by Cook, James A. ,Goldstein, Joshua,Johnson, Matthew D. ,Schmalzer, Sigrid
Tong’s experience illustrates the services the DRC offered to the refugees on move: the provision of lodging, meals, and transport help. DRC operatives usually set up their registration tables near bus stops, wharfs, and train stations so that refugees could spot them easily.41 Moreover, the DRC prepared free shelters for the refugees by making full use of public spaces like temples, schools, and theaters.42 And the DRC was not the only national level apparatus providing refugee relief; Figure 9.8 is part of a two-page spread from Young Companion magazine publicizing the activities of the Wartime Orphanage Committee, a GMD-led group (with strong ties to the GMD’s New Life Advisory Committee) that provided shelter, schools, and medical care to war orphans on a coordinated national scale.
The dire conditions of refugee life led easily to illnesses like sunstroke, malaria, and cholera. According to one eyewitness’s account, “the first thing that happens when the refugees arrive at a [refugee] camp is that they are de-loused. There are de-lousing stations in all the big Chinese towns.”43 Transit stations also distributed medicine when available,44 and in 1939 the DRC started to organize its own medical facilities. By the end of that year, it had set up twenty-nine refugee hospitals, thirty-three mobile medical teams serving along the routes connecting DRC stations, and was issuing medical cards that enabled sick refugees to access free care at local hospitals.45 According to DRC records, more than 1,200,000 evacuees benefited from DRC medical services by late 1939.46 Overall, the rising importance of the state was best illustrated in the following statistic: from late 1937 to the end of 1940, an estimated 26 million refugees received help from various institutions; among them, nearly 70 percent received support from the DRC transit system.47
Figure 9.8 By the 1930s pictorials had moved from single-image hand-drawn lithographs (see Figure 9.7) to photographic montages. The Young Companion (Liangyou) was the most famous Chinese news pictorial of the era (China’s Life Magazine) These images from the May 1938 issue (showing Madame Chiang Kai-shek giving comfort to an injured orphan, and Madame Feng Yu-xiang speaking above a cheering mass of children) comprise half of a 2-page photo spread that also shows orphans in school and getting medical check-ups. Young Companion’s national and international readership included overseas Chinese communities whose donations were being solicited by the Wartime Orphanage Committee. Source: Young Companion, May 1938, Shanghai.
Conclusion
Prior to the outbreak of total war, the welfare provided to refugees hardly went beyond the traditional philosophy that treated the refugee problem as a humanitarian cause to be handled by the charitable work of local elites and volunteers. The Nationalist state was content with its status as supervisor. Toward the end of the 1930s, the plight of mass refugees exposed the weakness of traditional relief practices. Recognizing the constraints of voluntary associations, social activists demanded the state to take more responsibility for social welfare. In reaction to popular criticism, the GMD government established the Development and Relief Commission and its nationwide aid and transit network to coordinate relief efforts, expanding the role of the GMD state in the lives of the Chinese people.
In his chapter “Monumentality in Nationalist China,” Charles Musgrove analyzes what may seem to be a similar process of expanding GMD power taking place in the hills of Nanjing’s Purple Mountain. The GMD saw construction of the Sun Yat-sen memorial in the late 1920s as a way to bind the loyalty of the Chinese people to its new leadership. But it is not always the state that decides how it will present itself to the people in order to reinforce its authority. In the modern context of mass media images (newspapers, magazines, and newsreels in the 1930s; television news and blogs today), how a government will fare under and react to a crisis is powerfully shaped by how images of that crisis are produced and interpreted. This chapter has looked at two different but related uses of refugee crisis images in relation to the GMD government. On the one hand, the GMD’s ally the United States and the GMD government itself used images of the Chinese refugee crisis to demonstrate the suffering, fortitude, and emerging unity of the Chinese people in the face of catastrophe and thereby helped mobilize domestic and international support for the war effort. On the other hand, similar to the case of Hurricane Katrina, the GMD also faced interpretations of images of the crisis that were highly critical of its management. The refugee crisis forced the GMD to expand its role into areas of social welfare.
