Yü Shouzhi, the diplomat (1937–1946)

Unlike higher-ranking envoys or ambassadors who came from a prestigious family with global experiences, Yü was born into an ordinary, average-income family in Yibin in Sichuan Province, an inland province in Southwest China. Despite his socioeconomic situation, he had the goal of pursuing a Western education and a prosperous future outside of his hometown. His father, a small business owner running a bakery, was the sole provider for six children. Though poverty during his childhood prevented him from going to school, Yü’s father worked hard to support his family and urged all his children to learn classical Chinese literature because he believed that a classical education would enable the social growth of his children necessary to enter the upper classes.Footnote ⁶ However, the traditional schooling for which his father worked so hard bored Yü. He thought that classical literature – highlighting patriarchy, feudal ethics, and arranged marriages – was obsolete and impractical in a modern global world. Drawn instead to New Youth magazine and writings from the New Culture Movement, Yü immersed himself in ideas of individual freedom, iconoclasm, and resistance to patriarchal authority. These progressive influences fueled his rejection of his father’s expectations and ignited his desire to forge a radically different path beyond the confines of his hometown and inherited worldview.

Anti-imperialist revolutions and protests in big cities on the East Coast also drew Yü’s attention and deepened his desire to pursue political influence. The year 1925 witnessed the death of Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the Father of the Chinese Republic and the Nationalist Party, as well as the rise of Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership within the Nationalist Party (GMD). Within the next year, the army of the Nationalists began to march north from Canton with the goal of unifying China. The news of revolutions in Beijing and Shanghai spread to Sichuan quickly. Students’ anti-imperialist activism of the May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai and the Nationalist-led reunification campaign North Expedition stirred Yü’s longing to join the currents of revolution and pursue more educational opportunities in big cities.Footnote ⁷ Reflecting on these historical events, he wrote, “I am a teen. Why did not I catch up with the trend of other radical students who did not obey their parents’ words?”Footnote ⁸ With the goal in mind, Yü decided to leave his hometown behind. Yü registered in 1928 for a Western-styled middle school in Chengdu under a pseudonym without informing his family.Footnote ⁹

Nevertheless, Yü could not continue his schooling due to economic difficulties and his lack of familial sponsorship. After Yü finished his middle school studies, he had no financial support to pursue college studies, so he went to Chongqing to look for a job. Working for Minsheng Industrial in order to stay in Shanghai, Yü secretly moonlighted at a bank for a better salary because he wanted the benefit of two jobs to improve his standard of living. This ran afoul of Minsheng’s rules, as they expected Yü to work as a full-time, exclusive employee. After only a short period of double employment, Minsheng found out about his moonlighting and forced Yü to resign from the bank job to keep his employment with them. Believing that the decision of Minsheng was unjust, Yü indignantly resigned from Minsheng and relocated to Nanjing for other job opportunities in 1934. Once there, Yü heard about a one-year state-sponsored program training diplomatic personnel members recruiting students. Knowing that this training program covered students’ living expenses in Nanjing and offered them job opportunities to work overseas after graduation, Yü saw this program as an ideal fit, allowing him to pursue his social advancement without needing to seek external financial support.Footnote ¹⁰ This marked the official starting point of Yü’s diplomatic career.

Yü’s trajectory from an inland hometown to a provincial capital and then to the national capital, Nanjing, to find job opportunities was not unusual in early twentieth-century China. During this period, provincial radicals sought to escape the constraints of patriarchal family structures and conservative social norms by migrating to urban centers, where they aspired to participate in building a new social and political order.Footnote ¹¹ Those provincial youth, such as Yü and his contemporaries Yun Daiying (惲代英 1895–1931) and Shi Cuntong (施存統 1899–1970), actively got acquainted with forward-thinking persons and developed networks with a range of social groups, including those from prestigious familial and educational backgrounds.Footnote ¹² In those eastern Chinese metropolises, relocated rural youths cut across conventional lines of social division, sought job opportunities, built a dense network of relationships, and interacted with each other in multiple capacities that were unavailable in their rural hometowns. As Toby Lincoln points out, industrialization and the commitment of Chinese governments to urban development led to an increase in job occupations and urban modernity, where people from different social backgrounds “were able to afford their piece of the urban dream.”Footnote ¹³ While there was no guarantee of a comfortable life for anyone, the expanding networks and possibilities of life enabled newcomers like Yü to look for their economic needs.Footnote ¹⁴

