Students burning Japanese goods, Tsinghua School
A photograph shows students at Tsinghua School in Peking gathered in a circle to burn Japanese-made goods in 1919, part of the nationwide boycott that grew out of the May Fourth Movement's anger at the Paris Peace Conference's award of former German concessions in Shandong to Japan. The public, collective ritual of destruction demonstrates the boycott's reach to any student who has not yet joined it.
This 1919 photograph, from Tsinghua University's own archive, shows students of Tsinghua School in Peking standing in a circle to burn Japanese-made goods during the boycott that grew out of the May Fourth Movement. The setting is a campus protest over the Paris Peace Conference's award of former German concessions in Shandong to Japan. It asks other students to join the boycott. The bandwagon appeal lies in the public, collective act, which shows how far the boycott already reaches.
Propaganda techniques used in this photograph
- Date
- 1919
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Students of Tsinghua School, Peking (May Fourth Movement anti-Japanese boycott)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- East Asia
- Country
- China
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- Movement
- Regime
- Beiyang Government
- Leader
- Xu Shichang
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Economy and finance, Empire and colonialism
- Event
- May Fourth Movement
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 28, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (per Wikimedia Commons)
http://xs.tsinghua.edu.cn/docinfo/board/boarddetail.jsp?columnId=00301&parentColumnId=003&itemSeq=4380
Text on the object
Checked for printed text: none found
No printed or legible text on this object.
Checked closely at full resolution: no banners, placards, signs or lettering are visible anywhere among the students standing around the bonfire, on the poles/umbrellas they hold, or on the buildings in the background. A plain documentary photograph with nothing printed on it.
