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- cross-posted to:
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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3148575
The brutal killing of a Japanese schoolboy in the Chinese city of Shenzhen last week has made headlines across the world. The wider context of the tragedy — that it happened on the anniversary of the “Mukden Incident” that began Japan’s invasion of China nearly a century ago, and just months after another nearly deadly attack on a Japanese mother and her child in another city — raises serious questions about how it might be linked to decades of anti-Japanese education, entertainment and cultural conditioning in China.
But these are serious questions China’s media are not asking, or cannot ask.
How the media in China have reported the incident domestically (or not) is an unfortunate reminder not just of how stringent controls have become, but also how detrimental this atmosphere has been to discussion of the darker undercurrents of contemporary Chinese society.
[…]
From the early stages of the incident, key details were missing. The police report from Shenzhen did not mention the boy’s nationality, age, or where the attack took place.
[…]
In all likelihood, reports […] were removed by the authorities because they jumped the gun, not waiting for an official news release (通稿) from Xinhua News Agency. Generally, for such sensitive stories, more compliant media know that protocol demands that they wait for official word. State media, therefore, kept silent on the issue until after Lin Jian (林剑), a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), held a press conference late on September 18, and again on September 19.
[…]
Hunan Daily, for example, the official mouthpiece of the provincial CCP leadership in the province, quoted Lin Jian verbatim, offering no additional details or context. The same was true of Shanghai’s The Paper, published by the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group, and other provincial-level dailies such as Guizhou Daily.
[…]
The Shenzhen attack is a sensitive story on a number of fronts for China. For starters, the government — which has touted increasing foreign visits as a mark of economic turnaround — is wary of frightening away foreign tourists, businesspeople, and investors. The attack, the third high-profile assault on foreigners in China in recent months, risks undermining the leadership’s message that China is open and ready to engage again with the world following the pandemic downturn.
The attack also risks undermining the simplistic narrative, advanced by state media, that China is fundamentally a society encouraging tolerance among civilizations — which has lately been a key pillar of what the leadership calls “Xi Jinping Thought on Culture.” The case tells us that despite China’s rhetoric of civilizational tolerance, the country has its own share, like perhaps any country, of individuals capable of violent xenophobia.
But the most sensitive aspect of this story, the most dangerous question that can be asked, is why. Why is China experiencing such violent attacks, and against the Japanese in particular? The answer to that question is no doubt complex. And yet, as netizens made clear in their early, stillborn conversations on the Shenzhen attack, the role of China’s officially-encouraged culture of xenophobic ire — a culture of “toxic nationalism” — is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
The brutal truth behind this savage attack is that this problem will not go away until the antipathy at its root, present in the media discourse of the state as much as in the heart of the attacker, can be faced head on.
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I feel these are somewhat simplistic explanations (I doubt, for example, that Wogi’s college students are old enough to have experienced in person and thus be “really pissed about the horrific war crimes”, there must be a more complex issue behind).
There is, apparently, a persistent form of racism in China, namely the prejudice that the Han Chinese are more advanced than other cultures inside and outside of China. This does also, though not exclusively relate to Japan.
How the media in China have reported -or, better, how it did not report- on the incident is a sad reminder on Chinese propaganda and media control. But it also shows how this brutal killing and the Chinese state-media’s silence might be linked to decades of anti-Japanese education and cultural conditioning in China.
There is also a good video by a foreigner living in China (19 min): CHINA: RACISM: China’s Ugly, Disturbing yet Open Secret — (archived link). It’s very insightful and worth everyone’s time.
Last year, Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to combat anti-black racism on Chinese social media.
[Edit typo.]
There is, apparently, a persistent form of racism in China, namely the prejudice that the Han Chinese are more advanced than other cultures
This isn’t a unique form of Chinese racism. You’re just describing nationalism, writ large. And it is as common to Japan, Korea, India… really any industrial scale society with an advanced military/economy anywhere in the world.
How the media in China have reported -or, better, how it did not report- on the incident is an sad reminder about Chinese propaganda and media control.
Again, flip over to any other industrialized nation and you’re going to find the same media trends. You get to fixate on “China Media Bad” because you’re not getting spammed with American propaganda about Hindu nationalists or Japanese fascists. But then we are as guilty of drinking the propaganda kool-aid as any other country. And a big part of that kool-aid is the exceptionalism mentality that insists we’re clear-eyed while everyone else is being brainwashed.
Last year, Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to combat anti-black racism on Chinese social media.
Again… this is not something they found unique to China. In fact, anti-black racism appears to be endemic to the whole fucking planet. Africans have become an ethnic punching bag and an immigrant boogeyman across the whole of Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim, in large part thanks to their role as occupied colonial-era territory of choice.
