Is China racist? or new PC colonialism
Written by Julen Madariaga on March 23rd, 2009This discussion on China Geeks caught my eye, mostly because it is one of the few that has managed to engage the real Chinese blogosphere to interact with us foreign China blogs. And no less than hecaitou, a respected blogger in both the Chinese and Western communities. Unfortunately, the results are rather discouraging.
It all started when some Chinese blogs, including hecaitou, posted this image, which was picked by Chinageeks in a post titled “racism in China”. Hecaitou responded rather energetically to the pingback, writing a new post, and then commentators from all sides joined the party.
The discussion about whether Chinese are racist or not is a never ending one, and it has been commented to exhaustion already, for example in the FM blog. It usually degenerates into a series of “you worse than me” counterexamples, as American/Chinese national pride quickly takes over any serious attempt of debate. Rather than racism, the misunderstanding comes from a different perception on the limits of the socially acceptable (ie PC). Some notes I would like to add to the debate:
1- This is one of the points where Chinese should pay attention to not mix all Westerners in the same bag. Although PC runs in all the Western countries, the degrees are different, and UK-USA PC is probably the single most extreme one that borders on paranoia.
2- This brings to mind the famous case of the olympic Basketball players, where a Spanish paper posted a picture of the Spanish basketball team doing “chinese eyes”. The UK and American press found it and they turned it into a major scandal, with serious accusations to Spain and reminders of Franco’s regime. I still remember a British girlfriend of mine in Shanghai, genuinely worried, asking me: ” Uln, you are not really racist, are you?” The whole situation was absurd, because the truth is neither Spanish nor Chinese understood this as anything more than what it was: a silly joke. The anglo-american press never succeeded in its serious efforts to turn it into a conflict.
3- On the other hand, even if I agree anglo-american PC is often exaggerated and ineffective, I cannot agree with the picture posted by hecaitou. There is a large difference between joking about some particular aspect of a nations physique (in the Spanish coast they say suntanned British look like cooked lobsters) and comparing Africans to apes. Because the message of that picture is clear: it is an inferior race that has still not become human.
Of course, I don’t suppose this was the real intention of Hecaitou, he probably didn’t think of it very much when he posted the picture. But I do think there is a reasonable middle way between Anglo-PC and the Chinese laissez-faire, and Chinese need to be more careful with these things. The fact that China was not a colonial power, or the fact that the New York Post does stupid cartoons is not an excuse to insult millions of Africans who had nothing to do with all that.
My Conclusion: It doesn’t make much sense right now to discuss whether Chinese are racist or not. The real test of tolerance is done when different races live together, anything else is just good intentions. The day when the major Chinese cities have a significant proportion of different races we will see how racist they are. In the meantime, observations from the Nigerian communities in Guangzhou seem to indicate that Chinese — like most other cultures — do have an inclination to discriminate racially. Which justifies even more the introduction by intelligent bloggers like Hecaitou of some basic principles of tolerance and tact.
H/t Peking Duck for providing the link.
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Asking “is China racist” is a bit of an odd question, no? For total accuracy we would be asking whether people are likely to experience racism whilst they’re over there - and I would challenge anyone of non-Chinese extraction to say that racial attitudes were not a big factor affecting their life in China.
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Aisling Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
While it is common to experience ‘different’ treatment as a white European in china. I have found that my american born chinese friends and my friends from the Philippines, have suffered much ignorant treatment. Basically people who appear to ‘look’ chinese but speak english are looked on with disrespect and unhidden disregard.
While my experience of racism is mostly positive eg deferential treatment, any foreigner that does not meet their stereotype is immediately considered inferior. This i submit to the the worst form of racism a dislike of people who ‘look’ chinese and speak english.
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I certainly have experienced no racism. Actually, most of the times what I get is just the opposite: positive discrimination. Unless, of course, you consider that is also a sort of racism.
Race is important in China, that is obvious. I don’t think it is even possible to obtain Chinese citizenship without the genes. But since there are no queues of people asking to become Chinese, and for the moment there are no major consequences of these attitudes (compare with Europe, where most countries have occasional bursts of racial violence)I don’t think it is fair to call this “racism”. Especially considering the negative connotations of that word. If anything, I would call it “racial consciousness”.
PS. Sorry for the lobster bit, it was only an example:)
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Regarding your comment on citizenship:
Does anyone here know how Chinese citizenship can be obtained? (not that I personally want to apply for it, but I’m curious how it works if -say- a North Korean or Vietnamese or Laotian etc. immigrant decides that he would like to settle down and “become” Chinese. Does it ever happen? Is there a defined process for it?)
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Walker Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 10:48 am
After they occupy your country, you will have a Chinese Citizenship. It happened to many ‘minorities’ in current China. It would like how to get a German citizenship after the wwII, If they had won the war.
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Uyghur citizen Reply:
September 8th, 2009 at 3:06 am
We know a way no one else here knows: You could become citizen like us Uyghurs and Tibetans-by Chinese occupation. For the others who want to know if the Chinese are racist, you can talk to Uyghurs and Tibetabs for your answer.
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@Thomas - In know in the ROC it requires 20 years continued residence, without leaving the country for a period longer than 4 months (combined). However, in the PRC the statute simply says
No knowing what the application process actually entails.
@ULN - Don’t worry, the lobster joke is no more racist than the character ‘Manuel’ from Fawlty Towers - and I call my Brother-in-law (who is much more light skinned than I am and burns bright red) the same thing.
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Manuel of Fawlty Towers was brilliant. I still remember that chapter where there where pigs (pigeons) on the roof, or something like that. It was annoying at the time though, when I was in England all the kids used to compare me with Manuel.
The lobster is a good example because it is about skin. It shows how whites don’t think it is a big deal to speak about each other’s skin color. Surprisingly for many Westerners, Chinese are also cool with this, and they often called themselves yellow skinned. And in most countries in the world, for example in South America, it is exactly the same with the black: calling someone black is just a casual observation, not an insult. That is how it should be if we really believe in equality.
@Thomas - I don’t know about Laotians, but I am pretty sure sure if a North Korean comes in asking for refugee status or Chinese nationality, he gets sent back to the goulag faster than he can say anyongashikimnka.
It would be very interesting to find more about the process of acquiring Chinese citizenship. I will see what I can find.
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Applying for Chinese is certainly the difficult thing even for 2nd generation Chinese emigrants. For north koreans, official line is to send back really fast. But I heard a story from my friend, that if they didn’t get caught, and learn to speak Chinese, then it’s easy to get a fake citizen ID, and in a few years, that ID becomes as real as any Chinese’s, they can even apply for hukou in some other area. I don’t know how to verify though - that friend is not from northeast either, so he must hear from someone else…
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trust me… most chinese readers will be extremely confusing when they found that foreign bloggers all talking about the african evolution rather than the last line illustrating how chinese evolve to SAN GE DAI BIAO (crab with watches)…
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Haha. rg, you are right. Normally foreign bloggers prefer to speak about things like the 三个代表 and the 河蟹 (River Crab), we find that funny.