Yü seized the opportunity of the state-sponsored training program to make a living in Nanjing while the support of overseas Chinese increasingly drew attention to the Nanjing regime, and the Nationalists were increasingly dedicated to developing diplomatic personnel to engage with the overseas compatriots. Unlike its predecessor, the Nationalist regime actively sought to offer support, protection, and a unifying Chinese identity to the diaspora, positioning overseas Chinese as both participants in and beneficiaries of China’s modernization project.Footnote ¹⁵ The Nationalists saw this engagement as mutually beneficial: the Nationalists received crucial financial support – from wealthy merchants to laborers abroad – while the diaspora was granted symbolic inclusion in the national narrative. Sun Yat-sen lauded the importance of overseas Chinese contributions to revolutions. A widespread slogan, “overseas Chinese as the mother of revolution,” praised overseas Chinese who raised money to support revolutions and hosted exiled revolutionaries.Footnote ¹⁶ Beyond the economic reasons, overseas Chinese loyalty to the Nanjing regime and their foreign connections were also important motivations for the Nationalists to feel compelled to develop solid connections with overseas Chinese.Footnote ¹⁷ This purpose was increasingly urgent in the late 1930s when the Nanjing regime’s need for external aid multiplied following the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

The training program that Yü enrolled in was founded by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (OCAC), a government agency overseeing and managing affairs related to overseas Chinese. Its responsibilities included “the administration of entry and exit, encouragement of investment, and promotion of education for Overseas Chinese and their descendants, as well as propaganda efforts among communities abroad.”Footnote ¹⁸ When the Nationalist government was established in April 1927, the OCAC was a branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The OCAC later became an executive branch in 1932, reporting to the Executive Yuan, which empowered the OCAC to negotiate overseas affairs with the Ministry of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, and four other ministries.Footnote ¹⁹ The OCAC contained a central office, local bureaus, and overseas branches. There were three main divisions within the central office: the secretariat, the administrative office, and the office of overseas education. Yü received his training under the office of overseas education, which took charge of training personnel to provide education for overseas Chinese returning to China or living abroad.Footnote ²⁰ The establishment of the OCAC and the cooperation of these branches significantly reinforced the connection between overseas Chinese and Nationalist China. Steve Philips argues that the establishment of the OCAC “signaled an important shift in overseas Chinese policies. The Nationalists not only requested assistance in the name of patriotism, but also offered services in order to build legitimacy as a government – a reciprocal relationship that would become central to the War of Resistance and Cold War mobilization.”Footnote ²¹

In his autobiography, Yü did not discuss the specific content of the training he attended or the textbooks he used, but it likely included practical lessons in terms of how to quickly integrate into overseas Chinese communities rather than the international laws or diplomatic protocol typical of high-ranking envoys. One such skill was learning the Cantonese language. Before departing for Mexico, Yü learned to speak Cantonese at the OCAC training program because the majority of Chinese overseas were Cantonese speakers.Footnote ²² This linguistic ability proved crucial throughout his later life in Mexico. In his later life in Mexico, speaking Cantonese not only enabled Yü to converse with Chinese people in Mexico but also to compose songs and direct operas in Cantonese to foster patriotism within the overseas community.Footnote ²³ The Cantonese language skill thus significantly contributed to Yü’s integration into the overseas Chinese community in Mexico. Moreover, the program hired previously overseas Chinese as instructors in order to familiarize its trainees with overseas affairs. Yü recalled one such instructor, Li Pusheng (李樸生 date unknown), a Southeast Asian-born overseas Chinese who served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Li offered a memorable lesson in interpersonal protocol: “feng ren jian sui, yu wu tian qian” (逢人減歲,遇物添錢 translated as “when encountering people, you should always shave a few years off people’s age; when someone shows you any purchases, you should always estimate the price higher).Footnote ²⁴ This aphorism captured a key element of interpersonal diplomacy among overseas Chinese: people like to look younger than their real age and want to have purchases that look high-value. The saying reflected a nuanced understanding of social interactions, particularly the emotional needs and status sensitivities that shaped everyday encounters within diasporic communities. For Yü, the OCAC training equipped him with the linguistic and cultural skills necessary to earn trust and build enduring ties with overseas Chinese.

The training that Yü received distinguished him from high-ranking diplomats with prestigious backgrounds, who were usually from treaty port families, had extensive foreign experiences, and often earned advanced degrees in fields such as international law.Footnote ²⁵ The Nationalists expected those high-ranking officials to familiarize themselves with the tools of international law and precedents and be persistent and tenacious in diplomatic negotiations, as exemplified by the widely-recognized diplomat Wellington Koo (顧維鈞 1888–1985).Footnote ²⁶ However, the Nationalists also needed a different kind of diplomatic personnel – pragmatic operatives who could cultivate relationships with overseas Chinese communities at the grassroots level. The pragmatic-oriented training that Yü attended was short and not able to equip him with the skills necessary to participate in high-level diplomatic negotiations, but it significantly taught Yü to adapt in foreign environments and build rapport with overseas Chinese people quickly. He was capable and eager to work for overseas Chinese following the one-year program training him as a pragmatic generalist who could integrate into overseas Chinese communities and conduct overseas affairs.

