Forgotten Visits in a Global War

ABSTRACT: The Second World War was a transformative event in China and Brazil’s global standing, yet the two countries’ contribution to the victory of the Allies remains somewhat neglected in traditional narratives of the conflict. This article sheds light on two little known visits by Song Meiling—wife of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and a key political and diplomatic actor in her own right—to Brazil in 1943 and 1944. The article highlights the importance of Song in China’s wartime connections to South America in the 1940s and analyses the media coverage of her Brazil trips. Based on archival and press sources in Portuguese, English and Chinese, it argues that these visits were important cases of Sino-Latin American interactions during the war. The article also places them in a larger context of China and Brazil’s alliance with the United States and of discourses on “Madame Chiang” across the Americas.