But the River Crab is not the only thing in the World that needs to be criticized. There are many other things, even sometimes ourselves as bloggers need to be criticized. So it would be wrong to speak only of Crabs and Horses and Watches, and remain blind to all the other things
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To be honest, I myself don’t like westerners, but I think they are the most intelligent and capable people in the world; I sympathize with African and Indian people, but I think they are less intelligent and capable. Is this attitude eligible to be labelled as racism?
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xiao lu Reply:
March 26th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
To be honest, I myself DO like polite foreign people, but I think Chinese are the most intelligent, capable and diligent people if we receive more proper and practice education and have more chances to access to outer world.
BTW, what is your definition of western people?
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xkcdnari Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 5:54 am
That’s interesting, in Japan we have an impression that Indians are more smart than Chinese. But I think most Japanese people think the Chinese are a little barbaric or uncivilized.
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xu, if I didn’t know you I would consider this a troll and erase it immediately. I am not here to judge or give labels, so I will not say whether you are racist or not.
I just think that you are wrong. I can point you any day to examples of Indians and blacks that can blow your mind (and mine)with their achievements. Look at Obama, for example./
But the worst is that this kind of thinking is only harmful to yourself. People (or countries) who think like this avoid collaborating with other races and they miss the opportunities brought by diversity. Just look at the most powerful country in the World, it is also the most diverse. And empires based on pure white race lost in every front.
Anyway, thanks for being so honest.
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@Xu - Yes, yes it is.
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I’m going to have to disagree wholeheartedly with your conclusion as an expat who has spent most of his China time in Xinjiang. We don’t have to “day when the major Chinese cities have a significant proportion of different races” because these configurations already exist in Western China. Urumqi is a city of 3 million (which relatively speaking may be “small” for China but still is “major” by any objective standard) and has significant minority populations, mostly Uyghurs but also high numbers of Kazakhs, Mongols, and Russians. The city, nonetheless, is a majority Han city and is historically “new” compared to the ancient Uyghur cities so despite Urumqi’s location in Xinjiang, it really is more of a “Han city” with a really significant minority demographic. This provides the “homegrown” litmus test inside an entirely Chinese context (because Uyghurs, technically speaking, are “Chinese,” as in citizens, just as African Americans in the US are still Americans) to at least *start* asking questions about whether or not Han Chinese, when confronted within their own borders with culturally heterogeneous living situations, are racist. From my extensive experience both living in Urumqi and specifically researching interethnic relations, the answer, in Xinjiang at least, is a resounding yes.
I invite you or anyone who reads this blog to go to Urumqi and take a nice cross-section sample of Han Chinese and speak to them candidly about Uyghurs. Yeah, my experience is also anecdotal but as someone researching Uyghurs I was also specifically seeking out underlying themes in Han Chinese attitudes towards Uyghurs (and no, I couldn’t conduct any formal interviews or surveys because the government doesn’t allow this kind of research by foreigners). So I admit the shortcomings of my exploration but nonetheless believe it’s enough to warrant a broader conclusion.
Lower class Han, like shop and restaurant owners, were more candid with me about their contempt. Uyghurs, they said, were lazy, ignorant, exotic, and most of all, dangerous. Many used “坏人” - Uyghurs are simply “bad people.” Most middle class and/or university educated Han Chinese weren’t so blunt but obliquely revealed their racism when they, with totally sincere intentions, would warn me to “be careful” around Uyghurs as they are aggressive and violent. At one point when I was employed in a Xinjiang city I was explicitly told by my highly-educated, highly paid boss not to go to Uyghur neighborhoods because of “my safety.” She refused to explain the link between threats to my safety and Uyghur neighborhoods, or the possibility of Han people being a threat to my safety. One of the most continually frustrating experiences I had in Xinjiang was telling my peers - normally college students, so educated - that I was studying Uyghur culture and Uyghur language. On every single occasions I did this (I’m STILL waiting for the delightful exception) the reaction was “Why would you do something so (stupid)?” with the word “stupid” sometimes being exactly that, sometimes being “useless”, and sometimes being expressed through a flabbergasted facial expression.
I would also like to note that I was exposed to Han students with Uyghur language as their majors. At first, I was extremely excited to be exposed to these people - these were “the bridges” necessary to build some culturally-informed dialog between Han and Uyghurs, right? I chose to sit in on their classes and try to get to know them. I was disappointed. Most of them shared the same contempt for Uyghurs and the only reason they were studying Uyghur was they were forced by their parents (because it *is* a good job market - the government would rather have Uyghur speaking Han as cadres in Uyghur areas, rather than Han speaking Uyghurs) or because they did really shitty on their Gaokao and were forced to study there.
Finally, there are academics who are actively studying interethnic relations in China who are the least overtly racist but still nonetheless speak about Uyghurs in social darwinist terms about how the party is doing good things for the Uyghurs since they were so “undeveloped” (read: backwards) to figure out things for themselves before the Communists came.
Anyways, I don’t just stop at the conclusion that the “Han are racist.” I thought about it and I really place most of the blame on an education system with an unbridled political agenda which reaps political benefits from teaching social darwinist “survival of the fittest” world views. But I repeat myself, I talk about that in detail at the original Chinageeks post.
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Aisling Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I am ashamed to admit there is a group of gypsies in my home country that are equally looked down upon. If you were to tell me that you are going to study their culture and language i would be equally speechless. There are many derogatory names for these people and all are socially acceptable. I think we all have a certain amount of racism in our home countries if look closely enough. I for one am rethinking my view after reading your post.
many thanks for the research btw.
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This subject is just too sensitive. Don’t talk about it any more. I mean don’t ask such questions as “who’s racists?” or “is sb racist?”.
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Vincent, thanks for sharing. It is a very interesting experience, and it rings true to me from what I heard about and seen of Xinjiang (I spent just one week there).
And yet, there is something different between the Han’s “racism” and the Western one, something that makes the Han sound much worse than what their actions show. Just an example: how many Han racist riots did you witness while in Xinjiang? and how many do we have every year in almost any European country? Or how does the single-child policy exclusion for minorities match a Han racist mentality?
Looking at our past and recent history, the ever-rationalising Westerners have a far worse record of racism than the Han, who have always been more tolerant with other races/religions.
Thats the reason why I had this impression: that the Han racism you witnessed sounds so gross because Chinese common people don’t have the slightest notion of PC. They point at the legs of a handicapped person, or they scream “laowai” to a foreigner: bad habits, sure, but nothing to do with racism.
So perhaps if Uygurs are looked down upon by the Han, it is more for economic reasons than for racial hatred. And regarding the study of Uygur language, you would have got very similar response if you said you were there to study, say, the dialect of Jinyu, spoken by the Han of Shanxi.
Again, I don’t say that any of these behaviours are good, but just they are not purely “racist”, at least not as we understand this word in the West.
what do you think of this?
