‘Ambassadors of cultural appreciation’: the social, political, and associational life of Chinese students in Britain, 1908–37

This article uncovers the experience of Chinese students in Britain before the Second World War, focusing on students who attended universities and colleges between 1908 and 1937. It argues that Chinese students at British colleges and universities played an important role as unofficial ambassadors who were uniquely qualified to interpret China to the British despite religious, political, linguistic, and regional schisms that divided the student community. This article shows that by the mid-1930s, Chinese students in Britain enjoyed a rich associational culture, with active local groups and national bodies that worked closely with the wider British student movement. This article discusses how and why Chinese students sought to interpret China and the Chinese to British audiences and examines the specific tactics and techniques they developed to do so. The presence of Chinese students in Britain remains curiously neglected, and they are less well researched than other diasporic student communities or their compatriots who studied in France or the USA. Since the mid-2010s, Chinese students have formed the largest cohort of international students in the UK. This article makes the case for the significance of university and college students as cultural intermediaries, both within and outside formal empire, as well as contributing to a revaluation of what was a more varied Chinese presence in Britain before 1937 than is often recognized.