Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Yellow Peril
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Origins== The cultural stereotypes of the Yellow Peril originated in the late 19th century, when Chinese workers legally immigrated to Australia, Canada, the U.S., and New Zealand, where their work ethic inadvertently provoked a backlash against Chinese communities, for agreeing to work for lower wages than did the local white populations. In 1870, the French [[Oriental studies|Orientalist]] and historian [[Ernest Renan]] warned Europeans of Eastern danger to the Western world; yet Renan had meant the [[Russian Empire]] (1721–1917), a country and nation whom the West perceived as more Asiatic than European.<ref name="Tsu, Jiang 2005 p. 80">Tsu, Jiang. ''Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895–1937'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005 p. 80.</ref><ref>* Roger Debury (alias Georges Rossignol), [https://education.persee.fr/doc/revin_1775-6014_1898_num_35_1_3632_t1_0467_0000_2 Un pays de célibataires et de fils uniques], Dentu, 1897 : "Le péril jaune n'est pas immédiat et ne vise pas spécialement la France". * Thomas Burke, Limehouse Nights, 1916 : ”Some of the boys in the orchestra had often objected to working under a yellօw peril, but he was a skilled musician, and the management kept him on because he drew to the hall the Oriental element of the quarter.” * J. B. Newman, [https://books.google.com/books?id=pFwAAAAAYAAJ&q=Yellow&pg=RA2-PA145 Beginners' Modern History: From about A.D. 1000], World Book Company, 1922 : ”... there are those who believe in the 'Yellօw Peril,” or the possible danger to the world at large if China were to wake up and make full use of her boundless resources.”</ref> ===Imperial Germany=== [[File:Voelker Europas.jpg|thumb|right|[[Kaiser Wilhelm II]] used the allegorical lithograph ''Peoples of Europe, Guard Your Most Sacred Possessions'' (1895), by [[Hermann Knackfuss]], to promote Yellow Peril ideology as geopolitical justification for European colonialism in China.]] Since 1870, the Yellow Peril ideology gave [[Reification (Marxism)|concrete form]] to the anti-East Asian racism of Europe and North America.<ref name="Tsu, Jiang 2005 p. 80"/> In central Europe, the Orientalist and diplomat [[Max von Brandt]] advised Kaiser Wilhelm II that Imperial Germany had colonial interests to pursue in China.<ref name="Iikura 2006">Akira, Iikura. "The 'Yellow Peril' and its Influence on German–Japanese Relations", pp. 80–97, in ''Japanese–German Relations, 1895–1945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion'', Christian W. Spang and Rolf-Harald Wippich, Eds. London: Routledge, 2006.</ref>{{rp|83}} Hence, the Kaiser used the phrase ''die Gelbe Gefahr'' (The Yellow Peril) to specifically encourage Imperial German interests and justify European colonialism in China.<ref>Rupert, G. G. ''The Yellow Peril or, the Orient versus the Occident'', Union Publishing, 1911. p. 9.</ref> In 1895, Germany, France, and Russia staged the [[Triple Intervention]] to the [[Treaty of Shimonoseki]] (17 April 1895), which concluded the [[First Sino-Japanese War]] (1894–1895), in order to compel [[Empire of Japan|Imperial Japan]] to surrender their Chinese colonies to the Europeans; that geopolitical gambit became an underlying cause of the [[Russo-Japanese War]] (1904–05).<ref name="Iikura 2006"/>{{rp|83}}<ref name= Kowner>Kowner. ''Historical Dictionary of the Russo–Japanese War'', p. 375.</ref> The Kaiser justified the Triple Intervention to the Japanese empire with [[Racialism|racialist]] calls-to-arms against nonexistent geopolitical dangers of the yellow race against the white race of Western Europe.<ref name="Iikura 2006"/>{{rp|83}} To justify European [[cultural hegemony]], the Kaiser used the allegorical lithograph ''Peoples of Europe, Guard Your Most Sacred Possessions'' (1895), by [[Hermann Knackfuss]], to communicate his geopolitics to other European monarchs. The lithograph depicts Germany as the leader of Europe,<ref name="Tsu, Jiang 2005 p. 80"/><ref>Kane, Daniel C. introduction to ''Au Japon, Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent in Japan, Korea, and China, 1892–1894'', de Guerville, A.B. West Lafayette, Ind: Parlor Press, 2009 p. xxix.</ref> personified as a "prehistoric warrior-goddesses being led by the Archangel Michael against the 'yellow peril' from the East", which is represented by "dark cloud of smoke [upon] which rests an eerily calm [[Buddha]], [[Self-immolation#History|wreathed in flame]]".<ref name="Palmer 2009">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_2oJYvNHAQC&pg=PA31 |title=The Bloody White Baron |first=James |last=Palmer |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |location=New York |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-465-01448-4 }}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{rp|31}}<ref name="Röhl 1996">{{cite book |title=The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany |last=Röhl |first=John C. G.|others=translated by Terence F. Cole |author-link=John C. G. Röhl |year= 1996 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |edition=reprint, illustrated |isbn= 0521565049 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZMed6H54tDYC }}</ref>{{rp|203}} Politically, the Knackfuss lithograph allowed Kaiser Wilhelm II to believe he prophesied the imminent [[Ethnic conflict|race war]] that would decide global [[hegemony]] in the 20th century.