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Isa Reply:
January 29th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
@uln,
I just found this blog and find it really interesting, complete, well writen… congratulations, keep up with the good work.
However, I don’t agree in part of your vision in this article.
I agree with you in lingüistic terms, when stating what’s “racist”, in one hand, and what’s just paranoia resulting in a ridiculous sense of what is politically correct, in the other. Maybe it’s just a result of me being Spanish, which makes our standards regarding this somewhat similar.
But after living in China for some years, I’ve seen so many situations that I consider blantly racist, that making things relative just doesn’t work.
Tell me wether these situations wouldn’t sound racist to you:
1. The amount of job offers posted to local magazines in English looking for an American English native speaker… “Only white”.
2. I have a couple black African friends who sometimes have to say they’re American so people respect them, if only just a bit more. One of them had a Chinese girlfriend for a while, before her family forced her to leave him, because he was black -and bad, therefore.
3. I come from Andalusia, and as many people comng from around the Mediterranean, am often mistaken here for an Uygur (I live in Chengdu). If I’m wearing make-up, nice clothes and high heels, I’m suddenly Russian, English or German and treated like a queen, even over Chinese people around; but when I go to Carrefour in jeans and dirty running shoes, oh my…
People give me bad looks; I sometimes overhear comments like “be careful, there comes a Xinjiangren”; when I try to stop a taxi, no driver stops for me or they make excuses not to take me… next second, they take some Chinese with no previous comments; in a restaurant after a trekking, there was even a man who came over to my table and spilt all my -Andalusian- friends’ beers all over it as he mumbled something on Xinjiangren, again… and one day I was hit in an accident while crossing the street, and the excuse of the driver was: “sorry, I didn’t know you were a foreigner, you look a little like Xinjiang people”.
…Doesn’t all this sound racist enough?
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Well, first of all I didn’t mention my thoughts on racism in the West; I’ve got strong opinions on those, especially as a minority growing up in the American South, and so in no way am I in pointing out the degree and depth of racism in China excusing or lightening the culpability of racism, either in history or at present, in the West.
I think in one particular quality, however, Han racism is much worse than racism in the United States (I can’t speak for Europe) specifically because in China the racism is entirely unacknowledged. Many times - it got cliche, actually - right after a Han person told me how dirty and dangerous Uyghurs are I would ask them if “racism against Uyghurs” exist. Most people were *totally* oblivious to the connection I was trying to establish (i.e. you are a racist) and would say, “No, there is no racism in China; Uyghurs get extra points added to the gaokao and can have more kids.”
There is so much wrong with this. In the South, I heard similar complaints about “affirmative action” for blacks, but both of these complaints are really bad because they give racists an “excuse” to say that the social wrongs that have been and are being perpetuated against blacks and Uyghurs are effectively “solved.” It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the centuries of oppression against blacks in the US and the extremely systematic oppression the Uyghurs are undergoing currently are by no means compensated by a few points added to a college entrance exam. Nonetheless, this type of political “excuse providing” is extremely insidious because the Chinese government, by allowing Uyghurs to have one extra kid, believe they are demonstrating how humane they are and essentially absolving themselves of their responsibility to address the deeper, structural inequalities that exist in Xinjiang (like the ones that lead to most Uyghurs not even wanting to or being able to go to college in the first place).
I strongly disagree with another one of your statements: the West isn’t more PC because racism was “worse” in the West than in China, the West is more PC because the West is in far less denial about its racist problem than China is. Both China and the West have socially debilitating racism problems. China is in denial about it, the West at times has the opposite problem where it is “too PC.” But I’d rather be “too PC” and be aware of the problem than to blind myself to it. The Han have by no measure been “more tolerant” of other races and religions.
How many “race riots” did I witness when I was in Xinjiang? Well, when I was in Xinjiang there were widespread riots in Khotan that were crushed. When I was a Xinjiang there was an attempted student protest in Urumqi that was crushed by the police before it could even happen. That there are more race riots in the West than in China says less about the “nature of racism” in these places and more about the fact that China is an undemocratic police state and the Western countries aren’t. Trust me, if in Xinjiang there were freedom to assemble, and there certainly isn’t, there would be WAY more expressions of discontent by the Uyghurs because of the racist way the Han of the area treat them. Race riots don’t happen in Xinjiang because they’re not allowed to.
How does the single child policy exclusion effect Han racism? The Han people *celebrate* that minorities have more children. Like I mentioned above, the exclusion is a policy that is drilled into the *Han* students of Xinjiang as a way they are lead to believe that the minorities in the region are “treated fairly.” This leads Han to be racist *not* because they are jealous, but for different reasoning: “We give them extra points and extra kids and they’re STILL dirty and dangerous and lazy.” It doesn’t cause the racism. It enhances already existing racism.
Where does the racism come from? Like I said in the last comment and the comment I linked to above, I really blame it on the education system. Remember this, when Han in Xinjiang are educated *in Xinjiang*, one of the goals of the unabashedly politically motivated education system is to justify both to Uyghur and Han youth the Chinese control of Xinjiang. There are many justifications - historical (Zhang Qian), economic, political, territorial sovereignty, etc. All of these are hammered into the children as they grow up. But the deeper underlying theme is a strongly social darwinist approach that glorifies “survival of the fittest” and strongly states that the reason China occupies the Uyghur homeland is that the CCP is enlightened and scientific and the Uyghurs are backwards, superstitious, and religious. Therefore, China is justified in its sovereignty over Xinjiang partially because the Uyghurs deserve it and need the enlightened guidance of the CCP (which is overwhelmingly Han). The natural byproduct of this kind of education is indeed racism. “Look at those dumb Uyghurs. Where would they be without us. Those stupid, backwards, dangerous (Islam) Uyghurs.” That’s where the racism come from; the Han are educated to think that way, and they are educated that way for the reason - it provides the CCP with political capital to enforce its will on the region.
I also disagree with your allegation that Western racism is “purer” and that Chinese racism is more “economic.” My retort is that there is no such thing as “pure” racism. Racism has reasons. It was the socially sensible thing to devalue blacks and consider them as inferior because *economically speaking* they were being imported from Africa as free labor to support the *economy*. When your abusing human resources to provide the backbreaking work for your cotton based *economy* of course you’re going to be a racist because your world has to make sense, and the reason the guy I’m whipping is picking my cotton is because he’s “inferior” and I’m “superior.” That’s economic. That’s not the ENTIRE reason for racism, but it’s part of it. Same in China: there are *economic* incentives to think Uyghurs are dumb and inferior. It justifies the CCP coming in and “saving” them and it also justifies the CCP sucking the oil and natural gas out of the grounds the Uyghurs live on and shipping them to the east because the Uyghurs naturally are “too dumb” to figure out how to use these industrial resources in the first place.
