Closed windows, open doors: geopolitics and post-1949 mainland Chinese immigration to Canada.

"Since 1949 there have been dramatic changes in the flow of migrants from Mainland China to Canada.... Even though Canada in theory opened a window for family reunification in the postwar era by removing long-standing discriminatory clauses blocking Chinese immigration, in practice cold war geopolitics led the Chinese to shut that window, blocking nearly all emigration. Changing geopolitical circumstances led China to develop an open-door policy between 1973 and 1989, leading to increasing flows of migrants to Canada. The political response in Canada to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 was to allow all Chinese students and workers in Canada to stay, if they so wished.... The result was a large inflow making MCIs [mainland Chinese immigrants] the third-largest group of immigrants to Canada in the early 1990s." (EXCERPT)