WASHINGTON, DC — When Soong Mei-ling, then the first lady of China as Chiang Kai-shek’s wife, arrived in the US for a visit in 1943, she was decked out in the finery and extravagance appropriate to her role. The former missionary Geraldine Fitch, a supporter of China’s nationalist government, described the visit approvingly: “Restauranteur [sic] and laundrymen (and none better) the American people knew, but now they know there are the educated, the cultured, the beautiful, the tolerant, the Christian in China as well.” Such patronising views were commonplace in the shadows of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which had been in place in the US since 1882, though restaurants and laundries continued to toil on in Chinatowns across America.
In the eight decades since that visit, one prevailing norm has endured. From Soong’s extravagant arrival to the freestyle skier Eileen Gu’s triumphant emergence at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, despite the changing tides of Sino-American relations, elites, no matter their diaspora, have been able to carve out special niches of their own.
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