United States Repeals the Chinese Exclusion Laws

The Republic of China had fought Japan for years before the United States entered the Pacific war. [1]

Franklin Roosevelt signed the repeal of the Chinese exclusion laws on 17 December 1943. Chinese residents could now seek American citizenship, and immigration could resume under a small quota. [2]

China and the United States were fighting Japan as allies, yet American law still singled out Chinese people for exclusion. Roosevelt urged Congress to remove the contradiction, arguing that Japanese propaganda used the restrictions to discredit American professions of friendship; repeal would support the wartime partnership and acknowledge decades of discrimination. [3] [1] [2]

The law removed outright exclusion without abandoning a system that rationed admission by race and national origin. The annual quota was calculated at just 105, and it generally counted people of Chinese descent against that number regardless of where they had been born. Some categories were exempt. For Chinese people already living in the United States, eligibility for naturalization was a more substantial opening. [2] [1]

Later legislation opened admission to other excluded Asian groups, and the 1952 immigration law ended Asian exclusion while retaining discriminatory quota arrangements. Congress removed the national origins quota system in 1965. [1]

Related Diplomats

1. Wei Tao-Ming [4] [5]

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