In Hangzhou, China, on February 11, 1932, the 21-year-old art student Tao Sijin killed her romantic partner and fellow student, the 20-year-old Liu Mengying, stabbing her over ten times with a kitchen knife. The murder and the ensuing court trial received large amounts of media attention and stirred controversy across China, negatively influencing public attitudes towards homosexual relationships.
The two women met in 1928 and became roommates at the Hangzhou National College of Art the following year, soon entering into a romantic and sexual partnership. According to Tao's diaries, the relationship was frequently marked by jealousy by Liu towards other girls, which intensified after Tao became close to a female instructor. After 1929, the two often lived at a residence and gallery owned by their mentor , the former partner of Tao's deceased brother, the designer . Liu and Tao entered into a confrontation over suspected infidelity, which escalated to the murder. Tao maintained that she had acted in self-defense after Liu had threatened her with the knife.
Tao was brought to trial on both state charges and a private suit filed by Liu's older sister. Press coverage and the Hangzhou court initially viewed the situation as a love triangle dispute over Xu. Tao's defense team used her diary as evidence throughout the case, arguing that she could not be found liable due to alleged mental health issues. The defense spread through the media the portrayal of homosexuality as a mental infliction which had driven her to violence. The case received abundant media coverage, partially owing to the high status of Xu and Tao Yuanqing. Newspapers shared excerpts from both girls' diaries, as well as Tao's poems and interview responses. The press was initially highly opposed to Tao, but limited sympathetic coverage led some of the public to view her as a tragic figure. Xu was sentenced to a year in prison, while Tao was initially given a life sentence. After a failed appeal by her defense, this was increased to the death penalty, but the life sentence was restored after further appeal to the Supreme Court in Nanjing. Tao became a Buddhist nun and remained in prison until 1937, when she was released under amnesty during the Japanese occupation. She allegedly married a male official and lived the rest of her life in obscurity.
Background Tao Sijin () was born in 1910 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, into a family of writers and artists. Her older brother () was an influential painter and graphic designer. Liu Mengying (), born in Hunan in 1912, came from an influential family. Her father, a physician, served as the head of a Kuomintang military hospital in Changsha, and was killed during an attack by the Chinese Communist Party's Red Army in 1930.
The two girls met in 1928 while students at the Lida Academy, a Shanghai alternative school where Tao Yuanqing worked as a teacher. After Yuanqing moved to Hangzhou to work at the Hangzhou National College of Art, Tao Sijin and Liu enrolled at the college and became dorm roommates in the spring of 1929. Tao specialized in western-style painting and art critique, while Liu worked in a number of fields, including printmaking, sculpture, ink wash painting, and oil painting. Both girls were close to Yuanqing and his long-term roommate, with whom he shared an affectionate bond, a writer and schoolteacher named (). Yuanqing died of typhoid in August 1929, and Xu volunteered to anonymously pay for Tao Sijin's tuition. Xu purchased a house by the West Lake to serve as an exhibition hall for Tao Yuanqing's paintings, which often served as a residence for Liu and Tao.
The two girls became very close and affectionate with one another; a later court judgment noted that they began taking naps together under a quilt, leading to a "sort of long-term association". They engaged in sexual activity and swore that they would refuse any marriage proposals they received so as to remain together for life. Classmates and teachers at the college knew that they were in a same-sex relationship, as did their mentor Xu, who described their love as more intense than a typical husband and wife. Despite knowing of their relationship, Xu proposed to Tao at some point after her brother's death. Rejected, he proposed instead to Liu, who also rejected him. Tao grew to deeply dislike Xu, calling him the "devil who entangles me" in her diary. However, due to his financial support, she found herself unable to cut ties with him.
Tao wrote in her diaries that she felt intense love for Liu, writing that she was "mad with passion" over her and describing their same-sex love as "sacred". She reported that Liu was paranoid about infidelity and deeply jealous of friends that she would spend time with, and that this led classmates to avoid becoming friendly with her.
Murder While attending Hangzhou National College, Tao had become close with a female painting teacher named Liu Wenru (). The two planned to travel to Sichuan together. Liu Mengying complained that Tao had begun to act cold towards her and accused her of having romantic feelings for Liu Wenru. In 1931, Liu Mengying allegedly destroyed a gramophone and vase in Tao's room and stated that she wished to kill Liu Wenru. Following the January 28 incident, a 1932 battle in Shanghai between Chinese and Japanese forces, the Hangzhou National College and its dormitories were closed. Tao and Liu Mengying stayed together at Xu's residence in Hangzhou.