From this standpoint, there is no qualitative difference between Chinese and Western racism: there is no such thing as “pure” or “purer” racism and both are motivated by a whole slew of cultural, economic, and political factors. The real difference is that in the West we are learning to acknowledge are racism and trying to overcome it whereas in China everyone ignores its existence and therefore allows it to reign with impunity. Part of the reason for this “denial” in China is because the sole, unopposed ruling authority, the CCP, reaps benefits from this latent racism and there are no outlets - no elections, no free media, no right to protest - for the victims of racism to fix the problem.
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FOARP Reply:
March 25th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Word. Efforts to combat racism here in the UK often smacks of tokenism as well, and sometimes seems somewhat misdirected (cf. the Sri Lankan post-master who was labelled ‘racist’ for insisting that customers were spoken to in English) but at least constitutes a program which is making some progress. Chinese politicians either consider racism non-existent, or so unimportant as to not be worth discussing.
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“Looking at our past and recent history, the ever-rationalising Westerners have a far worse record of racism than the Han, who have always been more tolerant with other races/religions”
What is this, CCP propaganda? Give China a couple hundred years, they’ll have their novels and movies about slave ships too one day.
Vincent, you go girl! You lay down the law!
I’d like to thumb-up this notion of ‘they are the stupid’ ‘we are the cultured/evolved’, ‘where would they be without us/since we are more advanced, we have the right, etc, etc.” This is about right in many cases. As evidenced by comments like ‘xu’. There’s this idea of oneself, the chinese ‘group’ and how that ranks with others, and how the chinese/culture civilization is doing (even if at the current moment it is not high, for example). So, you get these commenters who, like the one at china geeks, who talked about 成功主义 versus the failures. So you get ‘难听 comments like ‘the jews’ or ‘the jews of china’, which treat race/ethnicity in a rather unpleasant context for some readers. But that is really only one element of racial equation. It works for the xinjiang case, and many others, but not necessarily for the kind of feelings chinese have say, when they see a black person, or a black or white person with a person of asian descent on the street or a restaurant (romantically, we’ll say). Then you get caught up in issues of ‘nationalism’ and ‘racism.’ And can we really forget that this is a country that thinks black and dark skin are undesirable, and that they are ugly? That people for no reason other than just growing up here feel ‘scared’ or ‘don’t’ like black people for no reason they can come up with other than skin color, or ghosts or some nonsense like that
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Case in point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302935.html
From the article:
“Now, this labyrinth of ancient courtyard homes and narrow, winding streets is endangered by the latest government plan to modernize a way of life that officials consider dangerous and backward.”
This is many things, and racism is one of them.
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A bit of commentary on your point #2 above:
I’m pretty sure the Spanish b-ball team were not being racist (I thought it was a stupid joke) and speaking with people in Chengdu, they didn’t think anything of the gesture. However, I grew up in Canada and I did experience other kids making slant-eyes and calling me a “Chink.” Juvenile, but racist nevertheless. Friends growing up in the US also share similar experiences. Maybe this is a unique case where the gesture is definitely racist to a third party (Chinese people in North America) but not to either the Spanish nor Chinese people in China.
I guess an analogy would be a Chinese person calling an African the N-word (a HUGE taboo here in the US) because they read it in Huckleberry Finn. This is not too far-fetched since I saw it in a English textbook created in China. It may not mean anything to the Chinese or the African person but every African-American would think Chinese people are racists. Does it matter? Maybe this reflects more on race relations in the US/Canada.
Anyway, the point is I don’t think you can blame coverage of this on the “anglo-saxon press” trying to create conflict.
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@totochi - I agree that making fun of a racial physical difference is dumb, just as it is dumb and sometimes cruel to make fun of a fat person, for example. But although we know obesity can be a sensitive subject, we have loads of jokes about fat guys, and as long as they are not directed to one person in particular it is usually OK. That is just common sense, I would say, not PC.
Racism, as I understand it, is about maintaining that one race is superior to others. So you can understand above comment by Xu as racist. But saying things like “asians have slanted eyes” or “black guys have curly hair” are just stating the obvious, and I cannot see how this is negative unless it is taken on purpose to make an offense of it.
Re PC: We have come to a point now where referring to someone as “that black guy” has become offensive, which is absurd. But anyway, PC in the West is what it is and I don’t intend to change it here. My post was rather about whether we are looking at China through are own PC goggles, which perhaps is not very fair on them.
Re: “anglo-saxon” press: yes, this bit sounds a weird. I was going to say Anglo-American press but then I realized it is an Australian who owns an important part of the cake. I guess “english-speaking” would have been more accurate.
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Uln, I tend to agree with you that, in my personal experience, the term “racial consciousness” may be more accurate than “racism.” I don’t think I had any “racial consciousness” before I moved to the US.
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@HSK - “Looking at our past and recent history, the ever-rationalising Westerners have a far worse record of racism than the Han, who have always been more tolerant with other races/religions”.
Get yourself a History book man. I think this statement is so obviously true that I don’t even need to start giving examples. And if you think I am a CPC member, then perhaps you can tell me why my posts get blocked by the f**n Nanny regularly.
Anyway, good luck with your HSK.
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To Vincent
I think you are generalizing about the whole thing, and maybe misleading. I agree with ULN on the issue of Xinjiang, it’s more about money than race. It’s not racism but snobbism and snobbism can be observed throughout the country, not only between Hans and minorities but also among Hans ourselves. The last dynasty was established by Man people. The first half of it is viewed as the greatest period in China’s history and Emperor Kangxi is respected by Hans sincerely. The second half of it was a debacle, but people don’t blame it on race but on the close-door policy. The disharmony in Xinjiang is hard to explain, but racism is by no means the reason. Look at the rest of the country, Hans are living with minorities harmoniously. The main factor in people’s opinion about you is not what ethnic group you belong to, but how much money you have, how educated you are, to put it simply, it’s all about your social status, it’s downright snobbism, not racism.
As regards my previous comment, I admit it’s wrong as ULN pointed out. In fact, I always have a guilty conscience with this kind of idea. It’s wrong to measure one’s ability by using his achievements as the sole yardstick. I think that way because there are a lot of things I just can not figure out the reason. Why are African people so good at dancing and athletics? Why are white people so good at swimming and why are Chinese so good at table tennis while when it comes to man’s soccer, we just can’t help losing match after match? Do these really have nothing to do with race?
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I find it extremely hard to believe that the Uyghurs don’t have any racist stuff to say about the Hans. But hey the Hans are always the bad guys, right?
Vincent’s conclusion that the problem has much to do with the commies is simplistic. I suggest him study race relations in Japan and Korea.
I distinctly remember UN officials publicly criticized Japan for racist discrimination against its minorities, including the Ainu, Koreans, Chinese and, alas, blacks. Now, personally I don’t think China is better than Japan, but at least in the case of Japan you don’t have the time-honored excuse to conveniently blame it on the commies.
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Xu:
You didn’t read my comment through. If you did, you’d see that I made the case that ALL racism, including that by the Han against the Uyghurs, is motivated in part by economic factors. Which nullifies your criticism of my observations. There is no such thing as “pure racism.” All racism flows from a complex array of economic, political, and cultural factors.
