1. On the relationship of these protests to the 1989 Spring pro-democracy movement in Nanjing, see George T. Crane, “The breakdown of quiescence: symbolic politics and student protest in Nanjing, 1988–1989,” presented at the 1990 convention of the Association of Asian Studies, 7 April 1990.

2. While racism has traditionally been treated as a Western phenomenon, this paper argues that hostile Han Chinese attitudes toward Africans and other nationalities, being based on racially-defined categories, is racist in nature. For a similar analysis on racism in pre-1949 China, see Dikötter, Frank, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).Google ScholarPubMed

3. See Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 January 1989, p. 12; “VOA report called ‘Nonsense’,” Beijing Review, 16–22 January 1989, p. 5 and Xia Zhi, “Campus incident in Nanjing,” Beijing Review, 23–29 January 1989, pp. 4–5.

4. On the role of Chinese nationalism in student movements prior to 1949, see Israel, John, Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

5. See Haas, Ernest B., The Unity of Europe (London: Stevens and Sons, 1958).Google ScholarPubMed

6. Crawford Young, M.The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

7. For a review of this literature, see Laitan, David D., “The nationalistic uprisings in the Soviet Union,” World Politics, No. 44 (October 1991), pp. 131–177.Google Scholar

8. See Levenson, Joseph, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: the Problem of Intellectual Continuity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Johnson, Chalmers, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Schwartz, Benjamin, In Search of Wealth and Power (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1964)Google Scholar; and Lin, Yü-Sheng, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1979).Google Scholar

9. Townsend, James, “Chinese nationalism,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 27 (January 1992), p. 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar An exception to this argument, as Townsend argues, are those studies that perceive Chinese nationalism as an outward orientation on how China may use its power in the international arena. See Liao, Kuang-Sheng, Anti-Foreignism and Modernization in China, 1860–1980 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Whiting, Allen, “Assertive nationalism in Chinese foreign policy,” Asian Survey, Vol. 23, No. 8 (August 1983), pp. 913–933CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Oksenberg, Michel, “China's confident nationalism,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 3 (1987), pp. 501–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power, p. 19.

11. See Friedman, Edward, “New nationalist identities in post Leninist transformations: the implications for China,” Universities Service Centre Seminar Series No. 4 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1992).Google Scholar

12. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power, p. 19.

13. See Wilson, Dick, “A paler shade of yellow,” New Society, 11 October 1984, p. 50.Google Scholar

14. For a more detailed study on the history of Sino-African relations, see Snow, Philip, The Star Raft (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

15. Ibid. pp. 16, 19–21.

16. For a detailed explanation on the evolution of this term, see ibid. pp. 16–17.

17. Ibid. p. 19.

18. On the conflicts between Africans and Chinese over male-female relations and the myth of African licentiousness within Chinese society, see ibid. pp. 200–201.

19. Ibid. p. 197.

20. Wilson, “A paler shade of yellow,” p. 52.

21. See Yü-sheng Lin, The Crisis of Chinese Consciousness, pp. 10–11.

22. Chang, Hao, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 156–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Ibid. p. 195.

24. See Whiting, “Assertive nationalism” and Oksenberg, “China's confident nationalism.”

25. While there exist salient theoretical and political differences among reform-minded Chinese intellectuals, this article only refers to those intellectuals who advocate political democracy.

26. Reform-oriented political elites also shared similar views. Ex-Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, for example, was willing to forego Third World interests in China's foreign policy in order to move China into the Western camp. See Kim, Samuel S., “China and the Third World,” in Kim, (ed.), China and the World (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 148–178.Google Scholar

27. See “Heshang” Lun (Discussions on “River Elegy”) (Beijing: Wenhuayishu chubanshe, 1989).

28. Snow, The Star Raft, pp. 144–185.

29. Ibid. p. 196.

30. See Hevi, Emmanuel John, An African Student in China (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963).Google Scholar

31. Quoted in Snow, The Star Raft, p. 198.

32. Ibid. pp. 196, 198–99.

33. Nanjing was not the only city that encountered African-Chinese student conflicts. They had also occurred in the cities ofWuhan, Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin (ibid. pp. 200–212).

