Chapter 1 traces the emergence of the social wife in late Qing diplomacy, showing how concubines became the earliest Chinese women to assume this role. By focusing on chahui, an important form of Western social gathering typically hosted by officials’ wives, it demonstrates how Qing diplomats observed the significant role of the social wife in the West. It begins with the first well-known case of an official, Guo Songtao, bringing his concubine abroad and attending public functions with her during their stay in London (1877–1879). Ambassador Guo was criticized by conservative factions at the Qing court and later recalled as punishment, partially for breaching Confucian gender propriety. It then examines how other diplomats, such as Guo’s successor, Zeng Jize, and his family adjusted to the expectation of a social wife’s presence in diplomatic functions in Europe. Finally, it shows how chahui and its gender-related etiquette were adapted to suit the cultural contexts of late Qing China to entertain Western dignitaries, enabling Chinese officials’ wives to attend without violating the Confucian norm of gender separation.

This chapter examines China’s evolving governance of international marriages through the lens of sovereign concerns, focusing on border stability, population management and national security. It explores how material and affective processes inform the regulations and representations of marriage migration to China. The discussion shows how the Chinese state continually revises its administrative and legal framework for international marriage, and also highlights the historical, racialised and gendered forces embedded in this process. The argument contends that the regulatory framework of marriage migration is shaped by shifting ‘structures of feeling’ that define belonging in Chinese society. These intersecting spheres of state affective and regulatory practices reveal new power dynamics and inequalities in China’s relations with the outside world.

The digital realm has become a crucial space for foreign women in China to express emotions, explore entrepreneurial ventures, and seek community and support. This chapter discusses the main themes and evolving conversations within several WeChat groups created by post-Soviet wives living in China. The chapter centres on how these women navigate both digital and physical environments while managing racialised and gendered expectations around family life and social interactions under China’s patriarchal immigration policies. I explore how personal experiences and emotions shared in one-on-one conversations echo the collective subjectivities and shared sentiments fostered within these online communities. Additionally, I consider how these online interactions reflect broader geopolitical dynamics, including national borders, racial hierarchies, citizenship laws and broader structures of feeling. These affective, networked, publics form a loosely connected web that offers the women a sense of belonging and solidarity amid the constraints of their lived circumstances.

Chapter 2 continues to explore the ways that, both at home and abroad, shifting Chinese mores demanded that politicians appear in public with their wives. As this change took hold in the new Republic, courtesans and entertainers-turned-concubines emerged as some of the few contemporary women with the social skills and experiences to interact with male strangers. The chapter first presents a case study of Li Benwei, a courtesan who became the concubine of Li Yuanhong, who served twice as President of China. Then, it focuses on Zhou Shunqin, the concubine of Zhou Ziqi, a high-ranking Beiyang official, to illustrate that when a concubine’s social origin was as a courtesan/entertainer, a traditionally degraded category, her public presence could cause unprecedented tensions and sensitivities, especially on the international stage. Finally, it examines the lives of public concubines after the deaths of their husbands. It shows that Li Benwei’s role as a social wife brought societal expectations of her continuous demonstration of wifely virtues after Li’s death, but could not provide her, a sonless concubine, real-life protection against her weak legal status and social prejudices.

This chapter examines how the migrant women navigate the patriarchal norms and cultural expectations that commodify them as objects of Chinese national desire, positioning the bodies of white women as social capital within the Chinese marriage market and immigration system. These women’s presence is valued as a means to enhance the social standing of their Chinese husbands and their families, with their reproductive potential seen as a resource for nurturing future Chinese citizens. I argue that, despite their roles as wives and mothers, foreign women often remain as guests within their own families, as their ‘uterine power’ isn’t sufficient to guarantee their inclusion and form of belonging. To protect themselves from patriarchal pressures, these women draw on maternal instincts, social networks and strategic navigation of citizenship policies and bureaucratic loopholes, creating a delicate balance of autonomy within a system that otherwise seeks to subsume.

