[News] Why the People’s Republic of China Embraced Paul Robeson

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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Why the People’s Republic of China Embraced Paul Robeson
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[image: Paul Robeson in 1960, London, England. Photo: Topical Press
Agency/Hulton/Getty Images.]

Paul Robeson in 1960, London, England. Photo: Topical Press
Agency/Hulton/Getty Images.

By Gao Yunxiang – Aug 18, 2022

Several times in recent years, Chinese broadcasters have aired shows that
feature Paul Robeson (1898-1976), one of the most popular African American
singers and actors of his era and a well-known civil rights activist. China
National Radio and various channels of the widely influential China Central
TV showcased Robeson on programmes in 2009, 2012 and 2021 narrating China’s
resistance to foreign military aggressions. This is a remarkable amount of
coverage in Chinese media for an American who died decades ago. Though not
widely known in the United States, the relationship between Robeson and
China continues to resonate in China today. It’s part of the history that
connects Black internationalism with the experiences of Chinese and Chinese
American people. Robeson was one of the most important figures in an
alliance between Maoist China and politically radical African Americans.

The Chinese love for Robeson derives most of all from his role in
globalising the future national anthem of the People’s Republic of China.
In November 1940, in New York City, Robeson received a phone call from the
Chinese writer and philosopher Lin Yutang. Lin asked Robeson to meet a
recent arrival from China: Liu Liangmo, a prolific journalist, talented
musician and Christian activist. Within half an hour, Robeson was in Lin’s
apartment for the meeting. In his numerous articles published in
Chinese-language periodicals, Liu recalled Robeson “beaming over me with
his friendly smile and his giant hands firmly holding mine.” The two became
fast friends.

Robeson enquired about the mass singing movement that Liu had initiated in
China. Liu told him about the new genre of Chinese fighting and folk songs
he had helped to invent for war mobilisation, singing some examples.
Robeson’s favourite was the signature piece *Chee Lai!* or *March of the
Volunteers* because, as he explained, its lyric *Arise, Ye who refuse to be
bond slaves!* expressed the determination of the world’s oppressed, in
their struggle for liberation. Listening intently to Liu’s rendition of the
song, Robeson wrote down some notes, and left with a copy of the lyrics. On
a starry night weeks later, Liu attended an outdoor Robeson concert at
Lewisohn Stadium on the campus of the City College of New York. Robeson
sang many Black spirituals and songs of national battles against fascism;
then he announced: “I am going to sing a Chinese fighting song tonight in
honour of the Chinese people, and that song is *Chee Lai!*” Robeson, Liu
recalled, sang in perfect Chinese.
[image: Cover of the album Chee Lai! recorded by Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo
and the Chinese People’s Chorus for Keynote Records in 1941.]Cover of the
album Chee Lai! recorded by Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo and the Chinese
People’s Chorus for Keynote Records in 1941.

In November 1941, Robeson, Liu and the Chinese People’s Chorus—which Liu
had organised among members of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, a labour
union, in New York City’s Chinatown—recorded an album with Keynote Records
entitled *Chee Lai! Songs of New China*. Liu’s liner notes for the album
tell that he saw the collaboration as ‘a strong token of solidarity between
the Chinese and the Negro People’. Robeson’s notes read: “Chee Lai!
(Arise!) is on the lips of millions of Chinese today, a sort of unofficial
anthem, I am told, typifying the unconquerable spirit of this people. It is
a pleasure and a privilege to sing both this song of modern composition and
the old folk songs to which a nation in struggle has put new words.”
[image: Paul Robeson with Liu Liangmo and other Chinese guests at the Stars
for China war-relief benefit at Philadelphia in 1941.]Paul Robeson with Liu
Liangmo and other Chinese guests at the Stars for China war-relief benefit
at Philadelphia in 1941.

