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A Historical and Comparative Survey of the Chinese Presence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, with a Focus on the Anglophone Caribbean

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A Historical and Comparative Survey of the Chinese Presence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, with a Focus on the Anglophone Caribbean Journal of Chinese Overseas 13 (2017) 206-243 brill.com/jco A Historical and Comparative Survey of the Chinese Presence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, with a Focus on the Anglophone Caribbean 拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的华人历史和比较研究 — 以英语加勒比地区为例 Cecilia A. Green 塞西莉娅·安妮·格林 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology The Maxwell School, Syracuse University [email protected] Abstract In this paper, I first broadly map the historical patterns of Chinese presence in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, as a way of distinguishing the primary locations and forms of incorporation and settlement. This historical context provides a baseline from which to examine patterns of the new post-1980s instantiations of Chinese pres- ence in the wider LAC region and Central America and Caribbean (CAC) sub-region, with particular reference to the English-speaking Caribbean, and, even more specifi- cally, the Eastern Caribbean group of islands with no historical antecedent of an older Chinese diaspora. To highlight this specificity, I include findings from preliminary research conducted in several of these islands, and examine some of the key emerg- ing configurations and complications of the new dual presence in the Anglophone Caribbean of the Chinese state and private entrepreneurial immigrant. * Cecilia A. Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at The Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She writes on race/class/gender/sexuality in Anglophone Caribbean history, as well as on the political economy of globalization and postcolonialism, particularly in the Caribbean. She has been doing research on aspects of the “new Chinese presence in the Eastern Caribbean” since 2012, in collaboration with graduate student, Yan Liu, who is currently writing a doctoral dissertation on a related topic under her supervision. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/17932548-12341355Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:45:39PM via free access A Historical and Comparative Survey 207 Keywords Chinese migration – LAC region – English-speaking Caribbean – Huagong and Huashang – new entrepreneurial migration – Chinese state – development assistance – infrastructural aid – middleman minority – diplomatic rivalry 摘要 本文首先描绘早期中国移民在拉丁美洲和加勒比 (LAC) 区域的活动模式，包 括初期落脚地点，以及他们融入当地社会和定居的形式。接着，以这个历 史背景为基础，探讨1980年代以后，中国新移民在拉美地区、中美洲和加 勒比 (cAC) 次区域的活动模式。本文聚焦英语加勒比地区，特别是毫无中国 移民历史的东加勒比群岛。本文列举了在这些岛屿进行的初步研究结果， 并探讨中国国有和私人企业移民在英语加勒比地区同时存在的现象，以及 其主要形态与挑战。 关键词 华人移民 – 拉丁美洲和加勒比地区 – 英语加勒比地区 – 华工 – 华商 – 新移民 企业家 – 中国国家 – 开发援助 – 基础设施援助 – 中介人少数族群 – 外交争端 In this paper, I first broadly map the historical patterns of Chinese presence in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, as a way of distinguishing the primary locations and forms of incorporation and settlement. This histori- cal context provides a baseline from which to examine patterns of the new post-1980s instantiations of Chinese presence in the wider LAC region and Central America and Caribbean (CAC) sub-region, with particular reference to the English-speaking Caribbean, and, even more specifically, the Eastern Caribbean group of islands with no historical antecedent of an older Chinese diaspora. The rest of the paper will be devoted to a discussion of some of the key emerging configurations and complications of the new dual presence in the Anglophone Caribbean of Chinese state and private entrepreneurial immi- grant.1 These two main forms of the new Chinese presence are particularly marked in those locations without the protracted sedimentation of a more 1 In reference to the migrants, who started arriving in the Eastern Caribbean in significant numbers in the early 1990s and many of whom are still present, I use the term “migrant” and “immigrant” interchangeably, and indistinguishably in terms of date of arrival. Journal of Chinese Overseas 13 (2017) 206-243 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:45:39PM via free access 208 Green complex and heterogeneous ethno-class configuration. To highlight this specificity, this paper relies on findings from preliminary research — con- ducted in collaboration with graduate student and research assistant Yan Liu2 — in Dominica, St Kitts, St Vincent, and Antigua, four member-states of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), a sub-set of the larger Caribbean Community or CARICOM grouping, as well as on secondary sources from Jamaica and elsewhere. The Classic Migration Period: Huagong and Huashang In terms of a mass presence, the history of the Chinese in Latin America and the Caribbean is closely associated