Australians in Shanghai

This book follows the life trajectories of Chinese Australians who, disillusioned by Australian racism under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese nation building and ended up creating business empires which survive to this day. This provides a means by which we can address one of the pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the twentieth century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of white settler societies.

Sophie Loy-Wilson is a Lecturer in Australian History at the University of Sydney.

PART I Building empires, crossing borders 1 The Kwok family in treaty port China, 1880-1949 2 The Kwok family after liberation PART II Finding work in the Eastern markets 3 Work and surveillance in Australian expatriate communities 4 Class and commerce in Australian expatriate communities PART III 'Liberating' China, 'saving' Australia 5 Socialists, missionaries and internationalists 6 Trade unionists, patriots and anticolonialists