This thesis is a study of neutrality and collaboration during the Second World War in East Asia. It analyses the relations between China and Portugal during the conflict and the immediate post-war period, with a particular focus on the enclave of Macau, the only foreign-administered territory in China not to be occupied by Japan. It argues that the practice of Portuguese neutrality in East Asia was marked by great ambivalence and used by different actors for their own, often conflicting, ends. In social history terms, Macau was part of the war, with comparable experiences to other cities in China, including a massive refugee influx, as well as everyday experiences of hunger, popular mobilisation for relief, and urban crime. Wartime Macau was marked by multiple layers of collaboration involving Chinese, Portuguese, British, Japanese, and others. This thesis also argues that wartime issues left unsolved had an impact on Sino-Portuguese relations after the war. Its dealings with a small European imperial power reveal China's attempts and difficulties to exercise its regained sovereignty and new international status.

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This thesis contributes to the existing literature by exploring the intersection between collective memory theory and ontological security theory within East Asia’s autonomous entities. It explores how varying degrees of political autonomy shape the construction of collective memory in history textbooks, navigating the dynamics in the pursuit of ontological security. Drawing from ontological security, collective memory, and autonomy literature, this thesis posits that the level of political autonomy within an entity influences the divergence or alignment of its collective memory from that of the central state in its process of ontological security seeking. The theoretical assumption for this thesis is that entities with greater political autonomy tend to construct a more distinct and independent collective memory, while those with lesser autonomy align their narratives closely with the central state. The findings suggest that Taiwan with the highest autonomy, forms the most distinct narratives from the central state, presenting Japan in a relatively positive light and depicting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a negative role. This distinct narrative reflects Taiwan’s assertion of its ontological security. Conversely, Macau with the lowest political autonomy, closely parallels the Mainland Chinese narrative, focusing predominantly on Chinese victimhood and celebrating the CCP’s heroism. Macau’s limited autonomy results in aligning its narrative closely with the central state to affirm ontological security through securing a positive relationship with the central state. Hong Kong, enjoying a comparatively higher autonomy than Macau, adopts a more nuanced approach, acknowledging Japan as a perpetrator while incorporating positive postwar Japanese imagery. Additionally, it portrays the CCP negatively in the context of war, differentiating its narrative from Mainland China. Thus, this thesis sheds light on how varying degrees of political autonomy shape ontological security pursuits, influencing the construction of collective memory.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 triggered many responses amongst the American public, including a number of private initiatives in medical aid that occupied a borderland between traditional humanitarian relief and political activism. This study is interested in the stories of three organisations arising in this tradition: the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy (AMBASD), the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China (ABMAC), and the China Aid Council (CAC). While three separate initiatives in terms of who was responsible for their creation in the United States, and the communities they sought to help abroad, all three demonstrate parallels in their foundation and development that merit a joint historical consideration. Emerging from the backdrop of isolationism in U.S. foreign policy, the AMBASD, ABMAC, and CAC became a means of voicing both political and humanitarian ideals through the medium of medicine. In many ways, this thesis becomes a study of lost causes. As political campaigns, none of the organisations in this study succeeded in changing U.S. policy, although the ABMAC and CAC benefitted from interests that overlapped with larger changes in U.S. military alliances. As humanitarian organisations, only one (the ABMAC) lived past the conflict to which it owed its foundation. Their story, however, retains its historical interest in challenging both the way in which we examine the mythology of humanitarian idealism, and our understanding of the balance between internationalism and isolationism in the 1930’s United States. For the medical activists of these organizations, medical aid offered both a tangible outlet for personal ethical and political beliefs, but also promised an alternative means of diplomacy that brought greater agency to more popular levels.