with the colonial-era sugar plantation and the “coolie trade,” by which Asian indentured workers were brought in to supplement or replace colonial labor systems based on African slavery. As Hu- DeHart (2002:70-71) has noted, “The use of indentured labor, based on formal contracts, seemed to have been a common practice throughout the Chinese diaspora in the nineteenth century, wherever European plantations thrived.” Although this pattern defined the prime mode of encounter between the LAC region and Chinese migrants, there were earlier Chinese merchant pres- ences in Spanish Mexico and Peru that were offshoots of centuries-old Chinese mercantile networks in Southeast Asia. Look Lai (2010b:37) has reminded us that Chinese traders and producers had established a formidable mercantile and industrial presence in Southeast Asia that “preceded the arrival of the West in this region by several centuries,” and was “not always formally acknowledged or encouraged by the imperial authorities.” He points out that the extension of these networks to Mexico, through a Manila-Acapulco trade connection, in the 16th and 17th centuries has not been much researched. Moreover, there were independent “free” migrations that occurred in the wake of the indentured 2 The research, titled “The New Chinese Presence in the Caribbean,” began as a small project with initial funding from the Office of the Dean, Maxwell School, Syracuse University. Field visits were made by Yan Liu and me or both of us to Dominica in 2012, St Kitts in 2013, and St Vincent in 2014 and 2015. Some of the demographic information from Antigua is based on notes kindly shared with me by Liu, who is currently writing a dissertation, under my supervision, on relations among Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs, local governments, and PRC (and Taiwan) diplomatic and aid institutions in Antigua and St Kitts. The earlier collab- orative research was based on participant observation and some semi-structured but mostly informal interviews with about two dozen Chinese shop-owners and half a dozen workers. Interviews were also conducted with government, private sector, and other officials, includ- ing the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Journal of Chinese OverseasDownloaded from 13 Brill.com09/28/2021 (2017) 206-243 09:45:39PM via free access A Historical and Comparative Survey 209 labor migration, and that, at least in some contexts, effectively re-configured the image of the (Chinese) “coolie” and re-defined the status of the Chinese as an ethno-class. Hu-DeHart (2002) has provided an enduring — if somewhat stylized — framework for distinguishing these class-differentiated migrations that were separated from each other by chronology and character by referring to the Huagong (laborer) and Huashang (merchant) complexes. Nonetheless, with few exceptions, the most widespread origins of the Chinese presence in the region can be attributed to European colonialism. Look Lai (2010b:36) has established a basic rule of thumb by pointing to the “international racial division of labor” that defined global, and largely colonial or quasi-colonial, migrations of the nineteenth century, which he refers to as the “classic migration period.” He (2010b:35) has remarked on the “50 million people leaving Europe for the temperate settlements, and another estimated 50 million people leaving India and China to work in the tropics on planta- tions, in mines, and in construction projects.” While the latter number might be an exaggeration and while there was some ethnic overlap “at the edges” of the international racial division of labor, its dynamic was clear: “the Europeans went largely to the industrializing and modernizing (and temperate) sector, and the non-Whites, principally from East and South Asia, went mainly to the tropical food producing and raw materials sector” (36). Elsewhere, he affirms that “the paramount pull factor was the expanding labour needs of a globalis- ing and industrialising Atlantic world-system” (Look Lai 2004:3). Huagong and Huashang migrations occurred separately in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century. Chinese contract laborers brought in to work on Peruvian and Cuban plantations in the nineteenth century comprised “the earliest system of huagong in the Americas, predating Chinese labor in the US West which took on a different form” (Hu-DeHart 2002:69; see also López 2013). Indentured migration, mainly, though not exclusively, from India and China, became a key component of the labor systems of what is gener- ally referred to in Caribbean (and Southern USA) historiography as Plantation America. The major areas of plantation economy were Tropical Asia (compris- ing the countries of Southeast Asia) and Tropical America (Beckford 1999). Plantation America was almost universally founded upon Euro-colonial re- gimes of enslaved African labor and staple export production, its main areas of geographical concentration comprising the Caribbean Basin, north-east Brazil
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