-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Stephen R. MacKinnon, Laura Madokoro. Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War., The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 1, February 2018, Pages 206–207, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/123.1.206
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
The focus of Laura Madokoro’s Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War is the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Hong Kong during the Cold War years in the 1950s and 1960s. The book is abundantly documented, mostly on the basis of English-language government documents, and it certainly breaks new ground in the field of refugee studies. Conceptually, this study is framed by an excellent introductory chapter placing the non-recognition of these migrant populations as official or legal “refugees” in the broader context of the work of other scholars such as Peter Gatrell, Annie E. Coombes, Meredith Oyen, and Glen Peterson. The internationally accepted legal definition of refugee status, Madokoro argues, is narrow, and is based on the text of the UN 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The UN Convention was drafted in response to the flood of refugees moving from East to West in Europe after World War II as well as the political refugee problem in Asia created by the Korean War. Madokoro draws a sharp contrast between European refugees of the 1940s and 1950s and populations that were in flight within Asia because of civil war (including in India-Pakistan in 1947 and China before and after 1949). She argues that what determined the difference in the definition and treatment of refugees was race. In other words, there is little that is universal about the UN Convention of 1951. It was a racialized document in its formulation and execution around the world.