As for other minorities living “in harmony” with the Han in other parts of China, it has less to do with the factors you discussed and more to do with the degree of cultural assimilation the Han have achieved for any certain group. The Uyghurs and the Tibetans live far further from the traditional Han center. They have cultural identities further removed from Han culture than, say, the Manchu or the Mongols. By being closer, minorities like the Manchu and the Zhuang have been exposed to Han culture longer and have been under the influence of Han assimilation programs for a longer period of time. From a demographic point of view, it has been far easier to inundate Inner Mongolia with a huge Han population than Xinjiang and Tibet: in Inner Mongolia, now only 1 in 8 people are actually Mongolian. They’re “harmonious” because they’ve been utterly inundated with Han people, speak Han Chinese, and have little left of their own culture and language. They’re “harmonious” at the cost of sacrificing their own cultural identity. It’s no secret that this same cultural assimilation is being attempted in Xinjiang and Tibet. In 1905, only 5% of Xinjiang was Han, but after they built railroads to the area, now 50% of the area’s population is Han. Once that number reaches 70, 80%, the Uyghurs will be “harmonized” not because they wanted to but because the sheer force of numbers completely submerged any separate cultural identity the Uyghurs possessed. Look at the article I posted above. They’re demolishing old Kashgar.
Wooddoo:
Racism exists everywhere. I don’t blame the commies for causing racism, I blame them for exaggerating it for political gain through the education system. Since China, unlike Japan, is under total one-party rule, and the education system in China places heavier emphasis on political indoctrination, the Communist government is more culpable for allowing the problem of racism to continue unabated. As long as China is not a democracy, the responsibility for combating racism lies with “the commies” and they have wholly shirked this responsibility for political gain (typical for the party, actually).
Since my understanding is that the Party is enhancing racism for fun and profit (the Chinese ALWAYS thought the people outside the great wall were hairy, uncouth barbarians, way before the Party existed), then your analogs of Japan and Korea are totally irrelevant. I’ve already admitted in a previous post that my own home country has racism. Racism exists everywhere, your observations are totally moot. Violence exists everywhere too; if I said the Communist Party was responsible for most of the violence during the Cultural Revolution, would you point out violence carried out by the Japanese then, too? Even if you did, it wouldn’t change the fact that the Party, indeed, caused most of the violence during the Cultural Revolution, even though “violence” occurs everywhere.
So Japan, Korea, whatever. My point still stands. In the political, economic, and cultural configuration of Modern China, the Party is culpable for encouraging, rather than combating, racism, because by doing so they receive political capital for obliterating the cultural identity of the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, and all the other “harmonized” minorities Xu likes to bring up.
P.S. Yeah, the Uyghurs are racist against the Han, too. But the Han are in power, so their racism is more dangerous. The moment Uyghur racism is capable of destroying Han cultural identity, you can rest assured I’ll come out for the little guy. Also, I grant the Uyghurs the right to be bitter at the Han for what the Han are doing in Xinjiang.
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To Vincent
Are we talking about racism? Racism, according to ULN’s definition, means “maintaining that one race is superior to others”, but my understanding of your opinion is that you equate the immigration of Hans with racism. “All Hans should leave Xinjiang and Tibet, otherwise it’s racism.” Do I misinterpret you? I don’t want to quarrel with you about Hans immigration, I just think it’s a completely diffrent issue.
As regards the WaPo story, I have to say that’s the typical way they report China-related news, ie “Everything happend in Tibet or Xinjiang is the evidence of the evilness of Chinese rule”. Take a look at this passage from an article published on the same WaPo website which is about tibetan Buddhism’s third most senior figure, Karmapa Lama, who has been living with Dailai Lama for nearly 10 years since he left Tibet.
“For a living Buddha and one of Tibet’s next spiritual leaders, the 23-year-old Karmapa Lama hardly conforms to Western notions of a monastic figure. He spends many of his afternoons in his wine-colored robe, head-bobbing to hip-hop music on his iPod or releasing “negative energy,” as he calls it, playing war games on his PlayStation. ”
You can figure out the double standard. If Karmapa Lama is a ordinary Tibetan living in Lasa, I bet he will be reported by WaPo as the evidence of the “disappearing Tibetan culture and identity”.
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Yep, Xu, you are misinterpreting me.
The problem with you and other people who are refusing to confront the real issues at hand is a strong tendency to oversimplify what are in reality extremely complex issues. If you’ve been bothering to read and understand my comments, you’d notice that a continuing theme I am laying out is that racism never acts alone in a vacuum but often works in tandem with other economic, political, and cultural factors (<-I have repeated this statement for the second time, because you are not listening.).
There is nothing wrong with immigration by itself, but immigration is not equal no matter where it is practiced in the world, and the Han immigration into Xinjiang is, in its specific circumstances, a racist immigration. Han Chinese are moving in huge numbers to Xinjiang, destroying traditional Uyghur communities, using up all the natural resources in Xinjiang that are rightfully the Uyghurs’, obtaining a disproportionate amount of profit from economic ventures in Xinjiang, are getting access to the best schools, the best hospitals, etc.
Why is Han immigration so lopsided and so damaging to the Uyghur lifestyle? First of all, as I’ve said many times, we have to remember that China is not a democracy but a one-party government, so much culpability for Han immigration being this negative lies with the government - the creation of the XPCC, the Sinopec monopoly over oil, monetary incentives for Han Chinese to move to Xinjiang, monetary incentives for Han Chinese who marry Uyghurs.
However, most importantly we must acknowledge one of the underlying reasons that this immigration is practices so poorly and unfairly is that there is an overarching belief among most Han in Xinjiang that the race of the Han is superior to the race of the Uyghurs which coincidentally happens to fit within your narrow definition of what racism is. The operating belief is actually encouraged by the CCP because it provides a justification for robbing the Uyghurs of their land, resources, and culture; if Han culture is superior, it is the natural right of the Han to do exactly what they are doing in Xinjiang. A Han shopowner saying Uyghurs are dirty, lazy, and dangerous (and they do) is racism. Well, if a huge proportion of the Han population hold beliefs like this (and they do), their certainly will be large, social consequences for the Uyghurs, and one of them is overwhelmingly negative impact of the Han migration which is a result of the Han thinking the Uyghurs deserve it anyway. That is racism.
Can immigration not be racist? Absolutely. If the Peoples Republic of China actually PRACTICED the ESTABLISHED law of autonomy for minorities in the Xinjiang AUTONOMOUS Uyghur Region, and gave the minorities the AUTONOMY to control their own resources, to be masters of their own education, to decide the fate of their own natural and cultural resources, and to set limits on migration to the area, then THAT would be non-racist immigration. In that case, Han immigration is fair and and positive since the people native to Xinjiang have their own say over how that migration may proceed. China need only to follow its own laws, but they don’t. The autonomy that’s supposed to be granted to minorities in Xinjiang does not exist. The migration is racist.
