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“Treat Insiders and Outsiders Differently”: The Use and Control of Foreigners in the PRC*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Anne-Marie Brady
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Nei waiyou bie, neijin wai song “treat insiders and outsiders differently,” “be strict internally, relaxed to the outside world,” so goes the Chinese authorities' line on managing foreigners. For historical and nationalistic reasons, foreigners occupy an extremely sensitive position in China today. To the outside world China's leaders talk of “friendship” (youhao guanxi) and celebrate “foreign friends” (waiguo pengyou). But in their internal documents these catch-phrases are simply the tropes of a deliberate strategy to control and manage foreigners' presence and activities in China.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 164 , December 2000 , pp. 943 - 964
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2000

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References

1. See for example, Pitao, Zhao, Waishi gaishuo (Outline of Foreign Affairs) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995), p. 19Google Scholar. The phrase nei jin wai song is sometimes used in a negative sense, when it comes to security matters. In this case waishi cadres are told they should follow the principle of wai jin nei song, meaning that certain information should not be given to “outsiders,” in other words foreigners. See Yincai, Zhan, Shewai mishuxue (An Introduction to International Secretarial Studies) (Hangzhou: Hangzhou daxue chubanshe, 1993), p. 317.Google Scholar

2. The Commercial Press Chinese English Dictionary (1979)Google Scholar translates waishi as “foreign affairs; external affairs”; both terms express the broadness of the Chinese meaning. I have chosen to translate it as foreign affairs, since I feel this best captures the ambiguity of the term. However, because the waishi system is unique, I have mostly chosen to use the Chinese term rather than the English. It should be noted that in Chinese texts the term waishi is also used interchangeably with the phrase shewai, which the Commercial Press Chinese English Dictionary translates as “concerning foreign affairs or foreign nationals.” For the relationship between waishi and shewai see Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, p. 2Google Scholar

3. Ibid. p. 1.

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12. This article forms part of my doctoral thesis on China's waishi “Making the foreign serve China: managing foreigners in the People's Republic of China,” Australian National University, 2000. I first began researching the topic of China's foreign friends in 1990, focusing on the New Zealander Rewi Alley. See my forthcoming book, Brady, Anne-Marie, Friend of China – The Myth of Rewi Alley (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001)Google Scholar. My current research is based on nine years' scouring of libraries and bookshops (most of the Chinese language material is neibu, or restricted access material) and numerous interviews in seven different countries. I can only indicate a marginal amount of these sources in this article and I cannot always reveal their provenance.

13. Foreign expert is a polite term used by the Chinese to describe all foreign technicians and workers. It has both a general and specific meaning. In its specific sense, it is the highest rank of the sliding pay scale for foreigners who work for the Chinese government.

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24. Many non-official books on how to deal with foreigners have been appearing in recent years; see for example Xinshi, Li (ed.), Ruhe yu waiguoren zuo shengyi (How to Do Business with Foreigners) (Beijing: Dizhen chubanshe, 1993)Google Scholar. Li Xinshi informs his readers the basic rule in doing business with foreigners is not to forget that they themselves are the foreigner (p. 1).

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32. Muzhi, Zhu, “Fahui neizai dongli, zuohao duiwai xuanchuan” (“Do effective foreign propaganda and give free rein to internal forces”), 29 08 1986, ZMZ, p. 82.Google Scholar

33. Duiwai bianji jiagongde ABC” (“The foreign propaganda editor's ABC”), DWBDCK, No. 2 (1983), p. 29.Google Scholar

34. The Beijing National Library holds more then 250 books on the subject of public relations, all published from the 1980s to the 1990s.

35. Sifabu Zou Yu fubuzhang tan zhengzhi gongzuode duiwai xuanchuan” (“Vice-Director Zou Yu of the Ministry of Justice discusses foreign propaganda political work”), DWBDCK, No. 8 (1983), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar

36. “Zhu Muzhi tan duiwai wenhua jiaoliu he xuanchuan gongzuo” (“Zhu Muzhi discusses cultural exchanges and foreign propaganda work), DWBDCK, No. 9 (1983).Google Scholar

37. Kaizhan you Zhongguo tese de duiwai xuanchuan” (“Develop Chinese-style foreign propaganda”), DWBDCK, No. 14 (1983), pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

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40. See footage of the tour in Chuntian de gushi (Spring Story), CCTV, 01 1998Google Scholar, the 12-part series that charts Deng's personal Party history.

41. See Xiaoping, Deng, “Gist of speeches made in Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai,” Beijing Review, 7–20 02 1994, pp. 9–20.Google Scholar

42. Waishi cadres, interview, 12 1997.Google Scholar

43. On the impact of technology and China's propaganda system see “President calls for further propaganda work to enhance China's image abroad,” Reuters, 28 02 1999Google Scholar. The main PRC website for internet propaganda is http://www.china.org.cn.

44. “Guanyu liyong waili wei wo xuanchuan” (“On using foreign strength to propagandize China”) DWXCCK, No. 23 (1985), p. 4.Google Scholar

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46. The latest project to be promoted of such Sino-foreign collaborations is a film by director Xie Jun (best known for his big budget epic Opium War) based on the diaries of John Rabe, who witnessed the 1937 Nanjing massacre. See “Nanjing diaries to be film,” South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP) Internet edition, 12 01 1999Google Scholar and Linyong, Zhu, “Rabe's diary hits big screen,” China Daily, 15 01 1999.Google Scholar

47. Norman Bethune (1890–1939) was a Canadian doctor and Communist Party member who worked in China in the 1930s with the Red Army and died there. Mao immortalized him in the famous article “In memory of Norman Bethune,” 21 12 1939Google Scholar, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965)Google Scholar. Alley, Rewi (1897–1987)Google Scholar arrived in Shanghai in 1927 and gradually became involved in “progressive” causes. After 1949, he stayed on in China and became one of the PRC's most prolific foreign propagandists.

