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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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010989
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01098900.027
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1990-09-17
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WORLD, Page 37CHINA"Beat the Black Devils!"Racial troubles flare in the streets of Nanjing
Officially, China is a champion of black-African interests.
The government has denounced South Africa's policy of apartheid and
devoted the lion's share of its scanty foreign aid to assisting 45
friendly African states. Beijing also gives scholarships to 1,600
black students each year to study at Chinese universities.
Unofficially, though, many Chinese consider blacks racially
inferior and question their government's aid to Africa when
citizens at home are tightening their belts.
Last week those resentments flared into a weeklong upheaval
involving some 5,000 demonstrators in the eastern city of Nanjing.
The turmoil began on Christmas Eve, when a fracas broke out between
a small group of African students and a security guard at the gate
of Hehai University, which has the most black students of any
Nanjing campus. According to official accounts, which were
contested by foreign students, the Africans refused to register the
names of their Chinese dates at a party. Chinese students heard a
false report that the foreigners had killed the security guard and
rampaged through the Africans' dormitory, looting expensive stereo
equipment and smashing furniture. At least 13 people were injured
in the melee. The Chinese then went on a hunt for the black
students, filling the streets and shouting, "Beat the black
devils!"
On Christmas Day, 70 Africans sought -- and got -- police
escorts to the Nanjing train station so they could file complaints
with their respective embassies in Beijing. As they marched through
the streets, the Africans rallied foreign students from campuses
of other universities along the way. At the station, riot troops
herded roughly 150 foreign students, including four Americans, onto
buses and confined them in a hotel 50 miles away. At week's end
they were being held incommunicado while diplomats negotiated with
Beijing officials for their release. Meantime, some demonstrators
demanded that provincial-government leaders "punish the ruffians
to promote the country's honor," while other Chinese students
marched on the railway station, not knowing the foreigners had
already been taken away.
Racial trouble has been brewing at Hehai since last November,
when the authorities erected a wall around the African students'
dormitory, ostensibly to "protect" the foreigners and their
possessions from theft by jealous Chinese students. The Africans
objected in a letter to university officials, denying any need for
protection. Then they tore down the wall. The Chinese deducted the
cost of the damages from the $75 state stipends that the black
students collect each month. In reply, 54 African students
occupied the campus bank that handled the penalty transaction,
dispersing only after the university president promised full
reimbursement.
Late in the week the mass protests showed some signs of
subsiding. Officials denied the incidents had anything to do with
racial discrimination, but the scars from the confrontation could
prove to be lasting. "I'm actually glad I saw this side of China
before I go," said Elizabeth Morrison, one of four American
students released from the hotel in response to U.S. pressure.
"Otherwise I would have left with a completely different impression
of the country."