It has intrigued many that, unlike Hong Kong, Macau avoided direct Japanese wartime occupation albeit being caught up in the vortex of the wider global conflict. Geoffrey Gunn and an international group of contributors come together in Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow to investigate how Macau escaped the fate of direct Japanese invasion and occupation. Exploring the broader diplomatic and strategic issues during that era, this volume reveals that the occupation of Macau was not in Japan’s best interest because the Portuguese administration in Macau posed no threat to Japan’s control over the China coast and acted as a listening post to monitor Allied activities. Drawing upon archival materials in English, Japanese, Portuguese, and other languages, the contributors explain how, under the high duress of Japanese military agencies, the Portuguese administration coped with a tripling of its population and issues such as currency, food supply, disease, and survival. This volume presents contrasting views on wartime governance and shows how the different levels of Macau society survived the war. “Wartime Macau deals with a fascinating and woefully understudied topic. The essays collected here show that there was no singular experience of World War II in Macau; how one experienced the war depended on a complex calculus of ethnicity, class, and connections. And yet, taken together, these experiences shaped the trajectory of the city’s political and social development for decades to come.” —Cathryn H. Clayton, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa “This book represents a real breakthrough. Previous English-language accounts of Macau during the World War II have focused largely on the activities of the British in this neutral ‘Casablanca’. Drawing extensively on Portuguese, Japanese, and local Macanese sources, Geoffrey Gunn and his team have assembled a far broader picture, revealing the dilemmas and choices of Portugal’s beleaguered colonial government and placing Macau in a geopolitical context that stretched from the Azores to Australia.” —Philip Snow, author of The Fall of Hong Kong

This book offers a re-interpretation of the political history of Macau from 1937 to 1945, during which Japan and China were engulfed in the Second World War. Using an array of English and Chinese sources, the author explores the diplomatic and social landscape of war-time Macau under Portuguese colonial rule. By framing this analysis within the concept of Portuguese ‘neutrality’, the book builds on the political history of Macau and provides new insights into the role of Japanese collaborators and Communist guerrillas. Seeking to answer important questions such as why Macau was not invaded by Japan in the Second World War, and what role the Nationalist Party Government played during this period, this book presents a new approach to examining Macau’s diplomatic history. A unique read for scholars of Chinese history, this book will also appeal to those researching diplomatic and political history during the Second World War.

Analyses the uses of neutrality and collaboration in Second World War Macau, a small territory at the crossroads of different empires.

Multiracial Britishness explores how British subjects of different 'races' collectively shaped what it means to be British today, focusing on 1910-45 Hong Kong. This book reframes the discussion about British identities and colonial Hong Kong, with clear implications for understanding Hong Kong's decolonisation, Brexit, and the Commonwealth.

No studies currently exist on consuls and consulates (often dismissed as lowly figures in the diplomatic process) in the Cold War. Research into the work of these overlooked 'poor relations' offers the chance of new perspectives in the field of Cold War studies, exploring their role in representing their country’s interests in far flung and unexpected places and their support for particular communities of fellow nationals and itinerant travellers in difficulties. These unnoticed actors on the international stage played far more complicated roles than one generally imagines. . Contributors are: Tina Tamman, David Schriffl, Ariane Knuesel , Lori Maguire, Laurent Cesari, Sue Onslow, Pedro Aires Oliveira, David Lee, and Marek Hańderek.

This book offers new and exciting scholarship on the history of the Red Cross Movement by leading historians in the field. It re-imagines and re-evaluates the Red Cross as an institutional network and a key actor in the humanitarian space through two centuries of war and peace.

Brought to life by the personal accounts of six Navy pilots and one British POW, this is the history of the U.S. Navy airstrikes on Japanese-held Hong Kong. Commander John Lamade started the war in 1941 a nervous pilot of an antiquated biplane. Just over three years later he was in the cockpit of a cutting-edge Hellcat about to lead a strike force of 80 aircraft through the turbulent skies above the South China Sea. His target: Hong Kong. As a storm of antiaircraft fire darkened the sky, watching from below was POW Ray Jones. For three long years he and his fellow prisoners had endured near starvation conditions in a Japanese internment camp. Did these American aircraft, he wondered, herald freedom? Trawling through historic records, Steven K. Bailey discovered that the story of the U.S. Navy airstrikes on Japanese-held Hong Kong during the final year of World War II had never been told. Operation Gratitude involved nearly 100 U.S. Navy warships and close to a thousand planes. Target Hong Kong brings this massive operation down to a human scale by recounting the air raids through the experiences of seven men whose lives intersected at Hong Kong in January 1945: Commander John D. Lamade, five of his fellow U.S. Navy pilots and the POW Ray Jones. Drawing upon oral histories, diary transcripts, and U.S. Navy documents, this book expertly narrates the intertwined experiences of these servicemen to bring the history to life.