In conclusion, immigration is not inherently racist. I never argued that, that’s a only a product of your tendency to oversimplify complex social issues. Immigration is not necessarily racist. However, it CAN be racist and in Xinjiang it is. Racism is always present alongside a myriad political, economic, and cultural factors.
As for your Karamapa Lama point, allow me to laugh at how ridiculous this is: hahahahahahahaha. Double standard? Are you kidding me?
Are you seriously comparing a Buddhist monk, living in a democratic country, electing with his own free will to adopt Western norms and technology, with Uyghurs in an authoritarian state being FORCED to vacate their homes and watched them be destroyed by a government they didn’t endorse or elect?
If someone has screwed up standards, it’s you.
I believe in everyone’s right to be in charge of their own lives. If an individual from a traditional culture like the Karmapa Lama CHOOSES to do something that goes against his traditional culture, that’s FINE by me if he CHOOSES to do so under his own FREE WILL. Choice doesn’t exist in Xinjiang, and many of the unhappy Uyghurs are unhappy because if given the CHOICE they would CHOOSE to retain their traditional lifestyle and they are not even given that CHOICE because racist Han think the Uyghurs are too dumb and backwards to make choices on their own. There’s no double standard here. This is not even comparable.
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@Vincent
Well said. We need more thoughtful comments like yours. I tried to participate in the debate at China Geeks, but it is pointless.
I have also been to Xinjiang and I left the place with the impression that they Uighurs are exposed to a not-so-subtle assilimation program. I was trying to find some books about the Uighur language and I soon realized that is was easier to find an Italian-Chinese dictionary than anything related to Uighur. And I will never forget the disapproving faces of the shop assistants when I asked for the books. What I found most depressing that many local Han Chinese seemed to be completely oblivious to the implication that they just might be racist towards Uighurs.
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@Vincent
WOW! A lot of accusations you are throwing around here. I haven’t seen any hard evidence besides your anecdotes.
“… there is an overarching belief among most Han in Xinjiang that the race of the Han is superior to the race of the Uyghurs …”,
“Well, if a huge proportion of the Han population hold beliefs like this (and they do), their certainly will be large, social consequences for the Uyghurs, and one of them is overwhelmingly negative impact of the Han migration which is a result of the Han thinking the Uyghurs deserve it anyway…”
When you make sweeping accusations like that, you’d better provide some evidences to back them up.
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Oh, I’d love to do formal research, but the Chinese government doesn’t allow formal anthropological or sociological research by foreign social scientists in Xinjiang. There’s been some research done on the topic but those scientists are unable to reenter China because they’re never able to procure visas after they publish.
They do that because they have a lot to hide and so hacks like you can accuse me of “not having evidence.” We can get the evidence, your Han pals in the CCP, Chen, aren’t letting us.
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That is soooo convenient…
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And I think you work for RFA, and you are here to sow discord. See, I can make accusations too.
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Convenient? Yeah. Convenient for the Party to claim ethnic harmony within their borders then prevent third party academics from doing any qualitative or quantitative research in the area, then accuse Western intellectuals of having no “evidence” when the outright racism of Han in Xinjiang is pointed out by anyone who visits.
I don’t grant a lot of intellectual capacity to you, but it takes more thinking than the usual fifty-center can afford to realize that the utter refusal by the government for academics to do social research is actually a form of evidence in and of itself. It indicates that there is something to hide, and if Xinjiang is the multi-ethnic utopia you and other Han people think it is then the opposite situation of academic openness should exist.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/14/china
Also, anecdotes are STILL a form of evidence. Only sophomoric “internet intellectuals” like yourself refuse to see any subtlety or nuance beyond the “show me evidence” magic trick. What are you, in high school?
Convenient? Yes, convenient for you to deploy a trite, cliche “show me the evidence” trick without any exploration whatsoever of what I said or the points I made. That’s intellectual laziness.
Oh, and:
Becquelin, 2000, Xinjiang in the Ninties
Bovingdon, 2002, The Not So Silent Majority
Baranovitch, 2003, From the Margins to the Center
Fuller and Starr, 2003, The Xinjiang Problem
Yee, 2003, Ethnic Relations in Xinjiang
Bovingdon, 2004, Autonomy in Xinjiang
Dwyer, 2005, The Xinjiang Conflict
Yee, 2005, Ethnic Consciousness and Identity
Hierman, 2007, the Pacification of Xinjiang
Are good places to start. But you’re not in it for the learning, so I’m pretty sure you won’t even bother.
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Oh, I work for the RFA, do I now? Is this witty quip analogous to what I’ve done? No.
Let’s imagine that you’ve seen me walking into the RFA headquarters every morning. THAT would make your “RFA quip” analogous. Let’s say you use that to accuse me of being a worker for being an RFA.
Then, I say, that’s an “anecdote” and not “evidence,” willfully ignoring that anecdotes ARE a form of evidence. That’s basically how retarded what YOU’RE doing is.
If you’re going to offer an analogy as a witty retort, make it a RELEVANT analogy. When we make this analogy relevant, though, we just see how stupid YOUR arguments are.
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Oh, I get it. The Chinese government denies visa to some reaserchers, so that proves the following accusations?
“… there is an overarching belief among most Han in Xinjiang that the race of the Han is superior to the race of the Uyghurs …”,
“Well, if a huge proportion of the Han population hold beliefs like this (and they do), their certainly will be large, social consequences for the Uyghurs, and one of them is overwhelmingly negative impact of the Han migration which is a result of the Han thinking the Uyghurs deserve it anyway…”
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My “anecdotes” and many of the papers I cited above (some of them with survey research) prove it, you’re more than welcome to read them. The Chinese government denying visas to almost every foreign researcher who writes negatively on the ethnic situation in Xinjiang just reveals how insecure the government is about the truth on the ground.
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Oh, and it’s not just Western researchers, too, Chinese writers also unintentionally verify many of my conclusions in China. I refer to “Xinjiang of China: Its Past and Present” written by Li Sheng and available in both English and Chinese. Much of it is filled with this teleological justification for Chinese rule of China, celebrating all the advances and development the Han have brought to the Uyghurs that they would have otherwise not gotten without the enlightened rule of the Party. The book doesn’t outright say that the Uyghurs are inferior but there’s enough rewritten history and social darwinist reasoning in the book to see that even the Chinese government adopts this paternalistic attitude towards local minorities, giving them what they need as a father would give a poor, misguided child. After all, Western racism against blacks was often justified in a cool-tempered, “scientific” way by Western scientists citing “evolution” as a justification for the colonization of Africa.
So it’s not just Western researchers. Chinese writers voicing the official views of the government are hilariously and unintentionally underscoring the fact that the overwhelmingly Han government thinks that the Uyghurs “need” the Han.
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I don’t have an argument. There is no way for us to verify you anecdotes. I just want to see some proof of your sweeping accusations.
And thanks for the information. However, many of the articles you provided require user accounts, since you are so familiar with these studies, could you please save us some time, copy and paste some information to support the accusations I quoted above? I am only interested in those two.
