China, Sex and Prostitution

Elaine Jeffreys

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415318631
• eBook ISBN: 9781134366767
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

China, Sex and Prostitution is a topical and important critique of recent scholarship in China studies concerning sexuality, prostitution and policing. Jeffrey's arguments are constructed in the form of detailed analysis of a wide range of primary texts, including documents, press reports, police report, and policy and legal pronouncements, and secondary literature in both English and Chinese. The work engages with some key debates in the fields of cultural and gender studies and will be welcomed by scholars in these areas as well as by China specialists, sociologists and anthropologists.

1 Changing China

Changing China studies

The impact of theory

Given the traditional isolation of China studies from mainstream debates, one of the most striking aspects of contemporary sinological studies¹ is the growing tendency for China scholars to interpret ‘China’ through the lens of Western critical theory. By ‘theory’, I am not talking about ‘high theory’ or theory with a capital ‘T’, such as the overarching philosophical-political metanarratives of Marxism, Liberalism, and Feminism. Instead, I am referring to what has become more generally known as poststructuralism and deconstruction. I realize that these terms are somewhat problematic since, as Michèle Barrett (1992: 201) explains, they unify ‘a diverse and often contradictory group of ideas on the specious basis of what preceded them in a chronology of Parisian thought’. But the fact remains that they are both understood, and commonly circulated, as a kind of shorthand for ways of reading that have transformed the nature of intellectual endeavours over the past three or more decades. Suffice it to say, therefore, that I am not using these terms in an exact sense, but rather as a means to discuss the impact of theory on Anglophone China studies.

As Rey Chow (1998: xiii) notes, ‘the one unmistakable accomplishment of “theory” understood in this restricted sense is what one might call the fundamental problematization of referentiality’. Here, Chow is referring to the general poststructuralist-deconstructive tendency to destabilize positivistic and universalizing conceptions of ‘the real’, irrespective of whether ‘the real’ is defined as ‘language’, ‘the author’, ‘the individual’, ‘Woman’, ‘the Nation’, ‘the State’, and so forth. The interrogative impetus of this style of critique has had an enormous impact on the academy in general. Most notably, it has eroded the seemingly natural barriers that once existed between the disciplines. It also continues to resonate throughout the new humanities via inquiries into the ways in which discourses on power, sexuality, race, and subjectivity, are both constituted and mutually constitutive of each other.

The effective reorganization of the humanities and human sciences into academic subdivisions that are either ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of theory has inevitably questioned the nature of China studies, not least by suggesting that the field will end up occupying an even more isolated outpost on the institutional map, unless it starts to engage in the production of new theories and practices (Davies 1992: 67–86). As a result, although scholars who utilize poststructuralism–deconstruction for the analysis of China remain a minority within the field as a whole, texts that take China as their object of study, and deploy the insights made available by recourse to the discourse of theory, have begun to fill an identifiable niche in the publishing market. Texts that deal with issues of power, gender, sexuality, and race in China, for instance, are definitely on the increase. For China scholars who engage with theory, then, this is a moment of opportunity, a moment when the study of China has the perceived capacity to contribute to mainstream theoretical debates by highlighting their heretofore largely Euramerican contextual bias (see Apter and Saich 1994; Dikötter 1995; Evans 1997; Gilmartin et al. 1994; Hershatter et al. 1996; Zito and Barlow 1994).

But the relationship between theory and China studies is far from straightforward. The question of what theory can do for the study of China and, conversely, what the study of China can contribute to mainstream debates, is complicated by what Gloria Davies (1998: 179) describes as the ‘ill-disciplined’ nature of China studies as a field of ‘knowing’, and the ‘symptomatic lack of an adequate grounding for much of what is practiced’ in theoretically informed studies throughout the various knowledge fields. Here, Davies is referring to both the unwillingness of most China scholars to examine the intellectual limitations of knowledge production in the field of ‘area-cum-language studies’, and the effective ‘taming of theory’ via its institutional packaging as more generalized ways of reading, writing, and ‘seeing’. As Davies (1998: 176) and other critical theorists have noted, in the absence of attention to historicocultural specificity, the adoption of theory in different knowledge fields can amount to little more than the deployment of an ‘easily learnt and fashionable skill’ (Chow 1998: xviii; Parker and Gagnon 1995: 5).

