Reading the May 30 Movement in Newspapers: The Shanghai International Settlement and Newspaper Nationalism, 1925
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2020
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Haverford College. Department of History
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Abstract
The shooting of Chinese protesters by the foreign-controlled Shanghai Municipal Police on May 30, 1925, triggered a wave of anti-foreign protests including a triple stoppage of labor, commerce, and education and a boycott of foreign goods. The Beijing government and the Shanghai local elite negotiated with the diplomatic bodies of the Powers. The heat of the movement cooled down in the late summer, leaving the political arrangement of the International Settlement largely unchanged. The story of the May 30 movement happened in the Shanghai International Settlement, which was governed by the foreign Shanghai Municipal Council. In 1925, the International Settlement had a predominantly Chinese population, and it was also the center of China's publishing industry. While most scholarly literature on the May 30 movement focuses on the events that happened in the streets or at the negotiation table, this thesis analyzes newspapers as sites of politics. Using three Shanghai newspaper publications, Xinwenbao (The News), Rexue ribao (The Hot-Blood Daily), and Dongfang zazhi (The Eastern Miscellany), I examine how Shanghai newspaper editors responded to the events following the May 30 Incident. Each of the publications had an implied readership. From the editor's strategies for speaking to the implied readership to the publication of the reader's letters and essays, I explore the multiple voices of newspaper nationalism. he expression of nationalism in Shanghai newspapers during the May 30 movement depended on the political environment of the Shanghai International Settlement and the implied reader's social status, ideological stance, and economic interests as perceived by the editor. Xinwenbao's implied readership was the Shanghai lower-middle class, especially small shopkeepers. Deferring to the foreign authorities, Xinwenbao promoted national products as the proper response to the May 30 Movement. Rexue ribao catered to the militant section of the lower-middle class. The paper questioned the efficacy of the national product movement advocated by Xinwenbao and accused the Shanghai merchant elite of betraying the nation. Dongfang zazhi had a professional implied readership. This magazine openly challenged the foreign authorities of the International Settlement and envisioned a Westernized professional class that would co-opt the administration of Shanghai.