Interesting historical article-Nanjing Anti-African protests

Source: Wikipedia
Complete (uncensored) link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Anti-African_protests

The Nanjing Anti-African protests were mass demonstrations and riots against African students in Nanjing, China, which lasted from December 1988, to the following January.

Background
Animus towards African students has been a recurring event since the early 1960s, when scholarships provided by the Chinese government allowed many students from 'China-friendly' African countries to study in Beijing. This policy was originally based on the idea of 'third world solidarity' and Mao's linking of the fight against 'white imperialism' with Marxist class war. Many of these African students were given larger educational grants than native Chinese students, and racial hostility towards the Africans was a regular occurrence. Most of these students returned to their home countries before reaching the end of their courses due to poor living conditions and the political uncertainties of the Mao era. From the mid-1970s, China allowed African students to study outside of Beijing.

As well as resentment about the larger stipends given to African students, hostility from Chinese students towards Africans also flared up when there was contact between African men and Chinese women. In an incident in Shanghai in 1979, African students were attacked after playing loud music and consorting with Chinese women. These clashes became more common during the 1980s and sometimes lead to arrests and deportations of African students. Cultural differences in dating habits added to the tensions - whereas Chinese students were expected to know each other for some time before dating, African students often asked strangers to date.

Nanjing protests
On December 24, 1988 two male African students were entering their campus at Hehai University in Nanjing with two Chinese women. The occasion was a Christmas Eve party. A quarrel about correct identification between one of the Africans and a Chinese security guard, who had ordered the Africans to register their guests, led to a brawl between the African and Chinese students on the campus which lasted till the morning, leaving 13 students injured. 300 Chinese students, spurred by false rumors that a Chinese man had been killed by the Africans, broke into and set about destroying the African's dormitories, shouting slogans such as "Kill the black devils!" After the police had dispersed the Chinese students, many Africans fled to the railway station in order to gain safety at various African embassies in Beijing. The authorities prevented the Africans from boarding the trains so as to question those involved in the brawl. Soon their numbers increased to 140, as other African and non-African foreign students, fearing violence, arrived at the station asking to be allowed to go to Beijing.

By this time, Chinese students from Hehai University had joined up with students from other Nanjing universities to make up a 3000 strong demonstration which called on government officials to prosecute the African students and reform the system which gave foreigners more rights than the Chinese. On the evening of 26 December, the marchers converged on the railway station whilst holding banners calling for Human Rights and political reform. Chinese police managed to isolate the non-Chinese students from the marchers and moved them to military guest house outside Nanjing. The demonstrations were declared illegal, and riot police were brought in from surrounding provinces to pacify the demonstrations which lasted several more days.

Aftermath
In January, three of the African students were deported for being suspected of starting the brawl. The other students returned to Hehai University, and were required to follow new regulations. These included a night-time curfew, having to report to university authorities before leaving the campus, and having no more than one Chinese girlfriend whose visits would be limited to the lounge area. Guests were still required to be registered.

Anti-African demonstrations spread to other cities, including Shanghai and Beijing. These were smaller than the Nanjing protests, though.

Further reading
Anti-Africanism in China: An Investigation into Chinese Attitudes towards Black Students in the People's Republic of China., Undergraduate Thesis - Mira Sorvino
China as a Third World State: Foreign Policy and Official National Identity, Van Ness, Peter, Cornell University Press, 1993
Collective Identity, Symbolic Mobilization, and Student Protest in Nanjing, China, 1988-1989, Crane, George T
The Discourse of Race in Modern China, Dikötter, Frank, Stanford University Press, 1992
Racial Identities in China: Context and Meaning, Dikötter, Frank, 1994
An African Student in China, Hevi, Emmanuel, Pall Mall, 1963
Anti-Black Racism in Post-Mao China, Sautman, Barry, 1994
Racial Nationalism or National Racism?, Sullivan, Michael J, 1994

Source: Global Mappings
Link: http://diaspora.northwestern.edu/mbin/WebObjects/DiasporaX.woa/wa/displayArticle?atomid=711

Anti-Black racism in China   
  Erin Chung, Article Author
 From December 1988 to January 1989, students in Nanjing, China waged violent protests against visiting African students. These protests became the precursor to the nationwide pro-democracy movement in the spring of 1989, which resulted in the massacre of Chinese students by armed troops in Tiananmen Square. Displaying an uneven combination of racial tension, nationalism, and reformism, the Nanjing protests fused mass hostility toward visiting African students with official nationalist discourse to create the momentum for a popular movement for political change. At the same time, they marked the denouement of China's proclaimed leadership of the "Third World" with long-term consequences for Sino-African relations. Yet, these protests were neither isolated events, as the Chinese government claimed, nor simply outbreaks of general xenophobia directed at all foreigners. Frank Dikötter has traced various discourses of race in China from the late nineteenth century based on myths of origins, ideologies of blood, and narratives of biological descent that have been central to the cultural construction of Chinese identity. Barry Sautman attributes the rise of anti-Africanism among the Chinese intelligentsia in the reform era (1978-present) to the return of racial stereotyping and elitist values dating back to Imperial China that link and denigrate those who are dark and those who are poor.