The continued disjunction between the perceived utility of theory and the actual nature of its employment in different knowledge fields can be illustrated by focusing briefly on three texts produced within the Anglophone field of China studies: Engendering China: Women, Culture and the State, edited by Christina Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel and Tyrene White (1994); Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain, edited by Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Jonathan Lipman and Randall Stross (1996); and Body, Subject and Power in China, edited by Angela Zito and Tani Barlow (1994). These texts facilitate an examination of the relationship between China studies and theory and thus the newly reconfigured disciplinary space of the field for several reasons. To begin with, all are edited collections, rather than the product of a single authorial voice, and they aim to introduce a theorized version of China studies to a general readership. Accordingly, the introductory chapter of each text offers a broad outline of the perceived utility of theory for the study of China and, conversely, a brief account of how the study of China itself may function to reconfigure the concerns of the new humanities. In addition, all of these texts engage with the insights afforded by recourse to postcolonial and feminist positions, as well as Foucauldian conceptions of discourse, power and sexuality.

Having said this, it should be clear that the institutional marketability of analyses of gender, sexuality, and power in China both derives from and trades on the structuring concerns of the new humanities. Despite important differences, therefore, Engendering China, Remapping China, and Body, Subject and Power in China, are marked by a common set of concerns. All of these texts aim to explore the possibilities afforded by recourse to new frameworks of analysis, to problematize familiar reference points with regard to the study of China, and to show what the empirical study of China may reveal about the limitations of various forms of Western theorization. In this respect, they appear to have adopted the basic principle of poststructuralism–deconstruction, namely, to engage in the fundamental problematization of referentiality, and thereby question the certainty of the knowledge bases of both China studies and ‘the disciplines’, via the theoretical exploration of difference (Chow 1998: xiii).

As a result, all three texts adopt a deconstructive-constructive mode of criticism. According to the editors of Remapping China, the aim of the text is threefold: first, to interrogate notions of nation, state, and people-hood, and hence to historicize gendered bodies; second, to remap the familiar geographical, regional, and ethnic boundaries that have been used to denote the entity known as China; and, third, to reconfigure the familiar signposts that have conventionally charted the course of the Chinese revolution (Hershatter et al. 1996: 1–9). Similarly, the editors of Engendering China contend that the aim of the text is to complicate unitary conceptions of Chinese women. As Gilmartin et al. (1994: 1–24) argue, this objective will be achieved by pursuing a three-pronged methodological strategy: first, by examining the multiple subject positions that Chinese women may occupy due to the differential effects of class, ethnicity, age, and regional background; second, by highlighting instances of women’s agency; and, third, by addressing issues of representation, and thereby showing the centrality of gender to questions of state formation and policy-making.

Partaking of the same critical impetus, albeit in a somewhat different vein, the editors of Body, Subject and Power in China suggest that neo-Marxist, feminist and Foucauldian insights have made once dominant conceptions of China as a single, essential unity, inherently unstable (Zito and Barlow 1994: 1–19). In doing so, Zito and Barlow evidently reject the definition of China studies as an area of applied knowledge – a field where suitably cultivated experts are seen to access the ‘truth’ of China via their linguistic expertise and recognition of China’s cultural uniqueness – for retaining a problematic epistemological relation between the ‘real’ and ‘thought’, or what Chow (1998: xiii) describes as ‘a persistent reflection-ism in representation’. Instead, they maintain that a judicious combination of Marxisms, feminisms, and Foucauldian insights redirects scholarly attention towards questions of agency, the importance of classificatory practices and strategies, and towards a focus on subject positions instead of ‘individuals’ or holistic conceptions of ‘the Chinese’ (Zito and Barlow 1994: 9–10).

Thus the incursion of theory with a small ‘t’, or, as the editors of Remapping China put it, the use of ‘analytical frameworks formulated first in the context of intellectual and political traditions of the United States and Western Europe’, appears to be transforming the study of China (Her-shatter et al. 1996: 5). Quite apart from opening new avenues for research, as my brief review of the proposed subject matter of the above-mentioned texts would suggest, the growing tendency for China scholars to utilize the insights made available by recourse to the discourse of theory marks an important shift away from the traditional position of isolation occupied by China studies in relation to mainstream debates. Not surprisingly, the perceived potential for a more interdisciplinary form of China studies is a subsidiary, but no less important, theme of each text.

