Holding Hostages In China, Holding China Hostage: Sovereignty, Philanthropy, and the 1923 “Lincheng Outrage”

Abstract

Holding Hostages In China, Holding China Hostage: Sovereignty, Philanthropy, and the 1923 "Linch eng Outrage" by.Caroline Reeves In the early morning of 6 May ·1923, Chinese bandits swooped down from the hills of Shandongoverlooking the Tianjin-Nanjing train line and derailed the elegant· and opulent "Blue Express"-aluxury train. carrying foreigners and Chinese between Nanjingand points north. The bandits kidnapped twenty-six foreigners, killing one, and also took more than one hundred Chinese passengers captive. As the first reports of the incident slipped out, the international press exploded . "Outrage in China! The Worst Insult to the Civilized Powers since the Boxers!"ITheLincheng Outrage (as it came to be called in the Western press) burst onto the world stage. In a matter of days, the name' "Lincheng"-previously nothing more than a remote way station on the Tianjin-Nanjing train linewas on the lips of the world. The story dominated local and international newspapers for weeks, riveting Chinese and non-Chinese alike with details of foreigners -including women-held captive by bands of Chinese outlaws.2 The media frenzy did not begin to subside until 12 June, when the last of the foreign prisoners were released after lengthy and acrimonious negotiations. The Chinese prisoners, whose fate was less pivotal to world politics, remained hostage for another two weeks before they too. were freed. The Lincheng Incident brought to a head the antagonism building through thepost~World War I period between China and the Western powers on precisely the subject most sensitive to both sides: China's ability to govern herself. Extraterritoriality, the judicial system denying native jurisdiction over non-Chinese , had been well entrenched in China since the Opium Wars, supported by the Great Powers , superior armaments as well as by their firm belief that China lacked the degree 'of "Civilization" to be entrusted with the care of foreign nationals-Lor frankly, of the Chinese people themselves.3 To the foreign community , the Outrage proved quite simply that China's increasingly strident calls for the repeal of the unequal treaties were irrational and premature. China could notsafeguardber own train .lines, never mind guarantee the well being of foreignersand their property in China.4 Twentieth-Century China, Vol. 27, No.1 (November, 2001): 39-69. 40 Twentieth-Century China For the Chinese, for whom the events of 1919, the betrayal of the Versailles Treaty, and the disappointments of the 1921 Washington Conference still festered ominously, the Westerners' intervention in the resolution of the affair highlighted the degree of meddling to which the colonial powers felt entitled on China's soil, and emphasized the insecurity and indignity to which China was subjected at the hands of foreign powers. Yet at the same time, as John Fitzgerald points out in his analysis of the event, "this was a tale of captivity with a difference : it was not China that was held against its will, but uninvited Westerners .... [A] distinct sound of cheering could be heard emanating from the Chinese quarter."5 The potential for "China" -writ large-to stand up to foreign interlopers was a subtle, yet powerful subtext of the affair. These issues played out not only in diplomatic circles, but among the relief community, as well. A closer look at this discrete area of activity will highlight the attitudes of both sides towards China's international position. As William Kirby has written, foreign relations in the Republican era were "quite simply, all penetrating, all permeating, all prevailing ... ultimately forcing their way into every part of Chinese society."6 The Lincheng story, worthy in its own right, and indeed the subject of books, articles, and movies,7 exposes this penetration of everyday society by foreign relations, and particularly the allpervasive impact of the humiliation of compromised sovereignty, so overwhelming in this period of Chinese history. Earlier English and Chinese language scholarly literature on this incident focuses on the diplomatic impact of the affair, concentrating for the most part on the negotiations between the Chinese government and the offended powers for reparations and future guarantees.8 But the fact of extraterritoriality and the lack of sovereignty were felt not only in diplomatic circles, but in all spheres of Chinese life. The philanthropic realm...