Student refugees in wartime China: Macau, 1937–45
China’s war with Japan (1937-45, with origins in 1931), a crucial theatre of the Second World War, generated millions of refugees: as many as 100 million displaced persons by some estimates. Among them were many students.
Although most refugees fled to unoccupied areas, many also sought a safe haven in foreign-ruled territories in China. The South China enclave of Macau, then under Portuguese administration, was one of them. Unlike the better-known cases of the Shanghai International Settlement and French Concession or the British colony of Hong Kong (until they were occupied by Japan), Macau remained nominally unoccupied until the end of the war and refugees kept arriving there until the last days of the conflict. The wartime population of Macau was about three times its pre-war level, reaching around half a million people, many hailing from Shanghai and Guangdong province. Among those who arrived in Macau were many school-age children. Several relocated with their teachers, who sought to re-establish educational institutions in Macau in similar ways to schools that relocated to unoccupied mainland China. From the start of 1942, another large, but more multinational, wave of refugees from Hong Kong also arrived in Macau.
Evacuees waiting to leave, Shanghai, 1937
Photograph by Malcom Rosholt
© 2012 Mei-Fei Elrick and Tess Johnston
Courtesy of Historical Photographs of China, University of Bristol
My recent article in the journal Twentieth-Century China, ‘Wartime Education at the Crossroads of Empires’, addresses the relocation of schools and of student refugees from mainland China and Hong Kong to Macau. Over a hundred primary, middle and secondary schools were transferred to Macau during the war, with a combined student population of more than 30,000. Drawing on archives and other sources from Europe, East Asia, and Australasia, my article explores the positive impact of student refugees in Macau and how they featured in different imperial and nationalist initiatives.
Neutrality generated a new cosmopolitanism in Macau. It was especially noticeable in the presence of different communities of student refugees, and was translated in the enhancement of educational opportunities. These included the provision of different forms of schooling and training, sustained by the arrival of qualified teaching staff from mainland China and Hong Kong. Neutrality enabled the emergence of a peculiar ‘golden era’ in Macau’s education sector, in which refugee-students and educators played a key role. Schools in Macau, whether relocated or pre-existing, all saw a considerable growth in student numbers during the war. Files in the archives include requests for authorisation to branch out to new facilities or maximise classroom space by holding classes at night as well as during the day; news reports describe the offer of free lessons to destitute children.
Relocation was marked by a number of challenges, notably scarcity of funds and rising living costs, as well as disrupted communications and remittances (particularly from late 1941). Facing up to these difficulties sometimes required transnational contacts, including with diaspora communities overseas, consuls and other government and military officials of different countries or with missionary networks. The global intersected with the personal: family relations and other personal connections were crucial in facilitating the relocation of schools and in gaining access to influential local figures who could be of assistance, including in the supply of foodstuffs.
Both the Chinese Nationalist government and the Portuguese authorities in Macau regarded the student refugees as important elements for their projects of future development: of the nation-state in China, and of the colonial state in the Portuguese empire. For the Chinese government and educational circles, Macau’s neutrality was convenient as it provided them with a space to continue their teaching activities and, along with them, the fostering of a politically conscious youth. These were not mere top-down impositions: many student refugees embraced a patriotic language of resilience and resistance.
The Portuguese colonial authorities saw the influx of highly qualified and potentially influential Chinese figures as bringing prestige to the enclave and having the potential to forge favourable connections for the imagined colonial future of Macau. Apart from granting authorisation for the running of the schools and inspecting their premises, the Portuguese authorities do not appear to have had much influence over the Chinese schools’ curriculum. The relative openness of Macau officials towards student refugees was largely self-serving, as presenting themselves as supposedly benevolent ‘protectors’ of them provided an argument against accusations of collaboration with Japan.
As elsewhere in China, schools in Macau were spaces for nationalist and revolutionary cultivation. The Chinese central government regarded education as crucial to sustaining resistance and preparing for national reconstruction. Support for the war effort and relief activities to victims of the conflict was part of schools’ wartime experience in Macau. Students were active in fundraising drives and in initiatives to support poorer refugees. Some of the educators who relocated to Macau were also involved in wartime resistance, a dangerous endeavour that could be fatal given the degree of pressure that Japanese forces exerted over Macau.
Apart from Chinese and Portuguese uses of schools and refugee-students, there were also efforts to influence students by both Japanese and British, including through language teaching and the setting up of schools. In the case of the British, this was connected to the arrival of student refugees from Hong Kong and the active role played by consul John Reeves on managing refugee welfare and activities. The Hong Kong exodus brought to Macau many new students and education professionals. As with the schools relocating from mainland China, the Hong Kong arrivals also gave way to new educational initiatives designed to prepare the groundwork for post-war rehabilitation.
The war years in Macau were a crucial link of continuity between pre- and post-war Hong Kong and South China in general, to where most of the student refugees returned when the war ended. The know-how in refugee management and relief acquired throughout the war was also important for the post-war years in Macau, with the Chinese Civil War bringing many refugees to the territory. Some of the relief providers and actions taken to deal with these new waves of refugees had similarities with the Second World War, including an important role played by civic and religious institutions. The case of schools and student refugees in Macau highlights the intersection of experiences of displacement with different state-building motivations, relief providers, and transnational encounters. It also sheds light on the links between neutral territories and refugee experiences in East Asia.
Further reading
Despite still being relatively overlooked in studies of refugees during the Second World War, Chinese refugees have attracted growing attention by historians of China, who have considered the experience of refugee flight and management in different cities and regions and from different perspectives; see, for example, works by Christian Henriot, Diana Lary, Toby Lincoln, Lu Liu, Stephen MacKinnon, Rana Mitter, Micah Muscolino, Marcia Ristaino, R. Keith Schoppa, Hans van de Ven, and others. The challenges of the wartime relocation of educational institutions as well as the efforts of the Chinese central government – at the time under the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) – to manage and mobilise students for resistance have been covered by scholars such as John Israel or Jennifer Liu, while Aaron William Moore has explored in depth sources produced by students and other children in East Asia, notably diaries. A powerful account of a student’s experience on the move across China at war can be read in Chi Pang-yuan’s memoir The Great Flowing River: A Memory of China, from Manchuria to Taiwan.
The header image shows an aerial view of Macau city centre in this period. Source: Anuário de Macau 澳門年鑑 [Macau Year Book], 1939