Madame Sun Yat-sen, the Leftist sister of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, China’s
contemporary first lady, praised Robeson as “the voice of the people of all
lands” and “our own Liu Liang-mo, who has taught a nation of soldiers,
guerrillas, farmers, and road builders to sing while they toil and fight.”
Madame Sun added that she hoped the album of songs “that blend the
harmonies of East and West [would] be another bond between free peoples.”
The New York Times lauded the album as one of the year’s best, and it
quickly became popular around the world.

Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Robeson reprised *Chee Lai!* at his numerous
concerts in North America and Europe, and the song became part of Western
life. Hollywood filmmakers adopted *Chee Lai!* as the theme song of the MGM
film *Dragon Seed* (1944), starring Katharine Hepburn and derived from the
Nobel laureate Pearl S Buck’s bestselling novel about China’s war of
resistance against Japan. The US Army Air Force Orchestra played the tune
at the start and end of a film produced by the US state department, *Why We
Fight: The Battle of China* (1944), directed by Frank Capra.
[image: The Black King of Songs Paul Robeson, the Chinese American actress
Anna May Wong and the King of Beijing Opera Mei Lanfang in London in 1935.
Courtesy the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Library, JWJ MSS 76]The Black King of Songs Paul Robeson, the Chinese
American actress Anna May Wong and the King of Beijing Opera Mei Lanfang in
London in 1935. Courtesy the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Yale University Library, JWJ MSS 76

Robeson and Liu’s collaborations were part of Robeson’s alliances with
sojourning Leftist Chinese artists. Among those Robeson befriended were
Buck, the novelist and gatekeeper of China matters in the US; Anna May
Wong, a renowned Chinese American actress; Madame Sun Yat-sen; and Mei
Lanfang, China’s most prominent opera singer. The man the Chinese state
media would call the “Black King of Songs” and Mei—the “King of Peking
Opera”—had met in London in 1935. Mei arrived there in May, after a
successful three weeks of appearances in Moscow and Leningrad with Hu Die
(Butterfly Wu)—voted China’s “Movie Queen” by fans in 1933. Robeson was in
London acting in *Stevedore* (1934), a play about Black-white labour unity
that had been produced in New York City.

Robeson’s adoption of the song *Chee Lai!* into his repertoire led to a
closer relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s
Republic of China. In 1949, following their victory over the Nationalists,
the victorious CCP made *Chee Lai!* China’s national anthem. On October 1,
celebrating the announcement of the establishment of the People’s Republic
of China, Robeson sang *Chee Lai!* on the streets of Harlem. He telegrammed
Mao Zedong to congratulate the new regime: “We celebrate the birth of the
People’s Republic of China, because it is a great force in the struggles
for world peace and human freedom.” People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency,
the mouthpieces of the CCP, published Robeson’s telegram. Now established
as a fearless and reliable friend of China, Robeson became political poison
in the US.

On 20 April 1949, Robeson had told the World Congress of Partisans of Peace
in Paris that it was “unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on
behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet
Union.” Jackie Robinson, the African American baseball star whom Robeson
had helped integrate into the game, condemned Robeson’s statement. But the
African American intellectual and civil rights activist W E B Du Bois stood
firmly by Robeson, as he recalled
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-autobiography-of-w-e-b-du-bois-the-oxford-w-e-b-du-bois-9780199387052?cc=gb&lang=en&>
in
his *Autobiography* (1968):

Robeson said that his people wanted Peace and ‘would never fight the Soviet
Union.’ I joined with the thousands in wild acclaim.

This, for America, was his crime. He might hate anybody. He might join in
murder around the world. But for him to declare that he loved the Soviet
Union and would not join in war against it—that was the highest crime that
the United States recognised… Yet has Paul Robeson kept his soul and stood
his ground. Still he loves and honours the Soviet Union. Still he has hope
for America. Still he asserts his faith in God.

People’s Daily condemned Robinson and defended Robeson. It reported
Robeson’s speech, highlighting the standing ovation the star received from
the 2,000 attendees including the Nobel Laureate and nuclear scientist
Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and Pablo Picasso, a friend of Robeson’s.

