Pornography and Erotica in China

In China, erotic painting and erotic fiction occurred over 1,000 years ago, in the Tang dynasty. The official prohibition of erotic art and literature started as early as about eight hundred years ago, in Yuan dynasty. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1,1949, a strict ban on erotic fiction and pornography of any kind was imposed nationwide. In the 1950s and 1960s, the policy of banning erotica was very effective. In the whole country, almost no erotic material was to be found. There were few difficulties implementing this policy until the mid-1970s.
Then, the legalization and wide availability of pornography in several Western countries during the late 1960s and early 1970s, coupled with China’s growing openness to the outside world, increased the supply of such material available for underground circulation.
In recent years, the suppression of pornography has become a very serious political and legislative concern. The number of arrests and the severity of sentences on people involved in pornography have both increased in the attempt to suppress it entirely.
By the late 1970s, "X-rated" films and videotapes were being smuggled into China from Hong Kong and other countries. (In China, these are known as "yellow videos" and "yellow" refers to erotica). Yellow videos quickly became a fad. At first, the only people who could view these tapes were rather highly placed party members and their families, since only they had access to videotape players, which were very rare and expensive in China at that time. Before long, however, "yellow videos," including the well-known American pornographic movie Deep Throat, were available to more people, although still very secretly and only through small underground circles. Some people used the tapes to make money; tickets for video shows were very expensive, usually 5-10 Yuan per person (at the time most people’s monthly salary was only about 40 to 50 Yuan).
Sometimes people who were watching these tapes engaged in sexual activity, even group sex. Because yellow videos were usually shown in small private rooms to very small audiences whose members knew each other well, a party atmosphere often prevailed. It was very easy for young people to initiate sexual activity when they were aroused by what they saw.
At about the same time, erotic photographs, reproductions of paintings, and books were also smuggled into mainland China. They, too, were sold at a great profit. One small card with a nude photo would cost as much as 5 to 10 Yuan.

There was a strong reaction at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party and the Government. The police were ordered to confiscate every type of pornographic material, from hand-copied books to "yellow" audiotapes and films. Severe penalties were ordered for all people involved in the showing or viewing of "yellow" videos, and, in April 1985, a new antipornography law was promulgated. The nationwide crackdown on pornography led to numerous arrests and confiscations in city after city. For example, by October 1987 in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, forty-four dealers in pornography had been arrested and 80,000 erotic books and magazines confiscated. It was reported that an underground publishing house with 600 salesmen had been circulating erotic materials in twenty-three of China’s twenty-eight provinces, making a profit of 1,000,000 Yuan (in that period about $300,000 U.S.) in two years.
A Shanghai Railway Station employee was sentenced to death because he and four other persons organized sex parties on nine different occasions; during these they showed pornographic videotapes and engaged in sexual activity with female viewers. The other organizers were sentenced to prison, some for life.
The climax of this wave of repression seemed to occur on January 21, 1988, when the twenty-fourth session of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People’s Congress adopted supplemental regulations imposing stiffer penalties on dealers in pornography. Under these regulations, if the total value of the pornographic materials is between 150,000 Yuan and 500,000 Yuan, the dealer shall be sentenced to life imprisonment.
In a nationwide strike against pornography, beginning a few weeks after the Tiananmen Square massacre, on July 11, 1989, 65,000 policemen and other bureaucrats were mobilized to investigate publishing houses, distributors, and booksellers. By August 21, more than 11,000,000 books and magazines had been confiscated, and about 2,000 publishing and distributing centers, and 100 private booksellers were forced out of business. But then Deng Xiaoping, China’s top leader, went further by declaring that some publishers of erotica deserved the death penalty. It may be at least one of the most severe political punishments against "pornography" ever suggested by a national leader anywhere in the world. After this, in July 1990, the Supreme People’s Court issued a new decree stating that the death sentence is the proper penalty for traffickers in prostitution and/or pornography.