The Sino-French Connection: A Sociocultural History of Chinese Indentured Labour in World War One France

Between 1916 and 1918 nearly 140,000 Chinese labourers were recruited by Britain and France to make up for labour shortages in France; these labourers were to be employed in a wide variety of war-related work such as transportation, equipment maintenance, munitions production, and aerodrome construction. The Chinese government actively supported the recruitment,believing that China's contribution to the allied cause would enhance the country's status at a future peace conference; at the same time an influential 'lobby'of Chinese Francophile intellectuals supported the recruitment as part of their larger agenda of fostering Sino-French cultural and educational interaction. Although little studied (either in the West or in China),the proposed book (which focuses on the French recruitment) will highlight the importance of this episode by placing it within the larger contexts of both Chinese labour migration history that began with the illegal 'coolie'trade of the 19th century and Sino-French cultural relations (and mutual perceptions) in the early 20th century. Extensive use will also be made of French and Chinese archival sources, and Chinese-language newspapers published in France at this time for the benefit of the Chinese workers, to examine the lives and experiences of Chinese workers themselves while in France. The book will show how an emerging national consciousness developed amongst the Chinese workers (transcending more parochial loyalties to province or region) and how they were committed to 'self-improvement' with the setting up of night-time classes and 'self-governing associations' that drew up guidelines for appropriate behaviour. At the same time, the book will explore the attitudes of French officials, employers and local communities towards the Chinese workers, and the tactics of protest used by the Chinese workers in response to poor working conditions or maltreatment.

In highlighting active support for, and participation in, the WW1 recruitment of Chinese workers by the Chinese government, the book will demonstrate how it differed from the 'coolie trade' of the 19th century carried out by foreign agencies (without China's approval) along China's coast.Furthermore, in emphasizing the Chinese Francophile lobby's support for the recruitment as part of their own cultural agenda (which included sending Chinese students to France, setting up institutes of Chinese Studies in France, and creating Sino-French schools in China), the book suggests that Sino-French interaction could and did proceed in two directions--hence modifying the conventional image of China at this time as simply being the passive and hapless victim of western imperialism. Finally, the book will highlight the long-term significance of the episode by drawing a parallel between the ways in which the Chinese government in 1916 made political use of Chinese labour overseas ( which was used as a symbol of China's commitment to world peace and hence gaining for China the right to be treated as an equal on the international stage) and the foreign policy of the post-1949 Maoist state, which used Chinese overseas labour in Africa during the 1960s, for example, as a symbol of China's political commitment to the non-aligned world.

The book will thus make an important contribution to Chinese diaspora history, First World War Studies, Sino-foreign cultural relations and mutual perceptions, and Chinese labour history.