Robeson’s ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet
Union attracted protests in the US. In August 1949, during the Peekskill
riots in New York state, Right-wing mobs attacked a public concert where
Robeson was due to sing. Soon, the US State Department cancelled Robeson’s
passport, stalling his career. Meanwhile, following its rough birth amid
the intensifying Cold War tensions, the nascent PRC confronted a superpower
with nuclear weapons in the Korean War.

In his writings and speeches and in Chinese state media, Robeson and the
PRC lent each other unyielding support. Robeson announced that the
communist regimes’ mutual support would be the “great truth” in their
shared journey to freedom. Thus, it was only logical for the Chinese
volunteers to come to “the aid of the heroic Korean people,” Robeson
insisted. He firmly believed that China’s involvement in the Korean War was
essential to defend hard-earned “freedom, dignity, and security” on behalf
of millions in Asia. People’s Daily cited a national poll in the US showing
majority support for ending the Korean War immediately, and credited
Robeson and Du Bois with influencing this trend in public opinion.

As news of the Peekskill riots rolled around the world, the China
Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China National Association
of Musicians issued a joint public letter to console Robeson and express
“our extraordinary wrath and firm protest against the crimes of American
fascist bandits attacking the concerts of ‘the Black King of Songs.’” The
letter read: “We send our brotherly consolation to Robeson from the East
afar, and warmly welcome him to liberated China.”

Throughout the 1950s, the PRC promoted Robeson as a heroic revolutionary
model to inspire the socialist citizens of China. Robeson shared this high
standing with a few other foreigners, including the Nobel Prize-winning
scientist Marie Curie; the Vietnamese Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh;
the legendary Canadian doctor Norman Bethune; and Lu Xun, the father of
China’s modern literature. Robeson was the only Black person accorded such
a high honour, and this fact revolutionised the image of Black people in
China and became a milestone in Sino-African relations.

Robeson enabled the CCP to make a contrast with US democracy’s system of
Jim Crow racism that kept millions of Black Americans living under
apartheid. Encouraged to accept Robeson as a heroic revolutionary model,
the masses in PRC were bombarded with publicity materials about him.
Robeson was reintroduced as “the Black King of Songs” who “embodied the
perfect marriage between art and politics” for the oppressed masses in the
world. His old friend Liu Liangmo wrote an article called “Paul Robeson:
The People’s Singer” that circulated across China and American Chinatowns
in 1949 and 1950. After a decade promoting the causes of China to African
Americans in the US, Liu had just returned to China to serve as a
high-level cultural official. He pioneered hailing Black American greatness
to the Chinese people. His article on Robeson, composed months before the
establishment of the PRC, changed the mainstream narrative on “the Black
King of Songs” within China, from exoticised entertainer to a heroic role
model. Following Liu’s piece, *Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World*
(1946)—Shirley
Graham Du Bois’s biography of Robeson—was translated into Chinese. To
instil long-lasting messages, some Chinese publications in 1949 targeted
children with cartoon series. Collections of Robeson’s songs, called *Black
spirituals* with lyrics in both English and Chinese and simplified musical
notes, became accessible to the general public.
[image: A page from the children’s biographical cartoon series "Today’s
Hero: Black Singer Robeson." The caption on the top left reads: "He gets
along very well with Chinese friends in the United States." Robeson says:
"I salute the democratic revolution in China." Xin ertong banyuekan 23, 2
(1949): 44]A page from the children’s biographical cartoon series “Today’s
Hero: Black Singer Robeson.” The caption on the top left reads: “He gets
along very well with Chinese friends in the United States.” Robeson says:
“I salute the democratic revolution in China.” Xin ertong banyuekan 23, 2
(1949): 44

