Reviving the May Fourth Spirit: Student Activism, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, and the Geopolitics of Chineseness

This dissertation examines a pro-“China,” anti-Japan protest movement in the early 1970s called the Baodiao Movement (“movement to protect the Diaoyu Islands”). Largely led by Taiwanese and Hong Kong college students, protests took place in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and major cities in the United States such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Washington DC. The activists demanded the recognition of “Chinese” sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea against Japanese occupation. They saw themselves as staging a new May Fourth Movement (1919), echoing its anti-Japan, anti-imperialist sentiment and notions of Chinese nationalism to unite and mobilize the ethnic Chinese population. However, the activists soon became divided over which “China” they should support: the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan, or the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China. This dissertation focuses on the Baodiao Movement in the US and argues that it was the last popular movement that operated under the framework of a supposedly unified “China.” It exposed the inherent dilemma in conceptualizing “China” amidst the political division of the ROC and the PRC. The geopolitical context of the Cold War, which perpetuated this division and situated the ROC under the protection of the US, amplified this predicament. Influenced by the anti-imperialist climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s, some activists believed the PRC could lead other countries in withstanding Western imperialist invasions, and they saw the ROC as a capitalist lackey of the US. The pro-PRC leftist and the pro-ROC rightist students failed to reconcile their differences, which brought the Baodiao Movement to a premature end. While the movement failed to achieve its goal, it has significant impact on this generation of student activists, many of whom later became active participants in respective societies to promote socio-political changes. Despite their ideological differences, all activists desired a strong “China” and saw Chinese unification between Taiwan and mainland China as essential in defending “Chinese” territorial integrity. Such Chinese nationalist sentiment contrasts starkly with the present, when anti-China sentiment is prevalent in Taiwan and Hong Kong, despite the rise of China as a strong power.