existing migration scholarship. The implications of this project are important because Taiwan’s democratic government, higher per capita GDP, and geographical proximity to China continually has made it a desirable place of sanctuary for Chinese political dissidents or migrants seeking better economic opportunities.
This research agenda involves a second book project and a series of peer-reviewed journal articles regarding how Taiwan manages its international standing and its relations with the People’s Republic of China through its policies towards refugees and migrants. In this project, I examine why Taiwan has not formed consistent immigration policies for migrants from Mainland China. Using textual analysis of Taiwanese government legislation and publications, my primary argument is that Taiwan uses its migration policies as a way to manage its foreign relations with Mainland China. Central to Taiwan’s policies towards Mainland Chinese (PRC -People’s Republic of China) refugees and migrants is its Nationality Act stipulating that every person of Chinese heritage outside the People’s Republic of China is theoretically a Taiwanese (ROC - Republic of China) national irrespective of generation counts and thus eligible for jus sanguinis (right of citizenship based on heritage) preferential treatment for immigration. This does not mean that the Nationality Act does not consider those from Mainland China to be Republic of China nationals. What this does mean in practice is that the Nationality Act excludes residents of Mainland China (including Hong Kong and Macau) from the legal definition of refugees, who must be foreign nationals. As a result, repatriation of Chinese people whom the Taiwanese government find to be acceptable is an effective workaround for the Taiwanese government both domestically and internationally. The project contributes an important case study of jus sanguinis immigration laws, migration diplomacy, as well as the immigration policies of a (new) liberal democracy within a non-Western region of the world that is underrepresented in the existing migration scholarship. The implications of this project are important because Taiwan’s democratic government, higher per capita GDP, and geographical proximity to China continually has made it a desirable place of sanctuary for Chinese political dissidents or migrants seeking better economic opportunities.
MIGRATION IN SOUTH AMERICA
Forthcoming Book Identities Matter: Politics of Immigration and Incorporation (Oxford University Press, 2025)
Based on seven months of fieldwork in Brazil, in this book, I investigate how grandchildren of immigrants belonging to groups that, as a whole, have achieved high socioeconomic status choose identities to leverage in the host country’s political arena. The two groups on which I focus this study are Japanese Brazilians and Jewish Brazilians. While the scholarship on political incorporation often assumes that minoritized populations want to integrate into the mainstream society, I have found that these two groups often leverage their social identities based on the type of discrimination they experience. One central paradox that I found is that while more Jewish Brazilians expressed believing that there is discrimination against Jewish people in Brazil than Japanese Brazilians believing that there is discrimination against Japanese people in Brazil, more Japanese Brazilians reported that there is discrimination against the color/racial category with which they identify on the Census than Jewish Brazilians. I argue that this paradox regarding beliefs about discrimination explains the higher propensity for ethnic voting among my Jewish Brazilian interviewees when compared to my Japanese Brazilian interviewees and the greater support for racial quota programs among my Japanese Brazilian interviewees when compared to Jewish Brazilian interviewees. I also argue that these two groups, rather than pursue strategies of political and social integration, have sought to leverage their outsider status to their advantage in the context of a country where politicians are commonly thought to be corrupt. This book also provides insight into how descendants of immigrants in a developing country leverage ties with their OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries of association to increase their prestige and status within Brazil’s racial and ethnic hierarchies.
This book project has been granted a 2022 American Political Science Association Minority Serving Institution Virtual Book Workshop Award.
This book project has been granted a 2022 American Political Science Association Minority Serving Institution Virtual Book Workshop Award.
Xenophobia and Nativism against Haitian Immigrants in Brazil and Chile
This chapter (Routledge 2023) appears in Xenophobia and Nativism in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean: A Comparative Review. This chapter focuses on the xenophobia and nativism faced by Haitian immigrants in Brazil and Chile, the two major recipients of Haitian migration in South America. This chapter documents the discrimination that Haitians face from government officials and the general public in both Portuguese-speaking Brazil and Spanish-speaking Chile due to being predominantly French Creole-speaking. Additionally, Haitians face racial discrimination as Black immigrants in both countries. The discrimination often manifests itself in the perception and resulting justification that Haitians are a public health threat to their host countries. These experiences of discrimination, along with increasing unemployment and poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, have led many Haitians to leave Brazil and Chile and to undertake a dangerous journey North to the US-Mexican border in hopes of better prospects. This chapter concludes with an examination of the consequences of xenophobia and nativism against Haitian immigrants in Brazil and Chile for US immigration.
The Early History of China and Taiwan in Latin America: Cuba and Peru from 1837 to 1971
This chapter (Palgrave Macmillan 2024) appears in China and Taiwan in Latin America and the Caribbean: History, Power Rivalry, and Regional Implications. China’s first major interactions in Latin America occurred during its Century of Humiliation from 1839 to 1949, a time of corruption, food shortages, overcrowding, and wars including the Opium War (1839-1842) and the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1860). These difficult conditions in China led to mass emigration. As a result, Cuba and Peru contracted hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers beginning in 1837 and 1849, respectively, while the two countries were phasing out African enslavement. Initially, Chinese immigrants in both Cuba and Peru harvested sugarcane and became a major labor force for the Peruvian guano boom. After the Kuomintang (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, it retreated to the island of Taiwan, where it established an authoritarian one-party state led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. As a result, Taiwan, as the Republic of China (ROC), was recognized by most countries as the true China until 1971 when it lost its seat as China at the United Nations to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the CPP. Cuba and Peru were among the first two countries in Latin America to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC. Before 1971, Cuba was the only Latin American country to recognize the PRC in 1960. After the PRC was seated at the United Nations, the left-leaning government of Peruvian president Juan Velasco made the decision to recognize the PRC despite much of its Chinese community’s early connections with the Kuomintang, Taiwan, and anticommunism since the early twentieth century. For each country, I discuss the history of the first Chinese immigration, the country’s relationships with Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, and the decisions that led the leaders of the country to recognize China over Taiwan.