‘There was no mercy at all’: Hooliganism, homosexuality and the opening-up of China

Abstract

This article discusses the Chinese state crackdown on homosexuality during the reform period through the narratives of homosexual men who were arrested and sentenced to re-education through labour at that time. Utilising the work on morality and law by Zygmunt Bauman, it is shown that Deng Xiaoping’s proposal in 1979 to advance Chinese socialist spiritual civilisation was operationalised through a wide variety of procedures, including the use of the criminal justice system through the new crime of ‘hooliganism’. It was understood that the object infringed upon by hooliganism was the social order itself, through acts that violated the moral principles of Chinese society. Legislated in 1979, hooliganism was an obvious tool for the regulation of sexuality. Those engaged in hooliganism had to be severely punished. Seven men of the 31 men in our study were arrested and six were sentenced to re-education through labour.