The war reshaped the relationship between the Chinese state and society, with images of the refugee crisis playing an important role in reshaping public perceptions and expectations of the state. Responding to these images, voluntary civic associations and concerned Chinese demanded the centralization of social services. The DRC quickly developed into an enormous, proactive institution that was capable of implementing new agendas, centralizing the existing relief agencies, monopolizing the implementation of welfare policies, and initiating new welfare practices. As a result, the wartime GMD state became a main benefactor for social welfare, increasingly taking on responsibility over citizens in crisis, and increasingly expected to do so—a role that would become a double-edged sword for the GMD over the coming decade.
notes
1. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, by Frances Townsend, Open-file report, Office of the President, February 2006, 5–11.
2. “Katrina: A Timeline,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-saunders/katrina-a-timeline_b_28133.html.
3. “Meet the Press Transcript: Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana,” http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3958504.
4. Jonathan Weisman and Michael Abramowitz, “Katrina’s Damage Lingers for Bush,” Washington Post, 26 August 2006, A01.
5. Xiaojuan, “Cong zhanqu dailai de xiaoxi” (News from the war zone), in Mei Yi and Zhu Zuotong, eds., Shanghai yiri (One day in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shuju, 1991), 2.15–2.16.
6. “Lusu jietou de renmen” (People sleeping on the street), Shanghai yiri, 2.110–2.111. The image of refugees as “ants” is scattered everywhere in the contemporary accounts included in Shanghai yiri. For example, Ye Hao, “Tao chu Nanshi” (Escaping Nanshi), 2.30; and Liu Weisheng, “Banjia de fenrao” (Troubles of moving), 2.37.
7. Wang Jingzhuang, “Muqin hai zai Nanshi” (Mother still stays at Nanshi), Shanghai yiri, 2.34–2.35.
8. “Ji’er xian shang de nanmin” (Refugees in hunger), Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian (Selected documents on the Shanghai Campaign of 1937) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan lishi yanjiusuo, 1986), 92.
9. “Yizhi nanmin kenhuang jianyi shu” (Proposal on moving refugees to cultivate wastelands), Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian, 402.
10. Han Suyin, Destination Chungking (Penguin Books: 1959), 128.
11. Ibid., 126–127.
12. A controversy later developed over this iconic picture. Some insisted that the photo was staged. The photographer, H.S. Wong, a Chinese-American employee of the Hearst Metrotone News, was seen to move the baby onto the tracks, possibly under the agreement of the father. Nevertheless, the photo still shows clearly the damage of the Japanese air attack that killed an estimated 1,500 civilians, with only 300 surviving.
13. T. Christopher Jespersen, American Images of China 1931–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 46.
14. Ibid., 55.
15. John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), 16–18.
16. Why We Fight: The Battle for China, directed by Frank Capra, U.S. Army Signal Corps., 1944.
17. Ibid.
18. Timothy Brook, “Family Continuity and Cultural Hegemony: The Gentry of Ningbo, 1368–1911,” in Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin, eds., Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 45.
19. Ye Xiaoqing, The Dianshizhai Pictorial: Shanghai Urban Life, 1884–1898 (Ann Arbor
: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2003), 147.
20. “Shanghaishi jiuji weiyuanhui zhangcheng” (Regulations on the Shanghai Relief Commission), Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian, 446–447.
21. Jiuwang ribao (Salvation daily), 22 September 1937, Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian, 436.
22. Han Shu, “Qiansong shi juedui bugou de” (Repatriation of refugees is far from enough), Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian, 401.
23. Zhao Puchu, “Kangzhan chuqi de Shanghai nanmin gongzuo” (Shanghai’s relief work at the beginning of war), Ba-yi-san kangzhan shiliao xuanbian, 473.
