Pirates from the north

By the early 1900s, the South China Sea was well known and reported on for acts of piracy against merchant shipping in its busy waterways. This exhibition of material drawn from the archives of John Swire & Sons looks at piracy against merchant shipping along the north China coast, and particularly against the Nanchang II, on March 29, 1933. Prior to the Nanchang affair, piracy was unknown along the northern coast of China.

The event was widely reported with accounts of how British officers and 37 Chinese crewmen on board the Nanchang were caught off guard when two seemingly-innocent fishing junks suddenly swept alongside, disgorging a motley assortment of armed pirates, who swarmed on deck firing indiscriminately.

The attack lasted 20 minutes. Its after-effects were to last five long months and the Nanchang incident was to become the most celebrated act of piracy the China coast had ever known.

Date: Until Dec 15

Venue: Brunei Gallery, the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Website: www.soas.ac.uk/gallery

(China Daily 12/14/2012 page31)