HKHC Speaker’s Series, Dr Helena F. S. Lopes, Cardiff University

Book Talk: Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War
Speaker: Dr Helena F. S. Lopes, Cardiff University
Date and Time: 6 December 2023, 3:30 – 5pm (GMT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol

To attend, please register on Ticketpass.

This talk introduces the recently published book Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2023). The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empires. Exploring the intersections of local, regional and global dynamics, the book analyses the layers of collaboration that developed from neutrality in Macau during the Second World War.

Drawing on extensive research from multilingual archival material from Asia, Europe, Australasia and America, Lopes explores connections between a variety of multinational actors with competing and collaborative interests, including Chinese Nationalists, Communists and collaborators with Japan, Portuguese colonial authorities and British and Japanese representatives. Lopes argues that neutrality eased the movement of refugees of different nationalities who sought shelter in Macau during the war and that it helped to guarantee the maintenance of colonial rule in Macau and Hong Kong in the post-war period. Following refugees, diplomats, colonial officials, intermediaries, philanthropists, and spies, this book rethinks Asia-Europe connections in the 1930s and 1940s, the uses and abuses of neutrality in East Asia, and the interplay of imperialism and anti-imperialism in a global Second World War. The presentation will give particular emphasis to Hong Kong-Macau connections during the war.

Dr Helena F. S. Lopes is Lecturer in Modern Asian History at Cardiff University.