For example, in Body, Subject and Power in China, Zito and Barlow (1994: 15) note that the utilization of theory for the analysis of China entails a double move. It not only allows them to rethink fundamental questions of power, subjectivity and corporeality in Chinese contexts, but also through the concomitant obligation to consider the specific historical genealogies that accrue to such concepts in the PRC, it enables them to challenge the universalizing, and ideologizing, function of much Western social science. Likewise, the editors of Engendering China contend that their attention to difference – a vital problematic in recent theorizations of gender via postcoloniality, minority discourse and psycho-analytic theory – enables them to explore the broader question of what ‘China will become and represent, both to those who live in China and to those who look on from other places’ (Gilmartin et al. 1994: 4). Having made this claim, Gilmartin et al. further contend that they have not simply adopted feminist insights and superimposed them onto the Chinese case. Instead, they insist that their attention to cultural specificity with regard to subjects such as ‘sexuality, prostitution, work, political participation and bodies’, should function to challenge the universalizing tendency of much feminist theorizing in the West (ibid.: 7). Finally, and in a more celebratory tone, the editors of Remapping China suggest that social and political changes in the PRC, combined with ‘the impact of theory’, have broken down the conventional lines of demarcation that formerly prevented one group of scholars from speaking to another. In consequence, China scholars are no longer preoccupied with speaking solely to each other; they have moved out of the ghetto and into the ‘cross-disciplinary polyglot metropolis’ (Her-shatter et al. 1996: 3).

Given the general resistance to theory that still permeates the field, it is tempting to endorse these claims. However, before celebrating the belated coming-of-age of area-cum-language studies (as indicated by the ability of China scholars to engage with mainstream debates), we need to ask two questions. How has this perceived change come about? And what are the implications of this perceived change for an understanding of China studies as a truly interdisciplinary endeavour, rather than some fashionably reconfigured branch of Asian studies?

In raising these questions, I do not wish to align myself with China scholars who oppose the use of theory on the grounds that it is Eurocentric, and subsequently revert to the traditional defence of the field on the grounds that China is unique or culturally exceptional (Ryckmans 1984: 18–20). But we should question the automatic privileging of poststructuralism–deconstruction on the grounds that it is theoretically superior, especially when such claims may be premised on a simple insistence, rather than demonstration, that it is non-essentialist and hence more revealing of heterogeneity. Put differently, we need to question the all-tooeasy valorization of theory, especially when claims to theoretical superiority may mask the elision of a related critical imperative, namely, the task of ensuring that the very terms and conditions under which a given project is undertaken are subjected to ongoing and stringent analysis. This task is necessitated by a recognition that failure to examine the informing assumptions of a given knowledge field tends to result in reformulated categories and concepts being treated as little more than ‘tools’ to be borrowed and used. One vocabulary is simply replaced by another and the original problematic venture – whether it is ‘History’ (characterized by a belief in the notion that it is possible to faithfully document lived reality) or ‘Sinology’ (characterized by a belief that language constitutes the key to ‘true’ knowledge of China) – continues unchallenged.

Problematizing China studies

It is precisely Zito and Barlow’s acknowledgement of the dual imperative of theory that makes Body, Subject and Power in China such an exemplary text. Their understanding of the Janus-faced nature of ‘doing theory’ is signalled from the outset. They begin the text by highlighting the need to disrupt accepted regimes of scholarly ‘truth’, in particular, the kinds of commonsensical assumptions that function to occlude a recognition of difference. Stemming from this commitment, the text is structured around the difficult methodological task of acknowledging, on the one hand, how Western regimes of scholarly ‘truth’ are structured, while, on the other, never forgetting that the text aims to explain the common sense of others. Hence, in a move that is often dismissed by those who object to the incursion of theory (the impatient ‘why can’t they just get on with it and say what they have to say about China!’), Zito and Barlow (1994: 3) point out that it is impossible to explain how Chinese subjects understand and experience their lives without first examining our own common sense, that is, without excavating the kinds of assumptions that have historically organized the field of China studies.