Hostility and violence against visiting African students had erupted for various reasons since their arrival in 1960 as part of a government-sponsored program that provided full scholarships for nationals of friendly countries. Following its rise to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) abolished the official discourse of race and embarked upon an intensive campaign to establish close ties with the newly independent African nations. As early as 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai declared that racism was uniquely absent in China. Friendly relations with Africa and African-descended peoples were central to the CCP's "Third World" coalition during the 1960s. Mao Zedong proclaimed that the Chinese would lead the historical struggle against "white imperialism," linking the problem of class with that of race in foreign policy. In the early 1960s, small groups of African students arrived in China with full scholarships and relatively generous stipends compared to those of their Chinese counterparts. However, most of the students returned home within a year or two due to poor living standards, lack of social opportunities, and the politicized environment of the Mao years. According to an account by a Ghanaian who studied in China during the 1960s, African students regularly encountered racial discrimination by their Chinese hosts, although racial hostility was the least important reason for their return.

The Chinese government restored the African scholarship program in the mid-1970s and began sending African students to universities outside of Beijing. As China opened itself to the capitalist world market with a series of reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping from 1978, its Third World identity became little more than a propaganda tool. In contrast to official statements supporting revolutionary movements in Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, the CCP in the late 1970s and 1980s markedly downplayed Third World themes in the media. In addition, local authorities often excused, and sometimes justified, anti-African prejudice among Chinese students. For example, the Shanghai incident of July 1979 was triggered by complaints of loud music played by African students and culminated in an attack of the foreign student hall in which the African students lived. Although Chinese press commentaries admitted that the Chinese students attacked the African students, they also implied that "drunken and womanizing" Africans were prone to troublemaking. Moreover, contact between African men and Chinese women was the source of numerous clashes between Chinese and African students in the 1980s as well as the grounds for arrests and deportations of Africans.

The Nanjing protests in December 1988 were triggered by a series of confrontations between African and Chinese students at Hehai University. The conflict intensified on December 24 when two African male students who were escorting two Chinese women to a Christmas Eve party on campus were stopped at the front gate and ordered to register their guests. A new university regulation that restricted registration procedures for guests visiting foreign students had been implemented in October of that year to stop African male students from consorting with Chinese women in their dormitories. A quarrel between one of the African students and the Chinese security guard escalated into a brawl between African and Chinese students that lasted until the next morning and resulted in the injury of eleven Chinese and two Africans. On the next day, 300 Chinese students, angered by a rumor that a Chinese man had been killed by an African student the previous evening, stormed the African students' dormitory chanting, "Kill the Black Devils!" The police arrived to restore order two hours later. Fearing for their safety, over 60 African students left for the railway station to reach their embassies in Beijing. Local authorities prevented them from boarding the trains in order to retain those involved in the Christmas Eve brawl. In response, about 140 foreign students, including other African students in Nanjing and a dozen non-African foreign students, sat-in at the train station to demand that they be allowed to board a train for Beijing.

Meanwhile, Chinese students at Hehai University mobilized students from other universities in Nanjing to protest what was perceived as special treatment for foreigners and to demand justice for the alleged murder of a Chinese man the night before. Approximately 3,000 students marched in the streets, singing the national anthem and chanting, "Down with Black Devils!" On December 26, the student demonstrators from Hehai University marched to the provincial government office to demand that the African students be held responsible for their crimes according to the full force of Chinese law. Holding a banner that read, "Protect Human Rights," the demonstrators demanded the reform of a corrupt legal system that privileged foreigners at the expense of ordinary Chinese. That evening, a group of more than 3,000 Chinese students marched to the railway station with banners calling for the protection of human rights, political reform, and justice. The African students were immediately sequestered by the police to a military guest house in Yizheng, 60 kilometers northeast of Nanjing. The police declared the student demonstrations illegal and, with the help of riot police from neighboring provinces, quelled the demonstrations in the next few days. By early January 1989, the authorities arrested and deported three African students from Hehai University who were suspected of instigating the Christmas Eve brawl and sent the remaining students back to Nanjing. The African students were instructed to report to their school authorities before leaving their campuses and to not go out at night. Furthermore, the Hehai University president, Liang Ruiji, announced that African students were required to continue registering their guests at the front gate and were restricted to no more than one Chinese girlfriend whose visits would be limited to the lounge area.