24. Han Shu, 400–401. For similar news reports, for example, ”Nanmin panghuang wulu” (Refugees had no other means), Shenbao (Shanghai daily), 25 April 1938, 2.
25. Li Gongpu, “Jiuji nanmin gongzuo jihua dagang” (Outline of relief plans), Kangzhan sanrikan (Resistance semi-weekly) 2 (23 August 1937), 11.
26. Zhang Zhongshi, “Congsu gaishan houfang de jiaotong”(Expedite improvement of communications to the interior), Kangzhan sanrikan 35 (9 January 1938), 6.
27. Ibid.
28. Han Shu, 400.
29. Li Gongpu, 11.
30. “Zhongyang jiguan renyuan shusan” (Disperse the staff of the central government), 2 September 1938, National Historical Archive (Taipei), Guomin zhengfu dang, 361 juan, 2162–2164.
31. Take the Department of Civil Affairs as an example: other former staff like Liu Yapeng, Lin Zhipan, Liu Manqing, and Chen Si made similar petitions. They asked either for a recall to work or for financial assistance. “Zhongyang jiguan renyuan shusan,” National Historical Archive, Guomin zhengfu dang, 361 juan, 1231–1232, 1456–1457, 1465–1468, 2198–2199, respectively.
32. “Xingzhengyuan feichang shiqi fuwutuan banfa” (Methods on the formation of the Wartime Services Corps of the Executive Yuan), 15 December 1937, National Historical Archive, Guomin zhengfu dang, 326 juan, 428–431.
33. “Xingzhengyuan feichang shiqi fuwutuan banfa,” revised on 23 April 1938, National Historical Archive, Guomin zhengfu dang, 326 juan, 441–443.
34. “Feichang shiqi fuwutuan faling” (Decrees on the Services Corps), 5 September 1938, National Historical Archive, Guomin zhengfu dang, 326 juan, 564–565.
35. “Ge zongzhan bianzu jiuji gongzuo fuyidui zanxing banfa” (Draft on the recruitment of relief teams by all general stations), Second Historical Archive (Nanjing), 117 quanzong, 12 juan (May 1939).
36. Second Historical Archive, 117 quanzong, 4 juan (August 1938).
37. Geming wenxian (Documents on the Nationalist Revolution), vol. 96, 455–456.
38. Adjustment of the DRC transit system, 1 May 1939, Second Historical Archive, 118 quanzong, 5 juan.
39. The numbers for sub-stations and hostels are estimates due to the frequent adjustment and conflicting records during the war. Relevant documents are, for example, “Nanmin shusongwang jihua dagang,” November 1938, Second Historical Archive, 117 quanzong, 4 juan; and, Geming wenxian, vol. 96, 77; vol. 97, 389, 401, 411, 432.
40. Tong Wangzhi, “Yige nanmin de liangzhong zaoyu” (One refugee, two experiences), Kangzhan sanrikan 36 (13 May 1938), 11.
41. Methods on refugee relief, 14 December 1937, Second Historical Archive, 118 quanzong, 71 juan, vol. 1.
42. Violet Cressy-Marcks, Journey into China (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1942), 243.
43. Ibid.
44. DRC , for example, documents on medical care in May, October, November 1938–1939, Second Historical Archive, 117 quanzong, 19 juan.
45. Geming wenxian, vol. 96, 60–73.
46. Sun Yankui, Kunan de renliu: kangzhan shiqi de nanmin (People in misery: refugees in the Anti-Japanese War) (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 1994), 167–168.
