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GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml

How prevalent are racism and chauvinism in China (among Han Chinese)? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml to c/china@lemmygrad.ml

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This is something I occasionally come across in Western media and also heard IRL from a Chinese émigré (very lib and hates China, so I take whatever they say about the country with a grain of salt) - that the Chinese internet (and by extension, society, though probably less visibly) has a problem with widespread chauvinism and racism, against black people and ethnic minorities in China in particular, and other things such as wishing genocide on the people of Taiwan (???) or Japanese people.

Now, I'm sure China has its fair share of fascists and generic reactionary nutjobs, but I'm wondering just how bad it is. Most studies/articles come from Western institutions, so I don't know how to feel about those.

I'm curious what studies there are in China about this, how widely discussed this is (i.e. have these sorts of internet trends ever gotten the same level of awareness that 4chan and the alt-right got in the West? What was the reaction? Is the CPC doing anything about it?), and what direction is this going in, e.g. looking back 10-20 years, has this improved or gotten worse?

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[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

racism, against black people

Recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nxeiFpSJfc

It's a bit anecdotal as evidence goes, to be fair, and I recommend watching it, not taking my summary of it at face value, but the general idea IIRC is: black people are more treated as a curiosity. Like being curious about someone of an ethnicity you have never seen before, who looks so different. But since China doesn't have the racialized cultural context that the white supremacist west has, it's not an aggressive or hateful curiosity.

There's this mythos in western thinking that goes something like, "Racism is cause people are tribal and mistrusting of strangers." But it's missing how systemically racism gets developed over time in history and for what purpose(s). And China, as far as I can tell, has no reason for such a development of power in relation to black people, so they simply don't have the racism that the west has.

[–] SugandeseDelegation@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the link, haven't checked that channel in a while. This reminds me a lot of the attitude people have in my country towards immigrants from the Global South - they view them with benign curiosity more than anything. I do worry it will get worse in time, in no small part due to worsening material conditions and an overall reactionary population. But it's a very different context compared to China

[–] TankieReplyBot@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: