Song Binbin
Chinese revolutionary (1947–2024)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Song Binbin (Chinese: 宋彬彬; 1947–September 16, 2024),[1] also known as Song Yaowu (Chinese: 宋要武), was a Chinese woman who, as a 19-year old, began engaging in violence that led to her role as a senior leader in the Chinese Red Guards during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.[2] Although Song denied involvement, she was presumed present when a 50-year-old teacher, Bian Zhongyun, was beaten to death by the female students of her school, reportedly the Cultural Revolution's first killing.[2]
Song Binbin | |
|---|---|
| 宋彬彬 | |
Song in the 1960s. | |
| Born | 1947 |
| Died | (aged 77) New York City, U.S. |
| Other names | Song Yaowu |
| Citizenship | American |
| Known for | Student Red Guards leader during the Cultural Revolution, involvement with death of teacher Bian Zhongyun |
Political party | Chinese Communist Party |
| Movement | Cultural Revolution |
| Parent(s) | Song Renqiong (father) Zhong Yuelin (mother) |
| Song Binbin | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 宋彬彬 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
After the Cultural Revolution, Song studied geology and moved to the United States, eventually receiving a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. Following her naturalisation as a US citizen, she worked for the Massachusetts government before moving back to China and becoming chairwoman of several companies. Although she apologised for her actions in the Cultural Revolution in 2014, this was met with mixed reactions. She died in 2024 at the age of 77.[1]
Early life
Song was born in 1947, the daughter of Song Renqiong, one of China's founding leaders known as the Eight Immortals.[3] In 1960, she started studying at the Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University. In 1966, at her girls' school in Beijing, she was a senior leader among the leftist Red Guards, who worked to overthrow China's institutional frameworks in demonstration of their devotion to Mao.[4]
Cultural Revolution
Song joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1966 as a reserve member.[citation needed] She led a rebellion at Experimental High School, which was attached to Beijing Normal University, in Beijing.[citation needed]
Andreas Lorenz of Der Spiegel writes that Beijing Teachers University was Song's school at the time when the Cultural Revolution claimed its first victim,[5] reporting that she was presumed present when the female students of the school beat to death a 50-year old-teacher, Bian Zhongyun, with wooden sticks spiked with nails.[2] Song would later claim that the CCP's paper, the People's Daily, had forced the nickname "Yaowu" on her. She claimed that she "was always opposed to violence" and that she had had no involvement in her teacher's murder.[2]
The attack on Bian, sometimes reported as a "deputy principal",[6] occurred in August 1966, and also seriously injured the vice-principal, Hu Zhitao.[citation needed] That night, Song and others were said to have reported the cause of Bian's death to Wu De, the second secretary of the CCP's Beijing Municipal Committee, at the Beijing Hotel.[citation needed]
Bian's slaying led to further killings by the Red Guards,[according to whom?][dubious – discuss] and eventually over 1 million of them gathered in Tiananmen Square, where Song famously pinned a red band on Mao Zedong's arm.[citation needed] Mao then commented that her name "Binbin"—meaning (as variously reported) "properly raised" or "polite" or "elegant"—did not suit her well and suggested that she change it to "Yaowu", which means—again, as variously reported—"be violent" or "needs to be militant".[2][7] The scene was captured in a famous photograph. Soon after, the Red August massacres followed.[citation needed] On August 20, 1966, the Guangming Daily published an article entitled "I Put a Red Armband on Chairman Mao", with Song's signature under her pen name "Song Yaowu". The article was reprinted by the People's Daily the next day.[8]
At the end of August, Wang Renzhong, a Chinese politician, met Liu Jin [clarification needed] and Song at the Diaoyutai Guesthouse and mobilised them to go to Wuhan to protect the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP. Before Liu went there, Song and her classmates went to Wuhan in early September. Soon after, they wrote an article with the keynote[clarification needed] of protecting the Hubei Provincial Party Committee of the CCP and handed it to the Provincial Party Committee. Immediately, the local newspaper published an open letter signed under the pen name "Song Yaowu."[8]
The content was different from the original article by Song and others, with stronger wording to protect the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP. Dissatisfied with this, Song asked the person in charge of the provincial party committee [clarification needed] and issued a statement through the provincial party committee stating that she did not write the open letter, but still did not agree to overthrow the provincial party committee.[8]
After returning to Beijing, Song became a member of the "Xiaoyao Faction" and no longer participated in the old Red Guard organisations. In April 1968, she and her mother were taken to Shenyang under house arrest. In the early spring of 1969, Song escaped and went to the pastoral area of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where she moved to the Xilingol League.[8]