34. See “‘Voice of America’ distorts the reporting of the ‘Nanjing Incident’,” Renmin ribao, 6 January 1989, p. 1.

35. The African Students Union in China, “Demand on human rights of African students in China,” 6 November 1978. Emphasis in original.

36. Snow, The Star Raft, pp. 201–202.

37. The Nanjing Branch of the General Union of African Students in China, “The security of foreign students in Nanjing,” 2 June 1986, p. 1.

38. Letter sent to all African embassies in Beijing by the alleged “Chinese Students Association,” spring 1986. (Original in English.)

39. “Memorandum sent to Chinese authorities in Nanjing by the General Union of African Students in China on [the] recent letter sent out to the African Embassies by Chinese students,” June 1986. Emphasis in original.

40. Personal conversation in Nanjing, March 1989.

41. The African Students Union in China, “Demand on human rights of African students in China.”

42. Personal conversation in Nanjing, January 1989.

43. Xia Zhi, “Campus incident in Nanjing,” p. 4. Unlike this Beijing Review article, none of the Nanjing papers argued that the event was racist. See Yangzi wanbao (The Yangzi Evening Paper), Nanjing, 27 December 1988, p. 1.

44. The meaning of “devil” (gui) is derogatory in that it expresses various degrees of hostility toward foreigners, treating them as “non-humans” (i.e. without having the Chinese “mind and heart”). See Sun Lung-kee, “Contemporary Chinese culture: structure and emotionality,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 26 (July 1991), p. 6. In combining gui with the word black (hei), this term resembles the meaning of the English word “nigger.”

45. “The Report,” January 1989, p. 2.

46. Quoted from a personal testimony accompanying “The Report.” An African and German student insisted in a similar testimony that the gate attendant fuelled the Chinese students' anger by instigating a rumour that a “parent visiting his son had been innocently beaten … by some foreign students.” This rumour, they claimed, was launched by the Chinese authorities to fuel anger among the Chinese students to disrupt the Christmas Eve party.

47. “The Report,” p. 2.

48. According to local press accounts, among the 13 injured individuals, one Chinese student was seriously injured and two African students were treated for minor injuries (See Yangzi wanbao, 27 December 1988).

49. This unfounded rumour would in the ensuing days be exaggerated to the point that some students eventually believed that several Chinese students had been killed.

50. “The Report,” pp. 2–3. The Nanjing Security Bureau's tepid response is not unusual. During the May 1980 conflict between African and Chinese students in Tianjin, for example, the police arrived five hours later to restore order and to escort the Africans off campus to a relatively safe hotel (Snow, The Star Raft, p. 202).

51. Nanjing University, a centre of student activism against corrupt and repressive governments since the 1940s, played a key role in the 1976 protests against the Gang of Four. See Louie, Genny and Louie, Kam, “The role of Nanjing University in the Nanjing incident,” The China Quarterly, No. 86 (June 1981), pp. 332–348CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jiaqi, Yan and Gao, Gao, Wenge shinianshi (The Ten-Year History of the Cultural Revolution) (Hong Kong: Xianggang dagong baoshi, 1986), pp. 549–556Google Scholar; and McCormick, Barrett L., Political Reform in Post-Mao China: Democracy and Bureaucracy in a Leninist State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 44–59.Google Scholar

52. To these Chinese students, human rights included both an improvement in their basic living conditions and the law being applied equally to all.

53. Personal conversations, Nanjing, spring 1989.

54. Personal conversations, Nanjing, April 1989.

55. Gulou (Drum Tower) Square, a major intersection in Nanjing, was focal point of the 1986 and 1989 democracy movements.