Thanks.
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User accounts? You’re obviously a high-power intellectual so you or at least several of your comrades must have a user account. I absolutely can’t believe based on the caliber of your arguments that you’re some sort of armchair dilettante. Don’t be lazy, find a friend to get the pdf for you.
And no, I’m not going to be your librarian lap dog and do the reading you SHOULD be doing to be an educated commentator on Xinjiang affairs. Racism by Han against Uyghurs is an extremely complex social phenomenon that has historical, economic, and political roots. The articles above explore the issue from a variety of standpoints and provide a holistic, integrated case for the existence of racism in Xinjiang that is far more persuasive than any one media bite you’re looking for. Racism in China cannot be condensed into one or two damn quotes just like racism in American couldn’t. That’s ridiculous and again a sign of intellectual laziness on your part reducing complex social phenomenon to Baby Einstein versions that you can handle. I’ve opened the door for you by providing you academic resources, I’m not going to hold your hand and guide you through it. This is a blog, not a classroom or an academic conferences. I’m commenting on the original article based on my own personal experiences. If someone asks for evidence, I point them in the direction of the evidence. I’m not going put a bib on you and feed it to you in partially digested chunks. Ball’s in your court.
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I just want a survey or any statistics that shows “there is an overarching belief among most Han in Xinjiang that the race of the Han is superior to the race of the Uyghurs.” Is that so hard???
I actually read a couple of the articles but I could not find anything to support that accusation. All the so-called “evidence” you provided are about how the CCP try to justify it’s rule over Xinjiang and how they try to assimilate the Uhygurs, but what does that have anything to do with ordinary Han people? And where do these papers say Han think they are superior to the race of the Uyghurs?
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To Vincent
As you instructed, I tried my best to read and understand your comment (really challenging for me) only to come to that conclusion again, ie all your want to say is “Han migration=racism”.
Your points can be summarized as follows:
Hans in Xinjiang are racists. Why? Because they monopoly all the resources and profits and a shopkeeper has said somesthing disrespectful about Uyghurs. What’s the remedy? Democracy.
I don’t misunderstand you, do I?
First, do Hans monopoly all the resources and profits? If you insist, I won’t argue with you although I’m inclined to believe that it takes a lot more than a suave anthropologist to tell. Doubtlessly, in some hospitals you will find more Han patients and in some schools more Han students, but can this serve as a evidence of racism? I don’t think so. As long as all ethnic groups have the equal right of access, it’s not racism. your mentioning these as the evidence of racism only strengthen my understanding about your point, “Han migration=racism”.
As regards the shopkeepers remarks, I suggest you take a look at yourself before making accusations. The following are what comed out of your mouth:
“but it takes more thinking than the usual fifty-center can afford to realize that…
“Only sophomoric “internet intellectuals” like yourself refuse to see any subtlety or nuance beyond the “show me evidence” magic trick. What are you, in high school?
“we just see how stupid YOUR arguments are.
“I’m not going put a bib on you and feed it to you in partially digested chunks”
If an ill-educated shopkeeper can be called a racist for his inappropriate remarks, then what should we call you? Racist, too, right? If you disagree, do you have any alternative? You sound like you’re a fighter of racism, but deep in your heart, you’re just the same as that shopkeeper. You think you’re superior to Chen. Intentionally or unintentionally, you’re practicing what you’re condemning. I would have considered your remarks as snobbism, but you told me that racism has a broader definition and often “works in tandem with other economic, political, and cultural factors”, so I think I have no choice but call your remarks racist.
Now let’s go to your remedy which is democracy. Can democracy redress racism? I don’t know, but I remember that a black gentleman(sorry,forgot who he is and what occasion he was on, it’s a CNN video and it’s a big gathering related with the presidential election, so he must be an VIP) said a few months ago that “we still have a dream.” Whether China should adopt western style democracy is a question that a lot of Chinese are thinking about. Your advice would be appreciated.
“Are you seriously comparing a Buddhist monk, living in a democratic country, electing with his own free will to adopt Western norms and technology, with Uyghurs in an authoritarian state being FORCED to vacate their homes and watched them be destroyed by a government they didn’t endorse or elect?”
So you’re sure the Uyghurs are being FORCED to vacate their homes? How do you know? Have you been monitoring the whole process? How many residents have you been talking to? Don’t you think it’s a little bit irresponsible for you, a scientist, to base your conclusion on a newsreport? From March 1 to 24, 16 earthquakes, above Ritcher scale 3, have been registered in Xinjiang, if you’re the governor, what would you do? Would you stand aside and watch those residents living in the shoddily-built communities so that once they are buried under the rubbles you can be described by WaPo as an “evil communist government official”?
Your scorn of my comparison only demonstrate your way of thinking, “the western values, if not interests, is the only criterion to make judgement. Anything that is in line with western values is correct, otherwise it’s ridiculous and laughable.”
Good luck.
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simple math - china has 1/4 of the worlds population and 1/4 of the worlds racists.
yeah its simplistic, but it works for pretty well anything
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@jed - yeah, great logic. I prefer to use it like this: the internet has 1/4 of the worlds retards, and 1/4 of the worlds trolls. Simplistic, yes, but it works fine to understand comments like yours.
@Xu - wow. I am amazed, I didn’t know you were able to write your arguments so well in English. Keep up the good work!
@others - Thanks a lot for your comments. I take note of some interesting points of view.
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I know someone from Beijing who received post-graduate education (2 degrees) here in Canada, and has worked here for 10 years. He argues that the Chinese are simply morally superior to everyone else simply by virture of being Chinese. And I see this attitude expressed more and more on the internet.
I prefer now to talk about cultural or ethnic chauvanism — China in this respect is no different than any other imperially-oriented state(civilizing Tibet or the Uyghurs are the most obvious examples, and in this way it is no different than Victorian Britain). The concern with contemporary China, is, I no longer think, that it is so different, but rather that it believes itself to be uniquely different when it behaves no differently than others . In international affairs I am reminded then of the classic security dilemma — each side sees itself as acting in self-defence and those same actions are perceived as aggressive by the other.
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SO MANY COMMENTS HERE (AND THEY ARE ALL TOO LONG TO READ). JUST SKIP THEM ALL AND LEAVE MY POINT HERE:
HOW TO DEFINE RACISM AND EVEN RACE DEPENDS ON THE CONTEXT.
THE FACT THAT ”PC” AS A NORM WAS ORIGINATED FROM US (AND UK TO SOME EXTENT) DOES SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE HISTORIC LINK TO ITS CONNOTATION.
CHINESE DO RECOGNIZE THE RACIAL DIFFERENCES FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, HOWEVER, BASED ON WHAT IS WRITTEN IN HISTORY BOOK (AS WELL AS IN FOLKLORE STORIES, TAKE THEM AS NON OFFICIAL RECORD), PEOPLE WITH DISTINGUISHED NON-MONGOLIAN LOOK DIDNOT RECEIVE THE SAME TYPE OF “RACISM” AS DEMONSTRATED IN TODAY’S WESTERN COUNTRIES. PROBABLY CAUCASIAN /CENTRAL ASIAN-LOOKING PEOPLE WERE TOO RARE TO BE IDENTIFIED AS A THREAT.
