China Environmental Law

Like many others, I have spent more time than I should have rummaging through the Google-hosted, old Life magazine photographs of China.  Since I’m based in Shanghai, I went first to the pictures of the “Pearl of the Orient.”  Most are from the end of the Japanese occupation to the point of “liberation.”  They are all fascinating, but I was particularly struck by a series of pictures of an anti-American demonstration in June 1948 that was apparently spearheaded by students from Shanghai Jiaotong University (then rendered Chiao Tung) (SJTU). 

I confess I don’t know what the reason for the protest was.  It appears, at least from some of the posters, that the students were angry at what they believed to be the US’ lenience toward the defeated Japanese and there also seems to have been some issue about Japanese-made arms being shipped to Hainan Island.

The students apparently marched from the Jiaotong campus to the Glenline Building off the Bund which, according to the picture caption, then housed the US Navy Headquarters in Shanghai.

At some point local troops and armored vehicles were sent to the campus to maintain order.

From the angle of the above photograph, the scene at the Xujiahui campus would look almost the same today.  They have added some lions and the canal that used to run in front of the gate has been filled in (although the bridge railings survive). Although you can only see a small portion of it in the shot below, the old library, which is in the background of the 1948 photograph, still stands.   

Here are a few more SJTU gate pictures.

An earlier version.  SJTU was established in 1896 making it one of the oldest, if not the oldest, University in China.

A larger version of the gate at at the Xujiahui campus has been built at one of the entrances to the University’s sprawling suburban Minhang campus (this is actually the interior view of the gate, the exterior view exactly mimics the exterior view of the current gate at the Xujiahui campus).

Whatever happened in 1948 is long past, and I can assure you that the students at SJTU today are no longer angry at America.  It is well worth a stop to the leafy Xujiahui campus of SJTU (just within the gate) if you have some spare time in Shanghai. It is a welcome respite from the busy city which surrounds it.