ABSTRACT
The Chinese community in Cuba, formerly known as the colonia, was once the second-largest Chinese settlement outside Asia. Most contributors to this volume define international relations as political relations between nation-states, and my own chapter also looks principally at the effect of Chinese immigration on Sino-Cuban state relations. In addition it looks at political relations between Chinese and other ethnic groups in Cuba below state level, which can also be defined as international. It tells the story of Chinese migration to Cuba: the recruitment of 125,000 Chinese to work on the plantations, starting in 1847, and the profound effect the Chinese presence had on diplomatic relations between China and Cuba over the next few decades. It is intended as a case study in the interaction between migration and international relations, an important thread in the work of Wang Gungwu. It starts by looking at the special context in which Cuban national identity formed and the options this allowed Chinese settlers. It focuses on the immigrants’ link with Cuba’s liberation wars; China’s 1874 Cuba Commission; developments in Cuba’s and China’s early Republican years; anti-Japanese agitation in China and Cuba; and the Castro era. It argues that political actions in China and the adoptive homeland shaped the colonia more profoundly than was the case in other similar communities, while the colonia in turn influenced Sino-Cuban relations and China’s broader foreign policy.