<ref name="Palmer 2009"/>{{rp|31}} ===United States=== In 1854, as editor of the ''New-York Tribune'', [[Horace Greeley]] published "Chinese Immigration to California" an editorial opinion supporting the popular demand for the exclusion of Chinese workers and people from California. Without using the term "yellow peril," Greeley compared the arriving "[[coolie]]s" to the African slaves who survived the [[Middle Passage]]. He praised the few Christians among the arriving Chinese and continued: {{blockquote|But of the remainder, what can be said? They are for the most part an industrious people, forbearing and patient of injury, quiet and peaceable in their habits; say this and you have said all good that can be said of them. They are uncivilized, unclean, and filthy beyond all conception, without any of the higher domestic or social relations; lustful and sensual in their dispositions; every female is a prostitute of the basest order; the first words of English that they learn are terms of obscenity or profanity, and beyond this they care to learn no more. |author=New York Daily Tribune|title=Chinese Immigration to California|source=29 September 1854, p. 4.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1854-09-29|title=Chinese Immigration to California |page=4|work=New-York Tribune|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21187143/chinese-immigration-to-california-29/|access-date=2020-07-17}}</ref>}} In 1870s California, despite the [[Burlingame Treaty]] (1868) allowing legal migration of unskilled laborers from China, the native white working-class demanded that the U.S. government cease the immigration of "filthy yellow hordes" of Chinese people who took jobs from native-born white-Americans, especially during an [[Depression (economics)|economic depression]].<ref name="Yang"/> In Los Angeles, Yellow Peril racism provoked the [[Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871|Chinese massacre of 1871]], wherein 500 white men [[Lynching|lynched]] 20 Chinese men in the Chinatown ghetto. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the leader of the [[Workingmen's Party of California]], the [[demagogue]] [[Denis Kearney]], successfully applied Yellow Peril ideology to his politics against the press, capitalists, politicians, and Chinese workers,<ref>McLain, Charles J. ''In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle Against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; p. 79.</ref> and concluded his speeches with the epilogue: "and whatever happens, the Chinese must go!"<ref name="G111">Gyory, Andrew. ''Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998; p. 111.</ref><ref name="TchenKuoDylan 2014">Wei Tchen, John Kuo, Dylan Yeats ''Yellow Peril! An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear'' London: Verso, 2014</ref>{{rp|349}} The Chinese people also were specifically subjected to moralistic panics about their use of opium, and how their use made opium popular among white people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mary Ting Yi Lui |title=The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-century New York City. |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages= 27–32}}</ref> As in the case of Irish-Catholic immigrants, the popular press misrepresented Asian peoples as culturally subversive, whose way of life would diminish republicanism in the U.S.; hence, racist political pressure compelled the U.S. government to legislate the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] (1882), which remained the effective immigration-law until 1943.<ref name="Yang" /> The act was the first U.S. immigration law to target a specific ethnicity or nationality.<ref name="Crean">{{Cite book |last=Crean |first=Jeffrey |title=The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History |date=2024 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |isbn=978-1-350-23394-2 |edition= |series=New Approaches to International History series |location=London, UK |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=25}} Moreover, following the example of Kaiser Wilhelm II's use of the term in 1895, the popular press in the U.S. adopted the phrase "yellow peril" to identify Japan as a military threat, and to describe the many emigrants from Asia.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rouse |first1=Wendy |title=Jiu-Jitsuing Uncle Sam: The Unmanly Art of Jiu-Jitsu and the Yellow Peril Threat in the Progressive Era United States |journal=Pacific Historical Review |date=November 2015 |volume=84 |issue=4 |page=450 |doi=10.1525/phr.2015.84.4.448 }}</ref> ===Imperial Russia=== [[File:%22The_yellow_peril%22_-_Keppler._LCCN2011645517.jpg|thumb|"The yellow peril", [[Puck (magazine)|Puck]] cartoon, 1905]] In the late 19th century, with the [[Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881)|Treaty of Saint Petersburg]], the [[Qing dynasty]] (1644–1912) China recovered the eastern portion of the [[Ili River]] basin ([[Jetisu|Zhetysu]]), which Russia had occupied for a decade, since the [[Dungan Revolt (1862–1877)|Dungan Revolt]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Atlas