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Lessons from China's history
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Wee Kek Koon
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Wee Kek Koon

After US birthright citizenship ruling, lessons from how foreigners once ‘became Chinese’

Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship comes amid rising xenophobia. A look at how premodern China offered varied paths to assimilation

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United States Representative and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Grace Meng stands jubilant at a podium outside the US House of Representatives in Washington on June 30, 2026, following the Supreme Court’s decision to rule against President Donald Trump’s proposed scrapping of birthright citizenship. Photo: AP
Wee Kek Koon
Having lived his whole life in the modern cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, Wee Kek Koon has an inexplicable fascination with the past.

Questions about who belongs to a nation and how citizenship should be acquired remain as contentious today as they have ever been. The rise of xenophobic, far-right politics in many countries is an ugly consequence of this debate.

On June 30, 2026, the United States Supreme Court rejected an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that sought to end so-called birthright citizenship, the guarantee of citizenship to almost anyone born on American soil, including the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents.
While three justices (out of nine) dissented, the court ultimately ruled in Trump vs Barbara that the US Constitution protects birthright citizenship regardless of a child’s parentage or immigration status. In doing so, it left intact an interpretation of the country’s constitution that has stood for more than a century.
Demonstrators in front of the United States Supreme Court on the day of a hearing as part of President Donald Trump’s contentious bid to end birthright citizenship in the US, on April 1, 2026. Photo: AFP via Getty Images/TNS
Demonstrators in front of the United States Supreme Court on the day of a hearing as part of President Donald Trump’s contentious bid to end birthright citizenship in the US, on April 1, 2026. Photo: AFP via Getty Images/TNS

Yet the broader questions highlighted by the case – who can become part of a community, and on what basis – are ones that all peoples have attempted to answer, with varying degrees of success.

Like most premodern states, imperial China did not possess a nationality law in the contemporary sense, nor did it maintain a standardised legal procedure through which foreigners could apply for citizenship.

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