Recent scholarship has shed light on the Chinese Nationalists’ diplomatic efforts to cultivate support among non-elite overseas Chinese communities at regional and communal levels. For instance, the Nationalists in the 1920s actively courted progressive Chinese residents in Chicago by issuing membership cards to donors – an initiative that rewarded their contributions and encouraged sustained engagement with China’s political and socioeconomic affairs.Footnote ²⁷ Additionally, regional party chapters took an active role in combating opium trafficking and other illicit activities that harmed the reputation of overseas Chinese communities and provoked racialized violence.Footnote ²⁸ In the northern Mexican state of Sonora, Chinese Nationalists strived to curtail the regional socioeconomic influence of several Chinese fraternal associations, especially regarding the opium trade of the mid-1920s, thereby positioning themselves as moral reformers and defenders of the community’s public image in contrast to local organizations.Footnote ²⁹

To supplement his practical training, Yü pursued self-study and focused on how to improve policies that impacted individuals of the diaspora. Following his completion of the training program in 1935, Yü discovered that there was no well-matched position for him available. As he awaited suitable employment opportunities, Yü worked as an editor for the official journal Qiaowu Yuebao (僑務月報 Monthly Affairs of Overseas Chinese) to support himself. This position gave him access to a wide range of reports on diplomatic practices and allowed him to reflect on the strengths and shortcomings of Chinese officials’ engagement with diaspora communities. It was during this “unemployment period” that Yü wrote articles expressing his insightful thoughts on the important roles of overseas Chinese in helping China withstand the imperialist invasion. In his article “The Development of National Economy and Overseas Chinese” (Guomin Jingji Jianshe yu Huaqiao 國民經濟建設與華僑), Yü highlighted how overseas Chinese, an indispensable element of the Chinese population, played an important role in disaster relief, investment in infrastructure, and advocating for China-made products.Footnote ³⁰ He argued that cooperation between the Nationalist government and overseas Chinese – especially civilians – was essential for advancing national economic development and countering the threat posed by Japan.Footnote ³¹ While overseas elites offered substantial financial support, overseas Chinese civilians also contributed to the national economy by promoting domestic products and participating in thrift campaigns to save money for remittances to China.Footnote ³² Yü also subtly pointed out the inefficiencies in the state’s overseas Chinese administration. In another article, Yü noted that although the government had established separate departments for diplomacy, education, and investment, coordination among them remained inadequate.Footnote ³³ In the same article, Yü further critiqued that in some cases, consulates lacked clear directives and operational guidelines from central authorities, limiting their effectiveness in serving overseas Chinese communities.Footnote ³⁴

The experience of writing about overseas Chinese affairs allowed Yü to reflect on the complexities of diaspora-state relations and to envision how a pragmatically trained diplomat could serve Chinese communities abroad. Whereas elite diplomats such as Wellington Koo operated at the level of formal international relations – appealing to the League of Nations and major powers such as the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union – Yü approached diplomacy from the ground up.Footnote ³⁵ Rather than focusing on abstract geopolitical negotiations, Yü concentrated on how international politics and the domestic policies of host countries directly affected the everyday lives of overseas Chinese. This grassroots orientation would continue to shape his perspective throughout his official diplomatic career and his quasi-diplomatic period.

After Yü wrote on overseas Chinese affairs for a year, in 1937, the OCAC appointed him as the president of a new Chinese school in Mexico City, reflecting Nationalist China’s larger initiative to mobilize overseas Chinese communities amid rising nationalism on the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War. By that time, a dense network of institutions linked overseas Chinese communities in Mexico to Nationalist China. From the early to mid-twentieth century, the Nationalist government – through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – extended formal diplomatic authority via embassies, consulates, and vice-consulates to negotiate with the Mexican government over policies affecting Chinese residents. These offices reported to the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on matters such as petitions to visit China, investments, and civil disputes.Footnote ³⁶ Meanwhile, the OCAC linked the homeland and diaspora through cultural programs, policy guidance, and coordination with local community leaders. Alongside these governmental institutions, the Nationalist Party developed its own network of local chapters that organized fraternal meetings (kenqin hui 懇親會), published newspapers, and raised funds for wartime relief, which fostered a sense of unity and political loyalty. The Party’s Central Committee in Nanjing also dispatched delegates to provide provisions on overseas Chinese affairs at local party chapters, while party members of local chapters also attended the GMD National Congress, showing their loyalty to the Party.Footnote ³⁷ In Mexico, these layers of authority converged: the ambassador and consular officials served as the state’s representatives, while Nationalist chapters sustained community cohesion and Nationalist visibility. Together, this transnational network blurred the boundaries between diplomacy, commerce, and nationalism, embedding the Chinese diaspora in Mexico within the global reach of the Nationalist regime.

