Unexpected Encounters in Island Worlds: Interactions Between ROC/Taiwan Fishers and Chinese Diaspora Communities in the 20th‐Century Pacific

ABSTRACT Researchers have examined how the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) cultivated relations with Chinese diaspora communities to secure recognition of their government as the true homeland of the Chinese people. However, less attention has been paid to how accidental and contingent encounters between communities resident in the ROC or the PRC and those living abroad have affected the identity of Chinese diaspora communities and diplomatic recognition of the ROC/PRC. This paper uses archival records to examine how ROC/Taiwan fishers interacted with Chinese diaspora communities in various Pacific countries between the 1950s and the 1980s during a period when shipwrecks and disputes over illegal fishing consistently stranded fishers throughout the region. The paper argues that the (im)mobility of fishers and their unexpected relationships with diaspora communities suggest new avenues for studying the complexity and beyond‐the‐state relationships of Chinese diaspora groups.