Historian slapped in the face for pro-Manchu views

The Beijing News
October 7, 2008

Yan Chongnian (阎崇年), a scholar specializing in Qing history and Manchu culture, was attacked on October 5 when he was in Wuxi to promote his new book, The Kangxi Emperor. The prolific author was smacked twice in the face, allegedly because the attacker disagreed with his historical views.

Yan is the director of the Manchu studies department at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and is a guest host on the CCTV-10 TV show Lecture Room. That program, which focuses on Chinese history and traditional culture, has made him a celebrity, as it has for other academics including Yu Dan, arguably the most popular exponent of Confucius ever.

After first being disclosed in a post on the Tianya BBS written by someone who claimed to have witnessed the incident, the news made the front page of The Beijing News today:

In the afternoon of October 5, Yan Chongnian arrived at the Wuxi Xinhua bookstore to meet with readers and present a talk to history enthusiasts….after the talk, Yan began to sign books. A tall young man charged towards him and slapped in his face twice before he was held down….another man in glasses tried to break away from the crowd and continued to swear at Yan: “Traitor”, “You deserve it.”

The newspaper also quoted the attacker’s brother, who said that the attacker “disagreed with Yan’s historical views but had no chance to debate him. He just couldn’t control his impulses under the circumstances.” Yan himself couldn’t be reached by the newspaper for comments.

“Traitorous” words attributed to Yan can be found on the Internet, but it is not clear whether he actually said them, or in what context. Here are a few of those statements:

• Wu Sangui, the general who has usually taken the blame for the collapse of Ming Dynasty (the last Han Chinese Dynasty) by virtue of his surrender to the Manchu invaders, should be reevaluated for avoiding mass bloodshed that may have resulted had he not surrendered;
• Censorship and crackdown on dissenting views by the Qing ensured social stability despite certain limitation;
• The Manchu invasion promoted the integration of different ethnic groups, and the human loss it caused was inevitable.