In the spring of 1972, at the recommendation of the local herdsmen and the brigade commune, Song was accepted by a university and then returned.[clarification needed] According to reports from fellow villagers and educated youths, the teacher in charge of university enrollment in the Xilingol League admitted her under pressure, and she entered the Changchun Institute of Geology (now the College of Earth Sciences, Jilin University) as a worker-peasant-soldier student,[8] where she received a bachelor's degree in 1975.[9]
Later life
Higher education, work, and honours
After the Cultural Revolution, Song was admitted to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a graduate student from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, she went to the United States to study. In 1983, she would receive a master's degree in geochemistry from Boston University and would go on to complete a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989.[9]
After becoming naturalised as a US citizen, Song worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection as an environmental analysis officer from 1989 to 2003. In 2003, she moved back to China, where she served as chairwoman of the British-owned Beijing Cobia System Engineering Co., Ltd. and Beijing Cobia Innovation Technology Development Co., Ltd.[3]
In September 2007, the Experimental High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University (formerly the Women's Affiliated High School of Beijing Normal University) named Song as one of its 90 "honorary alumni" when celebrating the 90th anniversary of the school. This matter caused controversy when Wang Jingyao, Bian's husband, protested because he believed that Song was the main person in charge of the Red Guards in the school during the Cultural Revolution and thus responsible for his wife's death.[10]
Bian Zhongyun death controversy
In 1995 Wang Youqin, a 1968 alumna of the Normal University High School for Girls, published a text in Hong Kong titled "1966: Students play the teacher's revolution", for the first time since August 5, 1966[clarification needed], in which Wang wrote that Song and other Guards played a role in the death of Bian and were linked to form a causal relationship.[11]
In 2003, Carma Hinton, a graduate of Beijing 101 Middle School, directed the Cultural Revolution documentary Morning Sun, which was released in the United States but not officially in China. In the documentary, Song was interviewed and for the first time publicly stated that she had never participated in violent actions during the Cultural Revolution such as beating people, ransacking homes, or destroying the Four Olds. She claimed that the Guangming Daily had signed her article without seeking her opinion in advance and denied that she had written the article or authorised the reporter to ghostwrite.[12]
In 2004, Wang Youqin published another article titled "The Death of Bian Zhongyun", in which she pointed out that Song was responsible for the Red Guard violence that led to Bian's death. The evidence was a list of seven people who had pledged to the hospital to rescue Bian at the Beijing Posts and Telecommunications University Hospital in Changping District, saying: "Six of the seven are Red Guards students. The first name on the list is Song Binbin, a senior in the school and the head of the Red Guards". Song responded to the article's claims by saying that the first name on the list was that of Li Songwen, a teacher, whereas her own name was ranked last, suggesting that she could not have played a major role in Bian's death.[12]
Furthermore, according to Wang Youqin's article along with research articles by American female scholar Emily Honig appearing in a 2002 collection of publications related to sexology seminars (Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities: A Reader) claimed that Song was responsible for some of the violent activities during the early parts of the Cultural Revolution.[12]
Apology
On January 12, 2014, at a meeting held at the Normal University High School for Girls, attended by more than 20 students, more than 30 teachers, and family members of the alumni, Song apologised for the actions of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.[13] The apology was met with mixed reactions in China. Some people welcomed her words. Others said these words came too late and were inadequate, or that the CCP should apologise for the incidents that occurred during those times.[14] Major public debate on the Internet in China ensued.[15]: 7
Cui Weiping, a Beijing Film Academy professor and social critic, said in a telephone interview:[16]
Considering her identity, this is not enough. She is an important figure in the Red Guards, and the demands on her should be higher than ordinary people. She said she had witnessed a murder. It's meaningless to say you witnessed a murder and then say you don't know who the killers were.
Wang Youqin commented in an interview that although Song and various other Red Guards had been actively denying persecution and involvement in the Cultural Revolution and mass killings during that time, she believed Song's responsibility for all the violence at the Women's Affiliated High School should be obvious, due to her position as one of the school's deputy directors and organiser of the meetings by its revolutionary committee.[14]
Wang Jingyao, Bian's husband, issued a statement in 2014 accusing Song and others of covering up their deeds during the Cultural Revolution. He called their apologies hypocritical and said he would not accept their apologies until the truth about their involvement in his wife's death was revealed to the world.[17]
Death
Song died of cancer in New York City on September 16, 2024, at the age of 77.[1][18][19][20]