China Burns Old Clothing Donated From Abroad to Avoid ‘Foreign Diseases’

In one of the most bizarre public exhibitions in recent Chinese history, soldiers piled up more than 20 tons of used clothing from abroad and torched the hand-me-downs with flame throwers.

As the smoke spiraled upward at a garbage disposal site in the Haidian district of western Peking, a crowd--specially assembled for the Nov. 12 occasion--cheered, television cameras recorded the event for the evening news broadcasts, and a deputy mayor delivered a speech.

During the next two weeks, officially sponsored burnings of used foreign clothing were reported in at least two other Chinese cities. Throughout the fall, Chinese newspapers have been warning the public not to buy or sell second-hand clothes from overseas or from Hong Kong and Macao.

Chinese officials usually describe the actions as general public health measures. Su Shifang, vice minister of China’s general administration of customs, explained in September that a ban on importing used clothes was necessary “to prevent epidemic diseases from being introduced to China.”

Many foreign analysts here believe that the real objective is to keep AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome--out of the country.

Others, however, say that the clothes-burning displays may have been prompted by psychological and economic considerations as well. The clothes burnings, they argue, are merely the most graphic illustration of a broad campaign by Chinese authorities to persuade the nation to take greater pride in Chinese products and not to assume that foreign goods are superior to local ones.

Chinese press accounts provide some support for this theory. After the burning of the clothes here last month, the Peking Evening News said the burned items were not only a health hazard but “also posed a threat to the domestic clothing market.”

And an official from the city’s industrial and commercial administration said wearing used clothes from abroad is “harmful to both the state and individual dignity. Therefore, they (the clothes) must be totally destroyed.”

Single AIDS Case

Other diplomats say there is deep concern in China about keeping AIDS out of the country. So far, China has reported only a single case of AIDS, and it did not involve Chinese. Last July, an Argentine tourist who came from California died in the foreigners’ unit of the hospital at Peking Union Medical College a few days after arriving in the country.

American officials here say that in recent months, Chinese and U.S. health officials have been quietly cooperating to do testing on suspected AIDS cases in China. Chinese doctors have sent blood samples to the United States for testing at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. So far, officials say, the tests have come back negative, and no new AIDS cases have been confirmed.

Last month, the intellectual journal Guangming Daily, operated by the Communist Party, said health officials here are considering a prohibition on homosexuality and “free love” as well as requiring special blood tests for all foreigners marrying Chinese. Health officials here have already banned the importation of blood products from abroad.

So far, however, Chinese officials and newspapers have not linked the measures against used clothing to fear of AIDS.

Flood From Overseas

The first official actions against foreign use clothing came in September. Chinese newspapers reported that “free markets across the nation”--that is, those run as private businesses rather than by the state--were being flooded with used clothes from overseas.

“In recent years, some individuals and collective or state-run businesses have imported large quantities of second-hand clothes,” the newspaper China Daily said. “They have been bought at very low prices and resold in domestic free markets at high prices. Many of the assorted clothes have been found carrying infectious diseases and harmful bacteria.”

At first, health officials simply banned the importation of used clothes. A few weeks later, authorities also prohibited any sale or purchase of the clothing in China. Finally, in November, they staged the public burning in Peking.

The Peking Daily reported that most of the clothing had come from garbage dumps or even morgues in foreign countries. Su Jinghua, a reporter for the paper who witnessed the burning, choosing language strikingly similar to that previously used by health officials, said he had noticed that “most of the second-hand clothes carried dirt, grease, sweat stains and saliva, and some had even gone moldy and bore stains of bird droppings and blood.”

Foreign correspondents were not informed in advance of the public burning. In response to later inquiries, Peking officials said they have no immediate plans to hold any more such displays.

Economic Link

The campaign against the clothes is one of several measures that authorities have taken here over the last few months to dampen the desire for foreign goods in China, efforts that appear to grow out of recent economic developments.

At this time a year ago, the Chinese public was in the midst of an unprecedented rush to buy foreign goods--not just used clothing, but also television sets, refrigerators and many other consumer goods.

The Communist Party had just announced plans to let prices float, and many people with savings here began converting cash into goods in hopes of beating inflation. At the same time, the modicum of freedom allowed in China’s special economic zones was used by many enterprises to import huge lots of consumer goods that were often resold for profit in other parts of China.

Stemming Cash Outflow

The buying and importing binge ended early this year after the government found that its foreign exchange reserves were dropping rapidly. Since then, the authorities have banned the importation of foreign cars without special permission, cracked down on the special economic zones and taken several other measures to stem the outflow of money.

During the summer, commentaries in the official press began to raise questions about the quality of foreign products.

“When some comrades see some foreign-made goods, they immediately think that their quality is superior to homemade products,” the official New China News Agency said in August. “. . . They do not realize that many foreign businessmen are quite deceptive and some Western goods are inferior. If we worship any Western goods blindly, we will certainly be fooled.”

Since then, newspapers and television stations here have carried a series of reports about defective goods from abroad. “The poor quality of many imported electronic products is becoming a serious problem,” reported the publication China Electronic News recently.

One diplomat here said last week that the clothes-burning ceremonies illustrate that while China carries out its policy of opening to the outside world, its fear of being exploited or humiliated by foreigners remains especially strong.

“There’s a kind of pride to it,” the analyst said. “They’re saying, ‘Are we so poor that we have to take Hong Kong’s used clothing?’ ”