A Chinese Perspective on the Jews of China

Abstract

This article approaches the theme of Jewish presence in China and provides a new point of view, as it tries to analyze such presence through a Chinese perspective. After the Opium Wars, foreign communities established concessions in open port cities, and among them were an important number of Jews. The most relevant Jewish communities were located in the open-port cities of Shanghai and Tianjin and in the former Russian city of Harbin. The first Jews were eager to move and settle down in China to exploit its business opportunities, and so many of them were for the first time freeing themselves of the limitation that anti-Semitism was placing on them in their previous location of residence. Then China also welcomed and sheltered Refugees escaping the Russian Revolution and the Nazi persecution. China, which before that moment had a mild history of contacts with the Western world, suddenly met the most discriminated group of people in the entire European continent. However, Chinese Jews have never experienced discrimination, and we can confirm that there was no anti-Semitism in these Chinese international cities.

The Jewish world has always praised China for the help received in such difficult times, but academic and political recognition of this part of history occurred especially in conjunction with the beginning of the diplomatic relations of the PRC and the State of Israel in 1992. New interest in the Jews of China was again produced as a side effect by the “Belt and Road Initiative” in recent years. As this piece of history tends to be exploited by both parties when particular needs arise, we are left wondering how the Chinese average man considers the Jewish past of its country. Moreover, the article also tries to understand how many people in China are actually aware of this Jewish past.