Education was a key part of these efforts to maintain overseas Chinese’s cultural and political ties to China as their motherland. During his presidential term, Yü confronted the reality that many children of the Chinese residents could not read or write Chinese. To address this gap, he compiled bilingual textbooks to enhance students’ Chinese literacy.Footnote ³⁸ Scholarship on overseas Chinese during the Nationalist era (1927–1949) highlights that the Nationalists prioritized establishing and supporting Chinese-language education as a key part of its policy toward overseas Chinese communities.Footnote ³⁹ As Isabelle Lausent-Herrera points out, the Nationalists intensified their propaganda and used Chinese education to strengthen the relations between the Party and the immigrants and their children in the 1930s.Footnote ⁴⁰ The emphasis on Nationalist-led Chinese school education reflected their ambition to extend cultural and political influence over overseas Chinese communities beyond the huiguans (會館) and traditional fraternal associations.Footnote ⁴¹

Nevertheless, the paucity of Nationalists’ influence in Chinese Mexican communities made Yü’s work difficult. Supported financially by local Cantonese merchants for their children’s Chinese learning, the Chinese school was more like a prep school managed by local Chinese elites under limited administration of the Nationalist government.Footnote ⁴² Moreover, the sociopolitical landscape of the Chinese-Mexican community posed significant challenges for Yü’s grassroots diplomatic efforts. Within the first three months after his arrival in Mexico, Yü actively visited many overseas Chinese communities in Mexico City and quickly observed power struggles and divisions among the Chinese-Mexican community. Most notably, he observed an intense rivalry between the Nationalists and the long-established fraternal society Chee Kung Tong (CKT) 致公黨. The CKT originated in China and supported Sun Yat-sen’s revolution to overturn the imperial government in 1912, but later distanced itself from the Nationalist regime under Chiang Kai-shek. By the time of Yü’s arrival, the CKT had taken root in Chinese Mexican society much longer than the Nationalists and had more popular support and administrative power at the local level.Footnote ⁴³ When Yü visited the Tong Hall of CKT, he noted that Nationalist China’s national flag was taken down, demonstrating that the CKT did not acknowledge the legitimacy nor respect the leadership of the Nationalist regime.Footnote ⁴⁴

Despite the Nationalist government’s limited capacity to offer strong support, Yü actively worked to build alliances among Chinese Mexican groups and strengthen their ties with Nationalist China. For instance, with the coordination and communication facilitated by Yü, the Nationalists and the CKT, as well as nineteen other smaller Chinese associations, convened at the Chinese school and laid the groundwork for the Mexico City National Salvation Organization to Support the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance (Mojing kangri jiuguo houyuanhui 墨京華僑救國會), which was formally established the following month.Footnote ⁴⁵ Yü served as the organization’s secretary, a role that allowed him to continue cultivating collaborative relationships across ideological divides in service of a shared patriotic cause.Footnote ⁴⁶ During the years of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Yü was dedicated to engaging with celebrities and advocates from China to increase awareness of anti-Japanese mobilization among the overseas Chinese community in Mexico. In Fall 1937, Yü hosted Tao Xingzhi (陶行知 1891–1946), a Chinese educator renowned for advocating mass education as a means to alleviate poverty and strengthen national resilience. As Japan’s imperial expansion intensified, Tao toured overseas Chinese communities to promote national unity and grassroots support for China’s resistance. Seeing Tao’s visit as a valuable opportunity to galvanize patriotic sentiment among Chinese Mexicans, Yü organized a series of public events in Mexico City and served as Tao’s simultaneous interpreter from Mandarin to Cantonese.Footnote ⁴⁷ In one of his speeches, Tao used graphs and character analysis to underscore the importance of solidarity between overseas Chinese and the Chinese nation.Footnote ⁴⁸ Tao deconstructed the Chinese character “春 (Spring)” into “人 (people),” “三 (three),” and “日 (sun, also symbolizing Japan),” noting that the three figures form “眾” (the masses) with “日” positioned beneath the united masses. In Tao’s interpretation, the character “春” became a metaphor for national and diasporic cohesion: if people across all sectors of Chinese society – across class, region, and generation – could unite as one, then the collective strength of the people would be sufficient to crush Japanese imperialism.Footnote ⁴⁹ Tao’s message, transmitted through Yü’s mediation, exemplified how linguistic creativity within Chinese literacy was mobilized to build transnational solidarity in the face of war.

