Chinese middle classes have increasing power to stand up to the state, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing
POLICE IN People’s Park in the southern city of Guangzhou regularly clear the environs of gay men who gather there, but a confrontation between 100 gays and five police officers has brought major online attention to gay rights in China. Intolerance continues, although homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness.
The incident did not make much impact on the Chinese mainstream media, but it was widely reported on the internet and was a hot topic of conversation in gay chat rooms and on websites calling for equal rights for homosexuals in China.
“So many homosexuals, this is an inevitable social phenomenon,” wrote one blogger called “rein_james”. “I think we should respect them, everyone should be allowed to determine their own lifestyle. Homosexuals have been allowed to marry each other in Holland for years.”
Some bloggers have drawn parallels with the noted Stonewall riots of June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City – which are often seen as the first instance in US history when homosexuals fought back against persecution by the government.
The confrontation in China is significant because not only does it show how China is undergoing massive social change, but it also shows the increasing power of the middle classes to stand up to the government.
In recent cases of social unrest relating to the location of chemical plants in various cities or other issues affecting the newly rich in China, the authorities have been forced to back down for fear of alienating middle-class citizens, who are the bedrock of support for the Communist Party.
The reaction online to the Guangzhou incident has been largely positive.
The blogger “Toy” wrote: “We should fight for our rights!” “Round up or down” wrote: “In a country with over 5,000 years of civilisation, it is a little difficult to ask people to accept this in a short while.”
“Ai Wei” wrote: “I support you. I think gays in Guangzhou should step forward, and fight with all their efforts if necessary.”
However, some webizens have called on gays using the park to be more discreet. A reason for tensions with police is the way in which some park visitors use public toilets there to have sex.
“Gays need to learn how to love and respect, and many gays’ deeds have brought shame on us. But many of us have made great contributions to society. We should no longer carry out humiliating deeds in public,” wrote one netizen who writes under the name “Flowery and deceiving words”.
In June, the first gay pride festival was held in Shanghai, followed closely by the five-day Beijing Queer Film Festival.
Sodomy was not decriminalised in China until 1997 and it was not until 2001 that officialdom stopped considering homosexuality a mental illness.
There are periodic calls for the legalisation of same-sex marriages at the National People’s Congress, but they rarely make it beyond the draft stage.
Many middle-aged or older Chinese people believe that homosexuality does not exist or is another phenomenon that the West is trying to introduce into China.
A lack of tolerance of homosexuality means that many gay men are married with children and are active in secret, which HIV-Aids activists say is a problem in controlling the illness.
There was great national pride when film director Ang Lee won the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain in 2006. However, the movie itself was banned in China for its homosexual theme.