To appropriate Zito and Barlow’s words, therefore: ‘What are some of the assumptions that have structured China studies in a post-World War II United States [namely, in the postcolonial setting]?’ As they note, the influence of the Cold War upon the field of China studies cannot be overstated (ibid.: 3). This is because, following the end of the Second World War, the United States inherited what Chow (1998: 5) describes as ‘Western Europe’s former role as military-aggressor-and-cultural-imperialist-cumsaviour around the world’. The rapid growth of area studies in the USA during the 1950s, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Britain and Australia, was thus intimately related to the universities’ perceived function as a support for foreign policy. In effect, the special task of the area specialist was to report on ‘other civilizations’, ‘other regimes’, and ‘other ways of life’; and, in the case of the China expert, it was to report on the ‘otherness’ of ‘Red China’. Consequently, ‘the specific version for China studies of what has come to be called the self/other problem was communist world versus free world’ (ibid.: 3).

Until the arrival of theory, the self/other problematic within the field of China studies was expressed in two main ways. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Chinese polity was viewed primarily, albeit not always, through the grid of what is now known as the ‘totalitarian model’. Simplistically speaking, this model focused on the ideology, structures, key personalities and activities of the so-called ‘Party police state’, and assumed that the Chinese Communist Party was able to exert a monolithic control over all aspects of Chinese society. The result was a highly persuasive portrayal of the PRC as an authoritarian state populated by an army of dehumanized ‘blue ants’ (Guillain 1957; Paloczi-Horvath 1962). To caricaturize this position, communist China was portrayed as utterly different from Western society, as something equivalent to our worst collective nightmare.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, this rendition of ‘Red China’ as yet another bastion of communist-style totalitarianism began to be questioned. And, in striking contrast, the People’s Republic was held up in various Western discourses as an exemplary society and a model for actual or existing socialism. In fact, it was often claimed that the Chinese revolution (unlike the Russian revolution) had to a large extent established the preconditions for a truly egalitarian society, incorporating the emancipation of Chinese women. In such accounts, the PRC was still portrayed as fundamentally different, but it was no longer depicted as the antithesis of all that was ‘good’ and ‘healthy’ about Western-style liberal democracy. Instead, in the words of Zito and Barlow (1994: 3), ‘China held out hope for a utopian egalitarian alternative to a corrupt bourgeois American society’. It was like our own best, if as yet unrealized, self.

While the initial tendency to denounce ‘communist China’ stemmed from the perceived threat posed by rapid changes taking place in formerly colonial and/or third-world countries, the tendency to idealize ‘Mao’s China’ stemmed, in no small part, from political and social developments within the West itself. Put simply, growing opposition to North American imperialism in the form of the Vietnam War challenged the Cold War division of the world into those who were with the USA in the fight for freedom and democracy, and those who were with the former USSR in the fight to establish international socialism. Given that Sino-Soviet relations had effectively collapsed by the start of the 1960s, this encouraged more positive readings of Chinese society and politics. Social and intellectual changes ensuing from a conjunction of other historical forces also predisposed scholars to view the PRC as an alternative model. Among the most important of these were: the emergence of second-wave feminism; the sexual revolution; student demonstrations against established authority; struggles for gay rights; and the black power movement. A further important development was the ‘crisis within the socialist camp’, and the subsequent proliferation of neo-Marxism(s), flowing from Khruschev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956. This action not only ended the former Stalinist monopoly over extant interpretations of Marxism; it also resulted in an exposure of the many atrocities that had occurred in the Soviet Union, especially the horror of the Gulag.

Political and social changes in the USA and Western Europe – changes from which the organizing concerns of the new humanities can be traced – thus encouraged arguments to the effect that China was essentially a socialist democracy. A basic contention here was that the PRC did not operate on hierarchical and tyrannical lines as did the USSR; rather, it operated on the basis of participatory and egalitarian politics, as evidenced by the mass participation of the Chinese people in the implementation of policy (Blecher 1986; Selden 1971). Moreover, and in contrast to the situation of many women in the West, it was argued that Chinese women had been largely liberated from ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• RoutledgeCurzon Studies on China in Transition
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: telling tales
• 1 Changing China: changing China studies
• 2 Changing institutional categories and academic legitimacy
• 3 Feminist prostitution debates and responses
• 4 Prostitution debates and a changing China
• 5 Re-situating the Chinese response to prostitution
• 6 Policing change: changing disciplinary technologies
• 7 Conclusion: China, sex and prostitution reconsidered
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index