56. The Jinling Hotel, the largest in Nanjing, had also been the site of the 1986 anti-Japanese protests in Nanjing.

57. “The Report,” p. 3.

58. Personal observation, Nanjing, 26 December 1988.

59. Crane, “The breakdown of quiescence,” p. 13.

60. Yangzi wanbao, 27 December 1988, p. 1.

61. Personal conversation, Nanjing, spring 1989.

62. Personal conversations, Nanjing, January 1989.

63. “The Report,” p. 3.

64. Several African students later claimed that the police used electric cattle prods to force resisting students to board the buses, a claim not supported by other witnesses. Personal conversations, Nanjing, January 1989.

65. See Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 January 1989, p. 12.

66. Yangzi wanbao, 27 December 1988, p. 1.

67. Personal conversation with Nanjing party cadre, Nanjing, January 1989.

68. According to one foreign student, once the riot police disembarked, they used clubs to disperse the remaining students. This observation, which served as a basis for several foreign news reports, was immediately criticized by several Chinese and foreign students also present at this demonstration.

69. Personal observations, Nanjing, 27 December 1988.

70. “Interview with a spokesperson for the Jiangsu Ministry of Education,” Yangzi wanbao, 29 December 1988, p. 1.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid.

73. During this ordeal, the central government sent a work team to Nanjing and Yizheng to oversee the resolution of the African students problem. Personal conversations, Nanjing, spring 1989.

74. One development that manifested this objective was the increasing surveillance of non-African foreign students in Nanjing. The Chinese authorities wanted to keep them from informing Western reporters in Beijing of the events in Nanjing. Similarly, many African students were implicitly threatened by their school authorities with expulsion from China if they spoke to Western reporters upon their return to Nanjing.

75. The American consulate in Shanghai, upon discovering that six American students had been forcibly removed to Yizheng, threatened the Chinese authorities with a formal complaint if the American nationals were not allowed to return to Nanjing. They were returned to Nanjing that evening.

76. Personal conversation, Nanjing, January 1989.

77. “The Report,” p. 9.

78. The African students accuse the Chinese security forces of using unnecessary force during this incident. According to one Nigerian student, eight security officers abducted him and applied electric shocks to his body as he tried to defend himself. The security officers, he claimed, “proceeded to drag me away from my friends. I was then carried … to the grass quadrangle where I was not permitted to regroup with my fellow classmates …. When I asked them to release me, they refused and replied that if I spoke again, they would break my arms and legs” (Personal testimony accompanying “The Report”). Other African students claimed that the police used strip-searches and electric cattle prods on resisting students. The Chinese government has publicly denied these accusations (see “‘Voice of America’ distorts the reporting of the ‘Nanjing Incident’”).

79. “The Report,” p. 9.

80. The local authorities refused to permit any African students to leave Nanjing until late January.

81. “The Report,” p. 11. The Chinese government has officially denied that Chinese authorities imposed these restrictions on the African students. See Xia Zhi, “Campus incident in Nanjing,” p. 4.

82. “Foreign Ministry spokesperson discusses the Nanjing Chinese-African student incident,” Renmin ribao, 6 January 1989, p. 1.

83. The CCP Central Committee also reportedly criticized and fined the Jiangsu Provincial Government for its inadequate handling of this incident. Personal conversation, Nanjing, spring 1989.

84. “‘Voice of America’ distorts the reporting of the ‘Nanjing Incident’.”

85. Interviews with several Chinese specialists on Africa, University of Wisconsin-Madison, spring 1991.

86. The Chinese students' response in Nanjing also resembles the response to the Chai Qingteng murder near Beijing University in 1988 when students left their campuses to demand adequate protection under Chinese law.

87. Friedman, “New nationalist identities,” p. 25.

88. For a penetrating analysis on the correlation between nationalism and democracy, see Nodia, Ghia, “Nationalism and democracy,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 3, No. 4 (October 1992), pp. 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar