6 - Seeking Justice and Recognition

Summary

This chapter demostrates that the ambiguities of wartime neutrality in Macau continued to haunt China’s relations with Portugal in the post-war years. Five interconnected issues relating to Portuguese neutrality evidence China’s post-war quest for justice and recognition: the re-establishment of regular diplomatic contacts, the handling of Japanese property, the extradition of suspects of war crimes and collaboration, the abolition of extraterritoriality and critiques of neutrality in calls to return Macau to Chinese rule. These issues raised questions about the meaning of justice and the legitimacy of who got to wield it. In its relations with a small and relatively weak European colonial power, China sought to affirm its new post-war international status. However, this process was constrained by resistance to the Nationalists’ anti-imperialist goals in South China and by the changing fortunes of Nationalist power as the Chinese Civil War unfolded.