Pablo Fong, Nationalist Patriot or Communist Spy? Mexican Chinese Caught between Beijing and Taipei

Pablo Fong was an unlikely candidate for Communist subversive. A wealthy perfume shop owner in Mexico City, Fong had been a leading official in the Mexican chapter of the Guo Min Dang and active in the Mexican Chinese community’s anti-Communist organization. But even he was visibly moved during the 1963 Economic and Commercial Exposition of the People’s Republic of China in Mexico City, when he saw Chinese products and culture occupy such a prominent position in Mexico City. “China’s shame of a hundred years has been washed off,” he said. “Mexico will never again have an anti-Chinese movement.” PRC organizers quoted Fong as evidence of their success. ROC officials would later fear that he had become a Communist sympathizer, distributing propaganda and attempting to convince other overseas Chinese to support the PRC. The ROC Embassy shared its suspicions with the Mexican Dirección Federal de Seguridad and the US Department of State.

Fong was one of several Mexican Chinese suspected of being “Communist sympathizers.” His case illustrates the difficulties that Chinese across Mexico experienced during the Cold War. The existence of Fong and others led the US press to warn about a Chinese communist cell just south of the border – a “Peiping spy ring” involving both Xinhua (New China News Agency) agents as well as the local overseas Chinese. Examining the embassy’s investigations of Fong and others not only illustrates how the relationship between the Republic of China and Mexico’s Chinese community showed signs of stress during the late 1960s, but also how Mexican Chinese defined themselves vis-à-vis the Beijing, Taipei, and Mexico City governments during the Cold War.