In addition to Chinese and overseas Chinese elites, Yü actively engaged with civilian members of the overseas Chinese community in Mexico during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Like advocates in other overseas Chinese communities around the world, Yü raised money among Chinese residents in Mexico to garner support for their homeland.Footnote ⁵⁰ However, Yü noted his belief that “…saving the nation requires not only donations but also the importance of transmitting information and spreading awareness.”Footnote ⁵¹ To achieve this goal, Yü drew on his working experience as a periodical editor and turned his attention to accessible, public-facing publications as a means of political mobilization. Recognizing that most overseas Chinese in Mexico could not read English-language newspapers covering events in China and anti-Japanese resistance, Yü founded a local newspaper in both Chinese and Spanish, Kangri Xinwen (抗日新聞 News of the War of Resistance), with the help of several young Chinese-Mexican volunteers.Footnote ⁵² As the editor-in-chief, Yü bought the latest newspapers published in San Francisco and New York City and then excerpted and translated news about China and overseas Chinese into Chinese and Spanish. In March 1938, Yü launched another overseas Chinese publication, Qiaosheng Yuekan (僑聲月刊 Monthly Journal of the Overseas Chinese Voice). González points out that unlike Kangri Xinwen, Qiaosheng Yuekan concentrated more directly on the Chinese-Mexican community and its initiatives to support the Republic of China.Footnote ⁵³ As two of the very few periodicals available to Chinese migrants in Mexico, the newspaper and journal played a critical role in fostering a collective identity and sustaining transnational consciousness during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

As Yü became more deeply embedded in the Chinese-Mexican community, his professional focus underwent a transition – from a formal representative of the Nationalist government to a community-oriented figure deeply engaged with the everyday lives of overseas Chinese civilians in Mexico. Initially tasked with promoting the political agenda of the Nationalist government, Yü gradually redirected his focus toward the needs and aspirations of Chinese migrants in Mexico and their descendants. This shift was not abrupt but rather a steady realignment shaped by his growing immersion in community life. Over the course of Yü’s diplomatic service, he had only two brief visits to China. One was for his diplomatic duties, and the second was to get married and bring his new wife back to Mexico with him.Footnote ⁵⁴ These rare visits highlight the waning connection he maintained with his homeland. In contrast, his commitments in Mexico grew steadily stronger. Through language instruction, organizing cultural events, and fostering community cohesion, Yü’s diplomatic mission came to center on grassroots engagement. His work evolved from advancing the political interests of a distant state to nurturing trust, belonging, and solidarity within the diaspora.

Furthermore, the transformation of Yü’s diplomatic role resulted in the development of diasporic nationalism and a reconfiguration of his Chinese identity. In the twentieth century, diasporic nationalism emerged in the context of colonialism and transnational displacement when dispersing populations reconceptualized their national belonging and redefined expressions of national identity.Footnote ⁵⁵ Unlike ethno-nationalism, diasporic nationalism arose among individuals in diasporas who “appear[ed] to be bilingual cross-cultural negotiators moving regularly between different cultures and participating in exchanges across national borders.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Yü exemplified this dynamic. Initially dispatched as a representative of the Chinese Nationalist government, his daily interactions with the Chinese-Mexican community gradually positioned him as a cultural mediator – interpreting cultural values and translating patriotic discourse. Yü’s active role in organizing these collective activities strengthened his diasporic nationalism and helped him integrate into the Chinese-Mexican community as his new home. In this case, instead of the village where he was born, the home referred to “a much larger entity, a motherland, which included strangers who spoke unintelligible dialects and yet…were inalienably linked to each other by virtue of race, culture, history, and affection.”Footnote ⁵⁷ As Yü gradually embedded himself in the Chinese-Mexican community, he transformed from a Nationalist delegate to a locally rooted participant in community life.

As Yü’s diasporic nationalism deepened, his relationship with the Nationalist government became increasingly strained due to the lack of institutional support. Diplomats often received little guidance or timely responses from the central government on matters of foreign affairs, and their daily work regularly lacked coordination with broader foreign policy agendas. In his memoirs, Cheng Tiangu (程天固 1889–1974), China’s ambassador to Mexico at the time, observed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had few coherent diplomatic policies and lacked consistent principles for engaging with other nations.Footnote ⁵⁸ He further lamented that the most common response to diplomatic inquiries from abroad was simply “handle according to the circumstances” (zhuoliang banli 酌量辦理).Footnote ⁵⁹ This ambiguous directive reflected the government’s unwillingness or inability to offer concrete direction. Furthermore, financial difficulties due to warfare in China, as scholarship on the fall of the Nationalist regime has pointed out, severely limited the government’s ability to maintain effective oversight of its overseas branches.Footnote ⁶⁰ This situation created a disconnect that undermined the cohesion between the central party and its local chapters abroad, leading to declining morale and weakened allegiance to the Nationalist cause. The lack of administration also meant that grassroots diplomats like Yü had little administrative backing and could not regularly receive stipends. Without a consistent stipend or material support, Yü described his party position as offering little more than a means to “merely able to survive (hukou 糊口) in the foreign land.”Footnote ⁶¹ What Yü sought instead was an occupation that allowed him to churen toudi 出人頭地, literally translated as “stand out” but mainly referring to someone who makes a good living with distinguishable fame and/or amount of property.Footnote ⁶²