of the 19th Century World, 1783–1914|year=1998|publisher=Barnes & Noble Books|isbn=978-0-7607-3203-8|page=5.19}}</ref><ref>{{cite ECCP|title=Tsêng Chi-tsê}}</ref><ref name="Scott2008">{{cite book|author=David Scott|title=China and the International System, 1840–1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6U_DPS4vfO0C&pg=PA104|date=2008|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-7742-7|pages=104–105|access-date=13 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160723012734/https://books.google.com/books?id=6U_DPS4vfO0C&pg=PA104|archive-date=23 July 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> In that time, the [[mass communication]]s [[Mass media|media]] of the West misrepresented China as an ascendant military power, and applied Yellow Peril ideology to evoke racist fears that China would conquer Western colonies, such as Australia.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Scott|title=China and the International System, 1840–1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6U_DPS4vfO0C&pg=PA111|date=2008|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-7742-7|pages=111–112|access-date=13 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160705195832/https://books.google.com/books?id=6U_DPS4vfO0C&pg=PA111|archive-date=5 July 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Imperial Russian writers, notably [[Russian symbolism|symbolists]], expressed fears of a "second Tatar yoke" or a "Mongolian wave" following the lines of "Yellow Peril". [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Vladimir Solovyov]] combined Japan and China into supposed "Pan-Mongolians" who would conquer Russia and Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lim|first=Susanna Soojung|date=2008|title=Between Spiritual Self and Other: Vladimir Solov'ev and the Question of East Asia|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27652846|journal=Slavic Review|volume=67|issue=2|pages=321–341|doi=10.1017/S003767790002355X|jstor=27652846|s2cid=164557692|issn=0037-6779|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EnsHyxPZfOIC|title=Russia between East and West : scholarly debates on Eurasianism|date=2007|publisher=Brill|editor=Dmitry Shlapentokh|isbn=978-90-474-1900-6|location=Leiden|pages=28–30|oclc=304239012}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Lim|first=Susanna Soojung|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OdmPXT_RvSYC|title=China and Japan in the Russian imagination, 1685–1922 : to the ends of the Orient|date=2013|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-0-203-59450-6|location=New York|pages=157–158|oclc=1086509564}}</ref> A similar idea and fear was expressed by [[Dmitry Merezhkovsky|Dmitry Merezhkovskii]] in ''Zheltolitsye pozitivisty'' ("Yellow-Faced Positivists") in 1895 and ''Griadushchii Kham'' ("The Coming Boor") in 1906.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|26–28}}<ref name=":3" /> The works of explorer [[Vladimir Arsenyev|Vladimir K. Arsenev]] also illustrated the ideology of Yellow Peril in Tsarist Russia. The fear continued into the Soviet era where it contributed to the [[Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|Soviet internal deportation of Koreans]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Chang|first=Jon K.|title=Tsarist continuities in Soviet nationalities policy: A case of Korean territorial autonomy in the Soviet Far East, 1923–1937|url=https://www.academia.edu/17823472|journal=Eurasia Studies Society of Great Britain & Europe Journal|volume=3|pages=30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Adamz|first=Zachary M.|date=2017|title=Burnt by the Sun: The Koreans of the Russian Far East. By Jon K. Chang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016. x, 273 pages. $68.00.|journal=International Migration Review|language=en|volume=51|issue=3|pages=e35–e36|doi=10.1111/imre.12329|issn=1747-7379|doi-access=free}}</ref> In a 1928 report to the [[Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern|Dalkrai Bureau]], Arsenev stated "Our colonization is a type of weak wedge on the edge of the primordial land of the yellow peoples." In the earlier 1914 monograph ''The Chinese in the Ussuri Region'', Arsenev characterized people of three East Asian nationalities (Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese) as a singular 'yellow peril', criticizing immigration to Russia and presenting the [[Ussuri]] region as a buffer against "onslaught".<ref name=":1" /> ===Canada=== The [[Chinese head tax]] was a fixed fee charged to each [[Chinese people|Chinese]] person entering [[Canada]]. The [[head tax]] was first levied after the [[Parliament of Canada|Canadian parliament]] passed the ''[[Chinese Immigration Act of 1885]]'' and was meant to discourage Chinese people from entering Canada after the completion of the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] (CPR). The tax was abolished by the ''[[Chinese Immigration Act of 1923]]'', which outright prevented all Chinese immigration except for that of business people, clergy, educators, students, and some others.<ref name="JamesMorton">Morton, James. 1974. ''[[In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia]]''. Vancouver: J.J. Douglas.</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)