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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Why the People’s Republic of China Embraced Paul Robeson</h1></div>
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<img src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Paul-Robeson.jpg" alt="Paul Robeson in 1960, London, England. Photo: Topical Press Agency/Hulton/Getty Images." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="418" height="262">
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Paul Robeson in 1960, London, England.
Photo: Topical Press Agency/Hulton/Getty Images.
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<p>By Gao Yunxiang – Aug 18, 2022</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <span>November 1940,</span> 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.</p>
<p>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 <em>Chee Lai!</em> or <em>March of the Volunteers</em> because, as he explained, its lyric <em>Arise, Ye who refuse to be bond slaves!</em>
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 <em>Chee Lai!</em>” Robeson, Liu recalled, sang in perfect Chinese.</p>
<img src="https://d2e1bqvws99ptg.cloudfront.net/user_image_upload/2066/insert-Figure-1-Cheelai-Cover.jpg" alt="Cover of the album Chee Lai! recorded by Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo and the Chinese People’s Chorus for Keynote Records in 1941." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="408" height="418">Cover of the album Chee Lai! recorded by Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo and the Chinese People’s Chorus for Keynote Records in 1941.
<p>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 <em>Chee Lai! Songs of New China</em>. 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.”</p>
<img src="https://d2e1bqvws99ptg.cloudfront.net/user_image_upload/2067/insert-Figure-2-Liu-and-Robeson-at-Benefit-1941.jpg" alt="Paul Robeson with Liu Liangmo and other Chinese guests at the Stars for China war-relief benefit at Philadelphia in 1941." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="418" height="285">Paul Robeson with Liu Liangmo and other Chinese guests at the Stars for China war-relief benefit at Philadelphia in 1941.
<p>Madame Sun <span>Yat-sen,</span> the Leftist sister of Madame Chiang <span>Kai-shek,</span> China’s contemporary first lady, praised Robeson as “the voice of the people of all lands” and “our own Liu <span>Liang-mo,</span>
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.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Robeson reprised <em>Chee Lai!</em> at his numerous concerts in North America and Europe, and the song became part of Western life. Hollywood filmmakers adopted <em>Chee Lai!</em> as the theme song of the MGM film <em>Dragon Seed</em> (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, <em>Why We Fight: The Battle of China</em> (1944), directed by Frank Capra.</p>
<img src="https://d2e1bqvws99ptg.cloudfront.net/user_image_upload/2068/insert-Figure-3-Robeson,-Mei,-and-Wong.jpg" alt="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" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="418" height="321">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
<p>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 <em>Stevedore</em> (1934), a play about Black-white labour unity that had been produced in New York City.</p>
<p>Robeson’s adoption of the song <em>Chee Lai!</em> 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 <em>Chee Lai!</em> China’s national anthem. On <span>October 1,</span> celebrating the announcement of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Robeson sang <em>Chee Lai!</em>
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 <span>the US.</span></p>
<p>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 <span>W E B Du Bois</span> stood firmly by Robeson, as he <a href="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&" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recalled</a> in his <em>Autobiography</em> (1968):</p>
<p>Robeson said that his people wanted Peace and ‘would never fight the Soviet Union.’ I joined with the thousands in wild acclaim.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <span>Du Bois</span> with influencing this trend in public opinion.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, <em>Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World</em> (1946)—Shirley Graham <span>Du Bois’s</span>
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 <em>Black spirituals</em> with lyrics in both English and Chinese and simplified musical notes, became accessible to the general public.</p>
<img src="https://d2e1bqvws99ptg.cloudfront.net/user_image_upload/2069/insert-Figure-4-%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E7%9A%84%E8%8B%B1%E9%9B%84%EF%BC%9A%E9%BB%91%E4%BA%BA%E6%AD%8C%E6%89%8B%E7%BE%85%E5%8B%83%E9%81%9C%EF%BC%9A%5B%E6%BC%AB%E7%95%AB%E5%A4%9A%E5%B9%85%5D-%E6%96%B0%E5%84%BF%E7%AB%A5-23%EF%BC%8C-2-1949%EF%BC%8C-45-9-(1)_Page_5.jpg" alt="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" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="376" height="418">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
<p>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 <em>Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World</em> 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.</p>
<img alt="The cover of the Chinese translation of Paul Robeson’s self-published memoir "Here I Stand" (1958)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="800" height="1131">The cover of the Chinese translation of Paul Robeson’s self-published memoir “Here I Stand” (1958)
<p>Film also contributed to Robeson’s popularity as a hero in China. During the Republic of China period <span>(1912-49),</span>
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, <em>The</em> <em>Emperor Jones</em> (1933), was screened in Shanghai’s theatres. Invoking the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu, the film was translated as <em>End of the King</em>. <em>The</em> <em>Shanghai Daily</em>,
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.</p>
<img alt="An advertisement for the film The Emperor Jones (1933) invoking the memory of the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu. Shenbao, 25 March 1934" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="800" height="1193">An
advertisement for the film The Emperor Jones (1933) invoking the memory
of the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu. Shenbao, 25 March 1934
<p>PRC filmmakers also participated in the transcontinental collaboration of the noted Joris Ivens documentary <em>The Song of the Rivers</em> (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—<em>The Proud Valley</em> (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 <em>People’s Daily </em>reported that Chinese audiences celebrated Robeson’s 61st birthday with a viewing.</p>
<p><em>The Proud Valley</em> 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 <span>W E B Du Bois</span> had previously noted, was not new in China. Nie Er, the talented composer of <em>Chee Lai!</em>, had impersonated a Black miner in the film <em>The Glory of Motherhood</em> (1933), sometimes translated as <em>The Light of Maternal Instinct</em>. Nie proudly distributed to friends autographed stills of himself, half-naked and painted dark, imitating Robeson.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>People’s Daily</em> 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 <em>Over That Faraway Place</em>, 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 <span>10th birthday’</span> at a concert in 1959 organised by the Sino-British Friendship Association at the Princes Theatre in London. The <em>People’s Daily </em>also commented that, while Robeson had sung <em>Chee Lai!</em> to narrate the people’s suffering and struggle in the dark “old China,” he performed romantic folk songs such as <em>Over That Faraway Place</em>
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.</p>
<p>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 <em>People’s Daily</em>
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 <span>20-30 million</span> people.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <span>70th birthday</span> 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.</p>
<p>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 <span>Yat-sen)</span> Foundation, the China Society for People’s Friendship Studies, and the <em>China Daily</em> organised a tribute on <span>9 April 2008,</span> marking Robeson’s <span>110th birthday.</span> His version of <em>Chee Lai!</em>
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 <em>Ol’ Man River</em> continues to fascinate the Chinese.</p>
<p><em>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).</em></p>
<p>(<a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-peoples-republic-of-china-embraced-paul-robeson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AEON</a>)</p>
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