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The Xi'an incident: No love
affair
By Katsuo Hiizumi
"It
was scripted as a gesture of love; it ended up
generating a lot of hate," is how Asahi Shimbun writers
Kazuto Tsukamato and Kentaro Kurihara characterized the
incident. They reported that on October 29, three
Japanese students and a Japanese teacher at Xi'an's
Northwest University performed a "bawdy skit" at the
university's cultural festival.
The incident and
its aftermath were significant in a number of ways.
Through it we have once again been reminded that -
large-scale Japanese investment in China and
fast-growing economic relations notwithstanding - even
small incidents can quickly fan the flames of Chinese
antipathy (hatred?) toward Japan that still burn more
than half a century after World War II. But perhaps even
more important, the matter has given us insight into
modern Chinese governance and its attitude toward
protest as the precursor to democracy.
"Most of
the other performances, such as traditional dances, were
of a serious nature," wrote the Asahi Shimbun
journalists of the Xi'an incident. "For their skit,
however, the four [Japanese] wore red bras over their
T-shirts and paper cups in the front of their trousers,
apparently to suggest male genitals. The phrase 'What
are you looking at?' was written on their hats. Some of
the four apparently removed cut-up pieces of paper from
their bras and tossed them into the crowd. At the end of
the skit, the three students reportedly intended to turn
their backs to the audience to show they had written the
words 'Japan' and 'China' as well as [a] 'heart sign'
implying 'love' [on signs on their backs]. By expressing
the phrase 'Japan loves China' or 'China loves Japan',
the four apparently wanted to promote friendly relations
between the two countries."
Alas, the Chinese
audience and newspapers saw it differently. The skit
caused an immediate uproar and was halted in the middle
of the performance by a Chinese teacher. According to
Chinese press reports, the "Japan" sign was worn by the
person with the fake penis, the "China" sign by the
person with the red bra - and that, of course (if true),
makes it a somewhat different story.
"Japan
loves [or whatever?] Chinese whores," became the
message. Recall that not very long ago, a group of about
280 Japanese businessmen on a company trip to Zhuhai (in
southern China near Hong Kong) reportedly engaged in a
sex orgy with about 500 (!) Chinese prostitutes in a
resort hotel - to the outrage of all of China and
unprintable venom in Chinese Internet chat rooms. To say
the very least, the Xi'an skit displayed some very bad
timing.
The October 29 (a Wednesday) incident
touched off violent protests over the "deep insult to
China" that continued through the following weekend.
Protesters also called for the boycott of Japanese
products. Several Japanese restaurants were besieged. A
Japanese man and woman suffered slight injuries in
skirmishes prompted by throngs of protesters at a
dormitory for foreign students. Police transferred all
students in the dormitory to local hotels for their
safety.
Since then, Northwest University
authorities have expelled the three Japanese students
and dismissed the Japanese teacher and they have
returned home after writing a letter of apology. The
protests have ceased rather than spreading to the rest
of the country as had been feared.
Arguably, had
a Xi'an-type skit been put on at any Japanese
university, its lewd nature would not have caused
offense - though I'm not so sure exactly how Japanese
students would have reacted to a skit like that put on
by Chinese students and with reversed signs and symbols.
In any case, China is not Japan and at least the
Japanese teacher should have known better.
But
there is also another angle to the story. The
anti-Japanese protests after the Zhuhai and Xi'an
incidents remind me of similar protests in Thailand in
the early 1970s. When then Japanese prime minister
Kakuei Tanaka visited Bangkok in January 1974, he could
not even leave his hotel because of the huge number of
students protesting Japan's increasing domination of the
Thai economy, shouting "Boycott Japanese products" and
"We don't need Japanese in Thailand." But these
nationalist students were the same students who were
fighting military dictatorship and demanding democratic
freedoms. Nationalist anti-Japanese protests were the
spark; but by the end of the 1970s democracy had won.
Northwest University in Xi'an is not Peking
University. But it is one of the most prestigious
universities in western China. I do not know if its
students are critical of the present government. But
elite students in China to one degree or another usually
are and want to see more rapid progress toward
democracy. The fact that large-scale anti-Japanese
nationalist demonstrations could quickly turn into
pro-democracy demonstrations is not lost on the Beijing
government. It is therefore not surprising that Xi'an
authorities, after letting the students blow off some
steam, quickly moved to contain the local demonstrations
to forestall larger nationwide protests. Patriotism, no
matter how sparked, has a tendency to lead to reflection
on social and political basics and - historically -
that's not necessarily to the advantage of a nation's
rulers.
As for the Japanese students and teacher
who caused the Xi'an uproar, I can only pity them. They
studied, taught and lived in China. How could they have
been so insensitive to their fellow students' and
teachers' beliefs and feelings? Probably by keeping
their distance and mostly talking to each other or
themselves. Any way I look at it, as a teacher of
Chinese history at a Japanese university, I find the
whole affair more than a little unsettling.
Katsuo Hiizumi teaches modern East
Asian history with special reference to China and
overseas Chinese at Aichi Prefectural University,
Nagoya. From 1983-85 and from 1988-92, he served in
Bangkok as a special assistant to the Japanese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. His publications include Kakyo
Konekushon (The Overseas Chinese Connection), Kyogeki to
Chugokujin (Peking Opera and Chinese), and The
Past and Present of Chinese Economic Area.
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