PUTTING THAT ASIDE, WOULD LIKE TO PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE FOR THE “MEANING-OUT-OF-CONTEXT” HERE: A GIRL FRIEND OF MINE ONCE DISCUSSED WITH ME AND AN EUROPEAN EUROPEAN. SHE SAID SOMETHIN BLUNTLY THAT CHINESE GIRLS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN LONGING TO BE “WHITER”. THROUGHOUT THAT DISCUSSION, WE BOTH REALIZED THAT SINCE WE WERE USING ENGLISH, THE WORD “WHITER” PROBABLY WAS UNDERSTOOD BY US AS THE SAME MEANING OF THE COLOR AS IN THE SKIN COLOR OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE.
WHILE CHINESE ALL KNOW THAT, THE “WHITE SKIN” THAT CHINESE GIRLS TRADITIONALLY ADORE IS NOT RELATED TO THE “WHITE SKIN” OF CAUCACIAN RACE. PEOPLE HERE USED THAT TERM TO DESCRIBE IT EVEN BACK TO THE TIME THAT CHINESE DIDN’T KNOW THERE WERE WHITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
WELL, OF COURSE, YOU CAN SAY THAT IT’S JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE THAT “BE WHITE” IS SUPERIOS EVEN BEFORE THE CHINESE KNOW THERE ARE WHITE PEOPLE. IN THIS REGARD, CHINEARE ARE REALLY RACIST INDEED!
HAVE A NICE DAY.
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well , not racist to westerns, but some look down to other Chinese..especailly shanghai guys..they really don’t like others…
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Let me see.
The Chinese took over Tibet and oppressed the Tibetans, steal their lands and look down on them is one of the most racist thing that they ever did. In fact no other race have ever done something this racist before.
They also took over Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inner Mongolia and pretty much Africa and they think it is their rightful choice to take over these countries because as long as they are Chinese, then they can never be a racist.
Just look how they even kill any other Chinese who support Japanese products, they look down on Vietnamese and often frame them to make them look bad, they also exploited the black community.BTW, do not buy Chinese products
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The Chinese are really smart, if they want to kill you then they will make sure that no one will see it. Instead of showing off their racist side they will pretend to be acceptance so they can accuses the White for being racist against them. Following this strategy they can have mass immigrants to take over the Western countries and eventually the whole world.
Everyone need to do researches on the Chinese people every once awhile, because these types of people will put their beneficial on the top priority.
Chinese people by nature are extremely racist and malicious but their intellectuals and experiences will help them to cover it and it will help them to make a lot of money. I’ve encounter a lot of racist Chinese in Australia and they always do it secretly like putting something disgusting onto the meal, spitting on it or making it disgusting when they are serving it to the customers they are racist against. Who knows? they would be extremely friendly and might as well take a big laugh because whose the one eating those filthy dishes and pay for it? well it’s a cheap meal.
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Chinese DO NOT TAKE IMMIGRANTS!!! aren’t they racist?. Their multiculturalism comes from their land expansion but not through immigrations. The Chinese have massive immigrations to other countries in the world but they rarely take any immigrants into their country unless it is part of the strategy to do so.
You remember if China have 50 ethnic minority then therefore they have invaded 50 countries in the past which made up China we see today. They only have African immigrants because they just want to exploit more resources and cheap labor from Africa and pretty much taking over Africa politically.
Another question you will need to ask about the Chinese is “why does the Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Indian and even Chinese people within China hate Chinese so much?”, throughout my knowledge of East Asian the Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Mongolian are related to Chinese and they practice the same cultures as well as having massive Chinese immigrants but they still hating the Chinese so much?
It’s not because the Chinese committed so many genocides to them but also because they are extremely racist against these people.
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First of all, let me say that my impression is that Xu is of Chinese ethnicity (I extrapolate this from the moderator’s comment on his rebuttals being written so well in English), and that he’s probably much, much better at English than most of us here. His arguments aren’t over-winded (as Vincent’s are and mine, most probably, will be), to the point, and clearly convey his point of view. Bravo, Xu- you’re a wonderful writer.
Vincent, your skills in writing are in a much different vein- you arm yourself with a very, very large vocabulary and complex sentences (as I often do) to, essentially, beat a dead horse. While your positions are interesting, you do indeed seem to blow hot air and never, not once, extend any effort to prove yourself correct. The chance for you to say “I was right, see, read this, Na na na na na na” was presented to you on a platinum-lined platter, and what do you do? You sneer “And no, I’m not going to be your librarian lap dog and do the reading you SHOULD be doing to be an educated commentator on Xinjiang affairs.” If I’m not mistaken, he didn’t ask you to read it to him like some bedtime story, did he? He asked for you to present your “facts” and “evidence” that you’ve been “reading.” The only evidence you’ve clearly presented is that you’re reading “Untitled” in Notepad.
However, as this discussion is dead (presumably for only a few months, though it could be a year or more), Xu effectively appears to have done what you haven’t- provided something concrete. That would be that you, quite frankly, are talking out of your ass so well people should be selling tickets.
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Jack Uphill Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
@Will
Bull. Neither Xu nor Vincent has provided any proof of their claims. No statistics, no studies, no research. While this conversation started off interesting, it quickly devolved into a case of phallus fencing. You’re just jumping on the bandwagon, hoping to get the last word in.
But in all this hub-bub, at the very least Vincent’s basic ‘LERN 2 READ N00B!’ argument has piqued my curiosity. I’m going to put a mental bookmark in this conversation and try to find if there are any anthropological or ethnographic studies on Xinjiang, both Chinese and non-Chinese. I’ll start with the UC library system (a bit of boosterism for my alma mater, for those that are curious. ;p)
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18
PM
Wow, bravo to this post.
It seems that what happened in July or shall I say, “what is happening now” in Xinjiang, was predicted through out this thread.
Here are my two cents on this issue.
When I read through those comments, questions like how Han Chinese consider other minorities were mostly discussed. But how about the Uighur? Tibetan? Mongol? and other so called minorities? What do these people think about their Lau Da Ge? I think this should be equally discussed.
By the way, I notice that most comments were from Han people and Westerners. I only see one Uighur (or claims to be Uighur) posted a comment, which is pretty much ignored. So I feel that I might add some different ingredients to the discussion.
As an Uighur, I think I know what most Uighurs think of Han people. Infidel, Dirty, Greedy, and godless creatures(no kidding). They came and settle down and within a couple of years, they exterminate most of the wild animals(rabbits, hogs, foxes even fishes) around their villages. They don’t have any respect for the nature. They don’t even plant any trees or flowers in their back yards, etc etc.
You see Uighurs look down at Chinese too. I always wonder how can we live together in peace with so many prejudice and stereotyped concepts toward each other.
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