In the mid-20th century, Robeson grew into an icon of internationalism and
socialist values. Chinese writers acclaimed the physical features of “the
Black King of Songs,” highlighting his skin colour in discussions of his
art and politics. People’s Daily exclaimed: “As long as we have Robeson,
Black music’s contribution to world culture is self-explanatory.” In the
same newspaper, the editor Yuan Shuipai’s poetry narrating the Peekskill
riots said: “Robeson’s dark face shines, and Robeson’s songs ring.” That
title of the biography *Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World* highlights his
internationalism. Covers of all the publications on Robeson were dominated
by a dark background indicating his race, into which his face blurred, with
Chinese characters in blood red symbolising his Leftism.
[image: The cover of the Chinese translation of Paul Robeson’s
self-published memoir "Here I Stand" (1958)]The cover of the Chinese
translation of Paul Robeson’s self-published memoir “Here I Stand” (1958)

Film also contributed to Robeson’s popularity as a hero in China. During
the Republic of China period (1912-49), representation of Black people was
dominated by stereotypical “primitive” athletic and musical personas, and
commercialised exoticism. The mainstream media rarely covered Black
celebrities but they did feature Robeson. His best-known film, *The* *Emperor
Jones* (1933), was screened in Shanghai’s theatres. Invoking the tragic
Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu, the film was translated as *End of the
King*. *The* *Shanghai Daily*, perhaps the most popular contemporary
periodical, ran an advertisement promoting the film as a “Lifetime
Masterpiece by Paul Robeson.” The ad featured a couplet summarising Xiang
Yu’s defeat.
[image: An advertisement for the film The Emperor Jones (1933) invoking the
memory of the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu. Shenbao, 25 March
1934]An advertisement for the film The Emperor Jones (1933) invoking the
memory of the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu. Shenbao, 25 March
1934

PRC filmmakers also participated in the transcontinental collaboration of
the noted Joris Ivens documentary *The Song of the Rivers* (1954).
Portraying Robeson as the symbol of global proletarian solidarity, the film
illustrates the shared destinies and hopes of workers by the Volga, the
Mississippi, the Nile, the Yangtze, the Amazon and the Ganges rivers. The
Shanghai Film Studio immediately translated it into Chinese. While the new
regime generally rejected Hollywood and European films, a British film
starring Robeson—*The Proud Valley* (1940), about an American seaman who
joins a mining community in South Wales, sharing their passions and
struggles—was brought to Chinese audiences around 1956, and was well
received. Featuring a still from the movie, in 1959 the *People’s
Daily *reported
that Chinese audiences celebrated Robeson’s 61st birthday with a viewing.

*The Proud Valley* featured the muscular and bare-chested Robeson as a
miner struggling in a labour dispute, and provided China’s socialist
citizens with a model of masculinity. The “naked manhood of Paul Robeson,”
of which “some white folk are frightened,” as W E B Du Bois had previously
noted, was not new in China. Nie Er, the talented composer of *Chee Lai!*,
had impersonated a Black miner in the film *The Glory of Motherhood* (1933),
sometimes translated as *The Light of Maternal Instinct*. Nie proudly
distributed to friends autographed stills of himself, half-naked and
painted dark, imitating Robeson.

The PRC also used Robeson’s athletic body to highlight the distinction
between “abnormal” and corrupt commercialised professional sports—in both
capitalist countries and the colonial treaty ports of the “old China”—and
socialist sports for the wellbeing of the citizenry and the nation. Chinese
media justified Robeson’s brief career as a professional athlete as a
necessity for a good family man who was “pressured by heavier obligations
after his marriage.” And it applauded him for comprehending that the
capitalist owners ran their stadiums and teams like stores, exploiting
athletes and putting their lives at risk for profits. His biographers noted
that US businessmen attempted to lure Robeson into highly racialised and
controversial professional boxing by promising him the title “King of
Boxing” and great wealth, but Robeson flatly refused.

