China

The Basque presence in China does not come from any wave of migration but from the internationalisation of the Basque economy: companies that opened an office or a factory in the country and professionals who went with them. It is a small, urban and transient community, of people posted there for a few years rather than emigrants who rebuild their lives in the country. It is concentrated in Shanghai, where that group of professionals ended up founding the only euskal etxea in China.

The story begins with an office. In 2002 Juan Ignacio García de Mutiloa, from Vitoria-Gasteiz, arrived in Shanghai to open the one for the public company SPRI.³ Out of that group of professionals came, in January 2005, the Basque centre of Shanghai (see the euskal etxea of Shanghai), which the report of the Directorate for Relations with Basque Communities lists among the centres set up in those years, with the date 2005.⁵² The official register of the Basque Government gives it as recognised on 30 December 2008, and it is still the only recognised Basque centre in China (see the Basque community today).¹