1:20 pm HKT Nov 13, 2014
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photo of a Masonic temple in London’s Limehouse area in the early 20th century. Courtesy Anne Witchard
A new book on the “yellow peril” reminds us that scaremongering about China has a long past.
Anne Witchard, a senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Westminster, is the author of“England’s Yellow Peril: Sinophobia and the Great War.” The e-book, available Nov. 24, joins Penguin China’s special series of new books on World War I, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the “war to end all wars.”
The book recounts England’s response to an influx of Chinese workers who arrived in London during wartime, mostly men. Fearful residents believed such men were abducting young English women to sell into white slavery. It didn’t help that the opium dens were seen as places of licentiousness and hideouts where the English upper class could act badly.
Along with a new book by British writer Christopher Frayling, “The Yellow Peril: Dr. Fu Manchu and the Rise of Chinaphobia,” Ms. Witchard’s new work remind readers anti-foreign sentiment, in this case against the Chinese, has a long past. The area known as Limehouse, which was London’s Chinatown, “became a principal scapegoat for England’s wartime vulnerabilities at home,” she writes.
Ms. Witchard recently spoke from London with China Real Time about opium dens and England’s love-hate relationship with the Far East. Edited excerpts:
What was the thinking behind the book?
People are aware of the yellow peril genre thanks to Hollywood in the mid-20th century, but they are less aware that it was the first World War in Britain that partly formed those stereotypes. It was talked about in the late Victorian period, and then resurrected and reintroduced.
I don’t think [the topic] has been well-covered at all. We do have a community of Chinese in Britain who have been here for a long time. They’ve had lots of prejudices they’ve had to deal with. If we can understand these, it goes a long way in understanding our relationship with China today.