47. Statistics on wartime refugees, July 1938–December 1940, Second Historical Archive, 11 quanzong, 696 juan.
Chapter 10
Revolutionary Real Estate
Envisioning Space in Communist Dalian
Christian Hess
Throughout the summer of 1946, long before Mao’s final victory in 1949, thousands of poor Chinese families living in the overcrowded streets of the northeastern city of Dalian moved out of their dilapidated houses and into the spacious residences of the city’s former Japanese colonial masters. During the 1930s, Dalian had been one of the most important strongholds of Japanese power in northeastern China, or Manchuria. These families were the benefactors of one of the largest transfers of urban real estate ever carried out in a Chinese city. In less than one year, from July 1946 through May 1947, over 27,000 families moved from the city’s poorest neighborhoods into Japanese houses located in areas of the city that had once been off limits to the majority Chinese population.1 Tales of entire neighborhoods moving into colonial homes filled the pages of local newspapers; they read like a socialist drama—the urban poor and working class, the masters of the new socialist society, rewarded with the homes of the former masters of colonial society. Even the local radio station covered the moves on a daily basis. One paper carried news of an overjoyed neighborhood that vowed to send pictures of themselves in front of their new homes to Mao himself.2 It appeared as if an urban version of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) socialist land reform was in full swing.
A few years later, in 1949, newspapers and journal articles throughout China praised the socialist transformation of what had been for forty years a major Japanese colonial port city, labeling Dalian “new China’s model metropolis.” At the core of this new definition of Dalian was an image of the city as a center of production modeled on cutting edge, Soviet-style industrial polices. This vision of the city as production center would be the hallmark of the urban modernization programs carried out by the CCP across China in the early to-mid 1950s.3 When taken to its extreme, the image of Dalian as a center of industry also took on a utopian dimension when the city’s experience was presented to the rest of China. Dalian had become, in one author’s opinion, not just a production base, but “in the last four years it has transformed itself into a worker’s paradise.”4 Indeed, with families from poor neighborhoods receiving the spacious former residences of the Japanese colonialists, it certainly seemed like a socialist paradise. Yet, was this image of an unfettered transition to socialism really so easy and rapid? Had Dalian, in just a few short years, made the transition from a city of Japanese colonial development to a new socialist metropolis? Or, as is often the case, was there more going on than meets the eye? Additionally, what was this urban “vision” of Chinese socialism, how did it differ from its much more well-known rural counterpart, and how did the new Communist regime view its relationship with city residents?
This chapter focuses on the transition from a colonial to a socialist political system in the port city of Dalian, located in China’s Liaoning Province. Like pieces authored by Charles Musgrove and James Cook, it analyzes the visual symbols contained within specific structure. More specifically, it seeks to shed light on the critical issue of how a new regime handles the issue of how to manage social relations created by an earlier government. In cities, where populations are large, dense, and heterogeneous, this management issue can become particularly acute. Physical infrastructure and architecture represent their own set of dilemmas for the new polity. What, for example, would a dictatorial power who took over the United States do with the monuments in Washington D.C.? To take Iraq as an example, in present-day Bagdad much of what had served as the physical and architectural spaces of the Hussein regime’s power—Saddam’s palaces and prisons—function in much the same way as they had before. Many of Saddam’s palaces function today as the center of coalition military power. In the case of Dalian, after 1945, the Soviet military and the CCP took control of a city whose physical features—from buildings to transportation systems, shopping districts to parks—bore the stamp of Japanese colonial development. A key issue for the new socialist regime, then, was how to use this space, and re-frame it as part of the new “look” for a socialist
city.
Dalian’s experience from 1945 through 1950 also provides a window through which we can view several interrelated issues in the understudied history of the immediate postwar years in China. First, Dalian was one of the few major cities prior to 1949 where the CCP could experiment with their own urban agenda. Furthermore, CCP administration, it was assumed, would be made easier by the fact the city was still occupied by Soviet Union forces who had “liberated” Dalian with Japan’s surrender in August 1945. Yet, no sooner had Chinese Communist forces entered, than clashes flared between these two socialist brothers. At the core of these conflicts were different visions of how best to mobilize people and resources in order to jumpstart the city’s industrial base, further exposing differences in what types of promises could and should be made to urban workers and the urban poor in the name of socialism. In short, exactly what urban socialism was supposed to look like differed according to the visions of CCP officials, Soviet military authorities, and city residents.