On February 11, 1932, Tao returned to Xu's residence. Xu was not home, and Tao sent her maid Chen Zhugu out to buy cold cream, leaving Tao and Liu alone. Liu urged Tao to stay in Hangzhou for another day or two, as Tao had expressed plans to travel to Shaoxing soon to visit her sick mother. As Tao was in the kitchen making tea, Liu accused her again of being romantically involved with Liu Wenru while Tao maintained that their relationship was platonic. During the confrontation, Tao stabbed Liu to death with a kitchen knife. When the maid returned, she found Liu dead on the ground, naked and with at least ten stab wounds. Tao, found wounded and semiconscious beside her, was arrested at the scene. Liu was twenty at the time of the attack, while Tao was twenty-one.
Tao accused Liu of instigating the violence. In a diary entry from prison dated to the day of the incident, she wrote that she had called Liu a demon and enraged her, leading to Liu attempting to attack her with a knife. She grabbed the knife and killed Liu, kneeling and kissing her corpse. A 1934 description in the newspaper Shen Bao argued that Tao struck first during her argument with Liu, leading Liu to grab a wooden rod to defend herself. After a melee which injured both, Liu attempted to flee, but was struck down by Tao.
Trial
While police investigations over the murder proceeded, Liu's older sister Liu Qingxing () filed suit against Tao for the murder, naming Xu as an accessory to murder. The state also brought charges, with a trial begun at the Hangzhou County District Court on March 25. The first public hearing on April 1 had an estimated two thousand attendees, who occupied much of the courtroom and broke the window of the front entrance, forcing the judge to delay the hearing.
Liu Qingxing accused Xu of having maintained a love triangle between Liu and Tao, which eventually resulted in the killing. This was the main theory favored by the court, as well as by media coverage of the case. Xu was repeatedly indicted in both civil and criminal courts, accused of ten crimes, including "intended adultery", "enticing underage women", "being over thirty years of age but unmarried", and "housing young women in his bachelor's abode". Liu was accused of having been associated with the Chinese Communist Party, leading Xu to be additionally charged with harboring a suspected communist.
Tao's attorneys, Li Baosen () and Wang Shaogong (), argued that she suffered from "advanced neurasthenia", a now-outdated psychiatric term describing a weakening of the nerves caused by the stresses of modern life, resulting in fatigue, physical weakness, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and a depressed mood. Her gender, intellectual pursuits, and lack of physically vigorous activity were seen as increasing her risk of the condition, attested by frequent colds mentioned in her past letters. They also maintained that she had psychasthenia, a now-obsolete term for a condition which results in obsessions and irrational compulsions. As such, they claimed that she could not be found liable for the crime due to her mental state, and advocated for her immediate medical treatment for her psychasthenia and to properly diagnose any physical and mental conditions.
China's criminal code outlined several forms of mental ailment that could result in reduced punishment: perpetrators could be found "insane" (resulting in no criminal liability), "feeble-minded" (, resulting in a reduced sentence), or having an affected state of mind (resulting in an optional sentence reduction at the judge's discretion). The prosecution filed a motion to dismiss the evaluation; they argued that Tao's ability to be admitted to Hangzhou National College of Art pointed to some soundness of mental health. They noted that her family had not previously mentioned poor mental health when she lived by herself, and accused the defense of raising the insanity defense solely as a means to reduce her sentence. Liu Qingxing argued neither neurasthenia nor psychasthenia could compel someone to murder, saying that a lesser sentence for the conditions would mean that "everyone is free to murder others and receive a lesser sentence". She also suggested that Tao's neurasthenia could have developed following the murder. The court dismissed the psychological defense presented by Li and Wang, and Tao was never given a mental examination.
The defense used Tao's diary as its main piece of evidence throughout the case. They presented selections from the diary in court in an attempt to demonstrate that Liu had an "insidious" nature and used excessive coercion against Tao. They argued that since Tao truly loved Liu, any act of violence against her would be impossible without an impaired mental state. Liu's diary was also used as evidence, although it was cited less often both in the trial and in press coverage of the case. Both diaries were confiscated by the court as evidence, although sections were made public through court verdicts.
The Hangzhou District Court found Tao guilty in May 1932 and sentenced her to life imprisonment. Insufficient evidence was found to convict Xu on the state charges, although he was found guilty of seduction by the same court in the suit filed by Liu Qingxing and was sentenced to a year in prison. Li and Wang appealed to the Zhejiang provincial high court in July, arguing that the court verdict misrepresented Tao's behavior as "ruthless". The Zhejiang provincial court upheld the original conviction and imposed steeper punishments, sentencing Tao to death and Xu to two years in prison. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the Republic of China in Nanjing, which restored the original sentence imposed by the Hangzhou court.
Press coverage