The Global Asia Colloquium

Fridays, 4:00-6:45. 701 KJCC (53 Washington Square South).

12 Apr Barry McCarron (NYU), “Mobility, Empire, and Exclusion in the Pacific World: The Irish and Chinese Experience in Comparative Perspective.”

Abstract: This talk explores the nature and significance of relations between Irish and Chinese people in the Pacific world since the late eighteenth century, which will enrich understanding of some of the major historical processes examined in the NYU Global Asia Colloquium such as mobility, connectivity, and territoriality. Nineteenth-century Western imperialism, mining booms, and the construction of transcontinental railroads brought large numbers of Irish and Chinese people into contact in the Pacific world including major Pacific port city environments such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sydney, San Francisco, and Vancouver, where both groups experienced contrasting experiences in terms of mobility (both spatial and social).

Between the late eighteenth century and the early twentieth century, thousands of Irish people served in China on behalf of the United States and the British Empire. Irishmen played a significant role in the gunboat diplomacy that gave rise to the first of a series of “unequal treaties” that granted foreign powers concession and privileges in China. In their wake came a stream of Irish diplomats, soldiers, administrators, consular officials, and police, to name but a few, who helped expand and maintain the century-long treaty port system that undermined China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Other Irish, most notably Robert Hart, were leading players in China’s integration into a Euro-American-dominated international system that demanded new modes of trade and foreign relations. Hart was the most influential foreigner in China soon after becoming Inspector-General (1863-1908) of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (1854-1950), a largely Western-staffed Chinese government organization (with an Irish-born Inspector-General for 62 years of its 96-year existence) that produced revenues key to China’s state-building efforts, served as an intermediary between Chinese and foreign officials, and helped China adjust to Western imperialism and a global capitalist economy.

While Irish people were a major part of the treaty system that opened China’s door to Western imperialism, they were also among the most vocal advocates of closing the door on Chinese immigration to the United States and the British Empire in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The mid-nineteenth-century gold rushes in California, New South Wales, Victoria, Otago, and British Columbia brought tens of thousands of Irish and Chinese into close proximity and direct contact. Both groups contributed to the rapid growth of these resource-rich and labor-scarce white settler societies by extracting precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper and laboring in a variety of industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and transcontinental railroad construction. At the same time, the Irish diaspora was also a major force behind anti-Chinese movements that gave rise to Chinese immigration restriction laws in the Anglophone settler world and caused major friction in China’s relations with the United States and Britain.

Despite the historical significance of Irish and Chinese cross-cultural contacts and exchanges in the Pacific world, scholars have yet to examine the full range of relations between both groups. This talk, drawing on multinational archival research including Chinese-language sources in my forthcoming book project, examines Irish and Chinese cross-cultural encounters and comparative experiences in the Pacific world and links these research findings with broader questions about the forces of mobility, connectivity, and territoriality that shaped the modern Pacific world.

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