In 1958, the US Supreme Court ruled that the State Department lacked the
authority to deny passports to citizens who refused to sign the affidavit
that they were not communists. Robeson immediately secured a new passport.
China’s state media celebrated his new freedom to travel as a triumph of
justice, peace and democracy. Between 1958 and 1960, the *People’s Daily*
followed Robeson’s whereabouts, lauding his ongoing affection toward China.
It reported that the singer paid tribute to the supportive Chinese people
by reprising Chinese folk songs, including the classic *Over That Faraway
Place*, adapted from a Kazakh folk tune, at his Carnegie Hall concert and
the British Peace Council gathering in London in 1958. The paper celebrated
that Robeson ‘sang for the new China’s 10th birthday’ at a concert in 1959
organised by the Sino-British Friendship Association at the Princes Theatre
in London. The *People’s Daily *also commented that, while Robeson had
sung *Chee
Lai!* to narrate the people’s suffering and struggle in the dark “old
China,” he performed romantic folk songs such as *Over That Faraway Place*
to reflect the optimism and happiness in the new China. In 1960, Robeson
and his wife joined 9,000 people attending the first Chinese Film Festival
in London organised by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Robeson commented that, unlike US films, Chinese cinema reflected the
feeling of the people.

US officials made sure that Robeson’s passport was “not valid for travel to
or in communist controlled portions of China[,] Korea [and] Viet-Nam[,] or
to or in areas of Albania [and] Hungary.” So the *People’s Daily* presented
his reunion with Chinese delegates in London to offer a rosy picture of
socialist development while the Great Leap Forward unfolded. This radical
campaign, which aimed to catch up and surpass industrialisation in Great
Britain and the US and to build socialism “better, faster, and cheaper,”
led to great famine for 20-30 million people.

Robeson already had expansive ideological and artistic visions before he
first encountered Leftist Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party.
Yet, those contacts powerfully shaped his philosophical, political and
personal perceptions of life and the future. China became a joyful
extension of his Left-wing views. Robeson had predicted that the communist
victory in 1949 made China the model for millions to beat colonialism. He
romantically imagined that the coloured world could view the rising China
as a “new star of the East… pointing the way out from imperialist
enslavement to independence and equality. China has shown the way.”

The Leftist legacy of portraying African American figures as the true
revolutionaries led the People’s Republic of China to embrace Robeson as a
hero and a role model. Robeson’s public support justified the CCP’s
involvement in the Korean War and later facilitated its new diplomatic
defenders and tactics. As the PRC contested Soviet dominance of world
communism and aspired to leadership of the Third World that bound the
destinies of China with former agricultural colonies in Asia, Africa and
Latin America, Robeson’s giant global stature bridged China’s alliance with
Africa. Yet, following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, PRC state
media and publishers fell silent on Robeson. His 70th birthday in 1968
slipped by without notice in China, although his previous birthdays were
celebrated as state events. Robeson’s position advocating peaceful
coexistence for countries with different systems, highly applauded by the
PRC during the Korean War, now fell on the wrong side of tensions between
the Soviet Union and China.

In 1976, with the end of the radical Maoist years, Robeson remerged as a
hero, and he remains popular in China today. Even as China moves from
communism to fullscale capitalism, Robeson retains a special place in the
nation’s heart. Various state organs including the Soong Qingling (Madame
Sun Yat-sen) Foundation, the China Society for People’s Friendship Studies,
and the *China Daily* organised a tribute on 9 April 2008, marking
Robeson’s 110th birthday. His version of *Chee Lai!* was played in the
Grand Hall of the People’s Congress in Beijing during Nie Er Music Week in
2009. Robeson is celebrated for globalising China’s national anthem, for
his songs that set hearts stirring, for his contributions to the Chinese
nation’s liberation—and to the friendship between the people of China and
the United States, particularly African Americans. His classic *Ol’ Man
River* continues to fascinate the Chinese.

*Gao Yunxiang is professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University in
Canada. She is the author of Sporting Gender: Women Athletes and
Celebrity-Making during China’s National Crisis, 1931-1945 (2013)
and Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in
the Twentieth Century (2021).*

(AEON
<https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-peoples-republic-of-china-embraced-paul-robeson>
)
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