Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War

Angelina Chin’s study of migrants from mainland China who entered Hong Kong during the Cold War seeks to go beyond what she considers the conventional “Lion Rock” narrative of impoverished lower-class incomers who came to the territory and settled there, surviving hardships and ultimately attaining prosperity. Instead, Chin focuses primarily upon individuals and groups whose identification with the territory was more problematic and who often viewed themselves as transients: Third Force intellectual and military representatives; Nationalists whose first loyalty was to the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan; and those who wished not to stay but to move onwards, sometimes to Taiwan, often to the United States. Chin makes extensive use of the concept of the “Southern periphery” of China, the three territories (Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) that had been under separate, outside rule for varying but lengthy periods of time, and continued to enjoy special relations with each other throughout the Cold War.