In addition to playing the role of a social wife, concubines engaged in other public activities during the Republican period. Chapter 4 examines their presence in two types of communal spaces: public schools and progressive women’s organizations. These institutions witnessed the buildup and precarious resolution of tensions and conflicts surrounding attempts to exclude concubines from membership. Major incidents were publicized in contemporary newspapers, garnering broader social attention and providing an essential source for uncovering attempts to exclude concubines and for analyzing how the issue was framed, debated, and resolved (or not). The chapter first examines incidents in public schools, where strikes were organized to protest against those students and administrators who were concubines. These incidents reveal deep anxieties about the concubine’s tainting influence and the politics of women’s virtue within campus communities. Next, it analyzes the debates and conflicts surrounding concubine membership in progressive women’s organizations, revealing previously overlooked divisions rooted in class hierarchy and sexual morality within Chinese women’s liberation movements.

The Introduction frames the book’s research within the local histories and sociopolitical dynamics of the Chinese–Russian border region, which have fostered the creation and popularisation of the ‘Russian brides’ village myth in Northeast China. It explores how Chinese–Russian marriages have come to symbolise an idealised form of transnational union in Chinese media narratives. This chapter also outlines the book’s theoretical and methodological approaches, introducing the concepts of hyperreality and intimate and embodied geopolitics. It provides a roadmap for its central arguments, guiding the reader through its interdisciplinary analysis.

This chapter documents how post-Soviet women navigate the complexities of their children’s citizenship status in China, using the concept of ‘embodied border sites’ where racialised geopolitics intersect with individual values and family norms. It explores how issues of citizenship, identity and race shape the experiences of foreign mothers in determining where their children ‘belong’ nationally. I argue that, faced with their own precarious legal and economic status – and the constant fear of separation from their children, these mothers often leverage their native citizenship or informal dual-citizenship arrangements to protect their parental rights within China’s strict single-citizenship rules. The chapter details how China’s citizenship and immigration laws restrict foreign spouses on ‘family visitor’ visas from fully integrating into the reproductive and familial aspects of marriage, leading to difficult negotiations over their children’s citizenship status. These challenges underscore the inequalities embedded in family life for foreign mothers, who continually negotiate their parental rights and sense of belonging within a restrictive legal landscape.

This chapter offers an audiovisual exploration of a group wedding festival held on the Chinese–Russian border during the late summer festival of qixi jie [七夕节]. The official goal of this event is to strengthen Chinese–Russian relations, transforming a traditional celebration into an occasion for the articulation and celebration of international love and desire. The symbolic significance of the location, timing and aesthetics of the event, alongside the national, racial and gender identities of the participants, reveals key insights into China’s national aspirations. I argue that this state-sponsored group wedding is not simply a reflection of China’s foreign relations, nor is it an incidental event – it serves as a crucial site for observing and interrogating China’s geopolitical imaginaries and national desires. Furthermore, it provides a space for both reinforcing and contesting these aspirations through the performance of international love, gender roles, and an ideal form of marriage.

Chapter 3 focuses on a new eye-catching social phenomenon that emerged during the Republican period: Some “female students”( nü xuesheng) became concubines, either through force or of their own volition. Unlike the concubines who were former courtesans or entertainers, these women graduated from modern public schools, rarely came from stigmatized social classes, and otherwise closely resembled the modern “new women.”Due to their modern education and social skills, they became the preferred choice of politicians and military men, serving as their indispensable social wives and as domestic helpers who lived separately from the main wives. The chapter first examines the various reasons behind the phenomenon and the social criticisms it generated. Next, it presents a case study of a female student, Guo Dejie, who became the concubine of Li Zongren, a prominent military official. It shows that by playing this novel gender role, some of these concubines, such as Guo, were emboldened to seek, in their modernity and through public recognition, to elevate their domestic status to that of a main wife despite their supposedly subordinate position within the traditional familial hierarchy.