Factional conflicts within the local Nationalist chapter that Yü worked at aggravated his disappointment with the Nationalists. In his autobiographies, Yü recorded a conflict with the ambassador Cheng Tiangu. When Cheng first assumed office in 1941, he raised capital by floating shares among Chinese people in Mexico for mine exploration in Guangxi Province. When someone reached out to Yü for advice, Yü voiced concern that Cheng’s behavior was a corrupt abuse of his power and reported it as such. Yü’s suggestions ended up causing problems for him. Three months later, Yü received a letter from the central office of the OCAC dismissing him from his secretary position.Footnote ⁶³ While Yü appealed the decision and received other party members’ assurance that he was not at fault, he did not receive any response. Having grown weary of dealing with office politics, Yü believed that there was seemingly no chance of promotion in the Nationalist system. In 1946, Yü decided to depart from the GMD and opened a Chinese restaurant in Mexico City called Asia.

Yü’s decision demonstrates that political environments and individual decisions cooperatively changed the life trajectories of Chinese migrants. As Adam McKeown pointed out, “migrants…interacted with local environments, creating images and activities that facilitated their transnational interests in accordance with the possibilities and constraints of local concerns.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Yü’s diplomatic career began with official training offered by the Nationalist regime, but he continuously forged his own path, developed new identities, and adjusted his career in response to shifting sociopolitical circumstances in China and Mexico. Moreover, Yü’s trajectory was not simply the result of top-down political forces. As Steve Miles argues, migration trajectories “resulted more from decisions of individual migrants and their families than from state initiatives.”Footnote ⁶⁵ From a rural youth in Yibin to a grassroots diplomat in Mexico, Yü’s own ambitions and values – ranging from pursuing promising careers and a comfortable life to his innovative approaches to overseas Chinese affairs and engagement – joined with the sociopolitical context to play a decisive role in shaping his transnational journey.

Yü Shouzhi, the small Chinese business owner and quasi-diplomat in Mexico (1946–1972)

The early days of Yü’s restaurant business in Mexico City were challenging, but the social networks he had cultivated through prior political and community involvement laid the foundation for his new venture. When Yü lacked both experience and start-up capital, his previous colleague at the Nationalist chapter, Yü Aihe (余愛和 date unknown), leased him the restaurant and believed that he would pay off the principal later.Footnote ⁶⁶ This act of trust and generosity led Yü Shouzhi to affectionately refer to him as “Uncle Aihe.”Footnote ⁶⁷ It was important to note that the two men were not blood relatives – Yü Aihe hailed from Taishan, Guangdong, while Yü Shouzhi was from Yibin, Sichuan.Footnote ⁶⁸ However, sharing the same surname created a crucial loose kinship social connection that Yü depended on to start a new career. As Elliott Young underscores, while clan and lineage ties in China were grounded in blood relations, kinship ties linked even distant relatives or those with no blood relation through shared family names in the Americas.Footnote ⁶⁹ In Yü’s case, this form of surname-based kinship, combined with connections formed through his prior political service, provided the social capital and credibility needed to launch his small business.

In addition to his social networks, Yü’s personal hard work and perseverance played a significant role in running a successful business. In his memoirs, Yü recalled that observing his father manage a bakery during his youth made it easier for him to operate the Asia at the outset.Footnote ⁷⁰ However, maintaining the business proved demanding. While hiring twelve Mexican employees, Yü and his wife had to work in the restaurant seven days a week with only three hours of sleep in order to pay off the restaurant debt.Footnote ⁷¹ By the third year after he leased the restaurant, Yü earned a profit that exceeded his payments towards the loan principal. The small restaurant in Mexico City not only provided Yü with essential start-up capital but also valuable entrepreneurial experience, laying a solid foundation for his future business ventures.

Rather than remain satisfied with running a small restaurant through laborious efforts, Yü strived for more. After traveling to several Mexican states, he identified Mexicali as a promising site for his next business venture – a city where his earlier diplomatic service had made him a familiar and trusted figure among local Chinese residents.Footnote ⁷² His prior colleagueship also played a key role in facilitating new connections in the city. Upon hearing of his plans to relocate, the Mexicali chapter of the Nationalist Party extended an invitation encouraging him to establish a business there.Footnote ⁷³ Yü Gunrong (余滾榮, date unknown), a standing committee member of the local Nationalist chapter, offered him the first floor of the party building to rent for his business and invited him to assist with party affairs in return.Footnote ⁷⁴ With the support of these overlapping political and personal networks, Yü successfully relocated to Mexicali in May 1952.Footnote ⁷⁵ Yü’s experience exemplifies how personal reputation and political engagement could work together to sustain diasporic livelihood.