48. Snow, Helen Foster (1907–1997)Google Scholar, with her then husband Edgar Snow, was involved in assisting the 9 December student demonstrations in Beiping in 1935. She also travelled to the Communist base at Yan'an in 1936 and conducted a series of interviews, which resulted in a number of books. She never achieved the fame of her estranged husband, a subject on which she was extremely bitter. Her role as a “friend of China” was not fully recognized by the PRC until very late in her life, one suspects because, unlike many other “friends,” Foster Snow was frequently critical of the myth-making nominating foreigners as friends of China often necessitates.

49. Pitao, Zhao, Foreign Affairs, pp. 166–67.Google Scholar

50. “Zhong gong zhongyang guanyu jiaqiang xuanchuan, sixiang gongzuo de tongzhi” (“CCP Central Committee directive on strengthening propaganda and ideological work”), 28 07 1989Google Scholar, DDXC, Vol. 4, pp. 1812–13.Google Scholar

51. See http://www.dashan.com.

52. On Soviet assistance in setting up the PRC foreign affairs system see Ledovsky, Andrei, “The Moscow visit of a delegation of the Communist Party of China in June to August 1949,” Far Eastern Affairs, No. 5 (1996), pp. 92–95.Google Scholar

53. An alternative non-official usage of tongzhi since the early 1990s is “gay.”

54. “The foreign propaganda editor's ABC,” p. 29.Google Scholar

55. Ibid.

56. On the subject of the importance of guanxi and ganqing in Chinese society see Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, and Kipnis, Andrew, Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a Northern China Village (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Here I draw both on my understanding of Yang and Kipnis' work and on instructional material for waishi cadres.

57. Yonghua, Wang, “Zhou Enlai de waijiao yishu” (“Zhou Enlai's diplomatic art”), DWXCCK, No. 7 (1994), pp. 5–8.Google Scholar

58. “Jin yi bu gaige waishi baodao” (“Further reform in external affairs broadcasts”), DWBDCK, No. 7 (1983), p. 3.Google Scholar

59. Guest ritual formed an important aspect of China's historical foreign relations. In the imperial court “guest” had a different meaning from the usual sense in English. Guests were not invited; they had to request permission to visit the Chinese empire. The guest was not equal with the emperor, nor was the emperor a “host.” For more on the topic of binli see Hevia, James L., Cherishing Men From Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 117.Google Scholar

60. See Rihua, Wang, Shiyong shewai changshi shouce, pp. 100 and 40Google Scholar, and Zhonggong Guangzhou shiwei duiwai xuanchuan xiaozu bangongshi, Handbook, pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

61. “Extensive contact with foreigners” was one of the accusations made against a founding member of the China Democratic Party, Xu Wenli. See “China defends dissident arrest,” SCMP, Internet edition, 3 12 1998Google Scholar. In 1999, a Hebei worker was sentenced to three years imprisonment for writing to the U.S. news service Voice of America; “241 ‘still paying’ for Tiananmen,” SCMP, Internet edition, 29 04 1999Google Scholar. Chinese dissidents are warned by police not to contact foreign journalists or organizations, if caught, those who ignored such warnings tended to face much harsher sentencing; Presse, Agence France, “Drop meeting plan, activists told,” 15 02 1999Google Scholar; and also “China defends dissident arrest,” SCMP, Internet edition, 3 12 1998.Google Scholar

62. Interview with waishi cadres, 12 1997.Google Scholar

63. Xiannong, Pei, Zhou Enlai de waijiaoxue, p. 272Google Scholar; interview with waishi cadres, 12 1997.Google Scholar

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65. For example the Peace Committee and the Beijing-based African-Asian Writers Association both closed down in 1966, and, unlike other people's organizations, were not revived in the 1970s.

66. Interviews with waishi officials, 03 1997.Google Scholar

67. For a full list of NGOs in China see http://www.mca.gov.cn/statistics/shujul.html.

68. “Ba chuanghu dakai nanmian hui you cangying wenzi pao jinlai,” Xiaoping, Deng, 10 1983.Google Scholar

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78. This slogan appears prominently in locations frequented by foreigners in China, such as the lobby of the Beijing Hotel. It originates from Mao Zedong's speech to the first meeting of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference on 21 September 1949, published in Renmin ribao the following day. The full version of this quotation is “Our revolution has already gained the sympathy and acclaim of all the people in the world, we have friends all over the world.” Excerpted in Zui gao zhishi (Important Instructions) (Beijing, n.p., 1969), p. 286.Google Scholar

79. Tse-tung, Mao, “The role of the Chinese Communist Party in the national war,” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961), p. 196.Google Scholar

80. “Sinuo furen shuo keneng cong Beida yizou zhangfu guhui” (“Mrs Snow says she might move her husband's ashes from Beijing University”), Chinesenewsnet.com, 5 April 2000.

81. Zhongxue wei ti, Xixue weiyong.” For the Mao quotation see “Talk on Music Workers,” translated in Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 87.Google Scholar