Much of the Chinese “Century of Humiliation” parallels the attitudes Africans experience into the modern day. And if we ever do see a United Africa, I suspect the region will enjoy a resurgence of Black Supremacist attitudes in line with what Han Chinese nativists are enjoying now that they are a sovereign state rather than a colonial pie.
First Nations states are another great example of populations that - on reaffirming their sovereignty - have developed a sense of ethnic superiority. Chavismos in Venezuela and their peers in Bolivia and Nicaragua can and do demonstrate these attitudes. Same with the Hindu Nationalists in India, Saudi nationalists in The Kingdom, and the Israeli Zionists.
Again, flip over to any other industrialized nation and you’re going to find the same media trends. You get to fixate on “China Media Bad” because you’re not getting spammed with American propaganda about Hindu nationalists or Japanese fascists. But then we are as guilty of drinking the propaganda kool-aid as any other country. And a big part of that kool-aid is the exceptionalism mentality that insists we’re clear-eyed while everyone else is being brainwashed.
What a rubbish. I live in a (Western) country where racism and nationalism and all the sh’t that it entails is much older than modern-day China, but the media isn’t controlled here. Journalists and bloggers and private persons on social media can freely write and criticize, including the government.
I wondering when you get tired here about this whataboutism. In the context of the death of a 10-year old this is even disgusting.
I live in a (Western) country where racism and nationalism and all the sh’t that it entails is much older than modern-day China
So you’d think the long and storied history of (Western) country racist propaganda would be well-known to you.
Journalists and bloggers and private persons on social media can freely write and criticize
Journalists routinely get fired for expressing views hostile to their parent company. Bloggers routinely get shut down by hosting sites and shadowbanned by social media that don’t want to host or transmit their work. Private persons routinely get arrested or are forced to flee the country for whistleblowing on the malfeasance of their superiors.
You’re free to print what you like and the police are free to raid your offices and indict your staffers. You’re free to voice your views and then get kicked off your beat for speaking inconvenient truths. You’re free to challenge the government and the government is free to arrest you by the hundreds after issuing a formal ban of support.
I wondering when you get tired here about this whataboutism.
“Whataboutism” is a great western turn of phrase, used to shield your brain from any kind of self-reflection. It’s one of the cornerstones of Western Exceptionalism.
Put two rounds in the back of Fred Hampton’s head. Bomb the Philadelphia chapter of the Christian Movement for Life office. Send federal agents to infiltrate and disrupt Quaker anti-war organizers. Then shove it all under the rug, by insisting Foreign Country Worse.
My roommate in college was from Seoul. He was vehemently, vocally, angrily anti Japanese. His friends from Korea mostly shared similar views.
Korea and China don’t share much in common, but hating Japan and by extension people from there is one thing they do. And for similar reasons.
They’re still really pissed about the horrific war crimes.
The attack also risks undermining the simplistic narrative, advanced by state media, that China is fundamentally a society encouraging tolerance among civilizations — which has lately been a key pillar of what the leadership calls “Xi Jinping Thought on Culture.”
I was under the impression that tensions between China and Japan have been ratcheted significantly in the last few years, particularly via national media claiming one or the other was intruding on national territory.
Case in point, a Japanese warship sailed into Chinese waters a few months ago. Then a Chinese surveillance plane overflew Japanese airspace. Now we’ve got Russia/China joint military exercises in the North Pacific to counter Korean/Japanese/US maneuvers along the Korean peninsula.
The brutal truth behind this savage attack is that this problem will not go away until the antipathy at its root, present in the media discourse of the state as much as in the heart of the attacker, can be faced head on.
We’ve seen a slew of increasingly bellicose right-wing governments assuming office all along the Pacific Rim. From Modi’s Hindu nationalists to Yoon Suk Yeol’s ultra-conservative People Power Party to Rodrigo Duterte’s functional military dictatorship in the Philippines, all increasingly hostile towards their neighboring states and eager to bulk up on domestic military readiness, its not clear how anyone is supposed to diffuse regional antipathy.
Chinese nationalism is surging right alongside these peer states as the post-90s efforts to internationalize markets and open borders to trade and travel have stalled out. Whatever you might think about neoliberal economic policy, the Nixon-to-Clinton era effort to internationalize across the Pacific Rim was an unmitigated good for the region. If the regions are closing back up again - with fascism in these massive industrial states spiking in the wake of COVID, Trump, and a series of proxy wars across the Middle East and Europe - that’s going to end extremely poorly for everyone involved.