When Yü moved to Mexicali, it was a burgeoning city on the U.S.-Mexico border attracting numerous immigrants. Located in Baja California, Mexicali was originally a sparsely populated desert town largely because of its extreme summer temperatures, which often exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. However, in the early twentieth century, agricultural investments of U.S.-based companies operating on both sides of the border quickly developed Mexicali. Originally developed as a hub for livestock raising, Mexicali later implemented large-scale irrigation systems that transformed the region’s agricultural potential and drew European and Asian immigrant laborers, both with and without contracts.Footnote ⁷⁶ They organized cooperatives, invested in land development, and cultivated cotton as both planters and harvesters.Footnote ⁷⁷ The construction of railroads further stimulated economic growth by integrating Mexicali into regional transportation and trade networks.Footnote ⁷⁸ Furthermore, Prohibition in the U.S. between 1918–1933 brought an economic boom to the city with the expansion of tourist and entertainment industries – such as liquor, gambling, cabarets, and casinos – as American visitors crossed the border to access these domestically forbidden pleasures.Footnote ⁷⁹ Even after Prohibition ended, Mexicali remained enticing to Mexican citizens through the Bracero Program (1942–1964), which granted legal authorization for Mexican men to work in the U.S. under short-term contracts, allowing numerous Mexican laborers to go across the border and work in the U.S.Footnote ⁸⁰ According to statistics cited by Arreola and Curtis, Mexicali’s population grew dramatically from just 462 in 1910 to 65,749 by 1950, reflecting Mexicali’s rapid transformation to a dynamic and thriving border economy.Footnote ⁸¹

In addition to its economic appeal, the sociopolitical environment of Mexicali was favorable for Chinese migrants in the mid-twentieth century. From the beginning of the twentieth century until the mid-1930s, Chinese migrants in northern Mexico were subjected to sustained anti-Chinese boycotts, legal mandates favoring the employment of Mexican laborers, and episodes of racial violence and expulsion.Footnote ⁸² Even though anti-Chinese activities did not prosper and had limited repercussions in the Mexican Valley, Chinese laborers lost jobs and many of them left the region.Footnote ⁸³ Those who remained gravitated toward Mexicali, where they found relative safety in numbers and support from local Chinese associations.Footnote ⁸⁴ This concentration of Chinese migrants contributed to the rise of Chinese-owned businesses and greater community stability. Chinese Mexicans’ living conditions further improved during the Second World War when Mexico joined China’s wartime allies and officially condemned Japanese aggression.Footnote ⁸⁵ Moreover, Chinese Mexicans’ visible contributions to wartime efforts – such as organizing anti-Japanese boycotts – helped raise their profile in public life and fostered greater social acceptance.Footnote ⁸⁶ The anti-Chinese sentiment and activities in Mexico then generally waned. Chinese residents who remained in Mexicali continued to live their lives and advance the interests of the Chinese community in the region in the latter half of the twentieth century.Footnote ⁸⁷

When Yü opened his grocery store in Mexicali in February 1954, he and his wife painstakingly developed trans-ethnic and transnational connections. They first hired one Mexican female clerk and gradually expanded their workforce to include five additional Mexican employees as the business grew. Along with her role as an employer, Yü’s wife was very good at managing and communicating with their Mexican employees.Footnote ⁸⁸ The employer-employee relationships, along with the couple’s openness to engaging with the broader Mexican community, helped them develop what Grace Delgado describes as kith and kin networks, referring to “connections born of blood, friendship, and business contacts.”Footnote ⁸⁹ This kind of everyday interaction significantly contributed to Yü and his wife “establishing a sense of social belonging and residential permanency” in a foreign land.Footnote ⁹⁰ Additionally, Yü and his wife took advantage of their residence in the borderlands to cross the U.S.-Mexico border frequently for business purposes. According to Yü, residents of Mexicali were eligible to obtain travel permits from the U.S. government that allowed unlimited border crossings for a six-month period.Footnote ⁹¹ Taking advantage of this opportunity, Yü and his wife walked across the U.S.-Mexico border to get supplies and place orders for a better price after the business hours of their store.Footnote ⁹² Through their efforts, sales increased from 500 pesos to more than a thousand per day.Footnote ⁹³ One year after launching their grocery business, they had earned enough to purchase a car and expand the store, and finally owned the property itself in the seventh year of operation.Footnote ⁹⁴ Through developing their professional and personal lives through transnational and transethnic connections, Yü and his wife established themselves as important members of the Mexicali Chinese community.

In addition to building a successful business, Yü remained actively engaged in political capital and social networks established during his prior diplomatic career and continued to get involved in local Chinese-Mexican community affairs. For example, his earlier initiatives – such as founding Kangzhan Xinwen and Qiaosheng Yuekan – had earned him recognition and trust within the local Chinese community by the time he settled in Mexicali.Footnote ⁹⁵ By leveraging his prior political affiliations and community standing, Yü sustained his ongoing role in overseas Chinese affairs as a quasi-diplomatic figure, advocating for the interests of Chinese Mexicans. In 1952, Yü flew to Taiwan to participate in the National Congress of the Nationalist government as a public representative of overseas Chinese in Mexico. He proposed restoring the consulate of Mexicali because the dissolution of the original one – due to the lack of funds – caused significant difficulties for Chinese migrants in renewing passports and doing transnational businesses.Footnote ⁹⁶ Three years later, when the foreign minister of the Republic of China Ye Gongchao (葉公超 1904–1981) attended the Commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the United Nations in San Francisco, Yü – together with Yü Gunrong and Chinese merchant Zhou Ruchao (周如超 date unknown) – met Ye and reiterated the importance of restoring the consulate.Footnote ⁹⁷ Their efforts bore fruit. The Chinese consulate in Mexicali was reopened in 1958.Footnote ⁹⁸ Yü’s efforts in this achievement continued his influence and leadership in the overseas Chinese community and his ability to advocate effectively for institutional resources without formal diplomatic status.

Yü’s quasi-diplomatic activities kept his connections with the Nationalists, who remained attentive to fostering amicable relations with overseas Chinese in the postwar era. Despite its defeat in the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949), the Nationalist government in Taiwan was still the official representative of China on the global stage until 1972 and actively sought to secure the loyalty of Chinese communities abroad. As Meredith Oyen argues, the effective administration over the overseas Chinese population was essential for the Nationalists to assert their anti-communist credentials, claim international legitimacy, maintain favor with the United States, and tap into remittances as a key source of domestic revenue.Footnote ⁹⁹ Taomo Zhou also emphasizes that overseas Chinese “were at the center of a global battle for hearts and minds fought between the Chinese Communists and Nationalists.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ This geopolitical competition shaped local politics in Mexico as well. According to the memoirs of Feng-Shan Ho (何鳳山 1901–1997), the Republic of China’s ambassador to Mexico, upon his arrival in Mexico City in 1959, he strategically placed informants in government agencies, newspaper offices, and border checkpoints to monitor any potential communist activity.Footnote ¹⁰¹ He also convened meetings with members of the overseas Chinese community to warn against interactions with representatives of the Chinese Communist Party.Footnote ¹⁰² Positioned within this transnational campaign, Yü continued to cultivate his political connections and community reputation, sustaining his dual identity as both a community leader and a participant in the Nationalist government’s global anti-communist initiative.

In addition to keeping connections with some Nationalist colleagues, Yü’s shifting identity as a quasi-diplomat and community leader granted him greater autonomy to engage with the broader Chinese Mexican population, particularly younger and non-elite members who had historically been marginalized in overseas Chinese affairs. Drawing on his experiences of working with Chinese Mexican youth as the school president, Yü collaborated with the Chinese consulate in Mexicali to establish the Chinese Youth Association (Zhonghua Qingnian Xiehui 中華青年協會), organizing social and cultural events specifically geared toward Chinese Mexican young people rather than older overseas elites.Footnote ¹⁰³ Moreover, Yü remained active in mass publication. He founded a new publication, Huaqiao Tongbao (華僑通報 Overseas Chinese Bulletin), for overseas Chinese in Baja California, which was more commercial than Kangri Xinwen or Qiaosheng Yuekan. The Huaqiao Tongbao was launched and maintained through shareholder investment, a funding strategy that enabled it to function independently while fostering a sense of ownership among overseas Chinese stakeholders. In addition to serving as editor, Yü also held the position of chairman of the board, which provided him with an additional source of income and influence beyond his grocery business.

Yü’s public-oriented engagement with the overseas Chinese community in Mexico served the broader interests of the diasporic community in the 1950s and 1960s. The contestation between the Chinese Nationalist and Communist regimes over the support of overseas Chinese in Mexico created a division among the majority of Chinese Mexican elites. While most Chinese Mexican elites continued to support the Nationalists, a small minority aligned with the newly established Communist government.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Yü believed that the political tension fractured the Chinese diaspora in Mexico, driving them apart to disperse and settle in other countries or to withdraw from participation in local Chinese communities.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Moreover, the closure of mainland China under the Communist regime curtailed new migration, further contributing to the shrinking population of Chinese Mexicans. In response to these challenges, Yü believed it was necessary to shift the administrative focus of Chinese Mexicans from attracting elites’ financial support to caring about civilians’ everyday needs and well-being.Footnote ¹⁰⁶

Yü’s long-term accumulation of social capital and community networks culminated in 1961 when he was elected president of La Asociación China in Mexicali by local Chinese Mexicans. This honor reflected not only his ability to navigate complex social and political relationships but also his capacity to bring together Chinese residents and their descendants across class and generational divides. His presidency symbolized recognition of his sustained commitment to both the welfare of the diaspora and his informal diplomatic role in maintaining ties with the Nationalist government in Taiwan. The survival and eventual prosperity of Yü’s dual life – as a businessman and quasi-diplomat – demonstrates that individual agency was essential for Chinese migrants seeking to negotiate shifting local, national, and transnational power structures in the postwar era.