Martin Jacques - When China Rules the World

So what of racism in China itself? When a people and government are in denial of their own racism, then evidence of that racism depends on the witness of those who are the object of it and, as a consequence, predominantly on anecdote rather than anything more systematic. Once there is an established culture of anti-racism — as opposed to simply a culture of racism, which is the situation in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong — it becomes possible to paint a more accurate picture of the incidence of racism, though even then the great bulk of it still remains hidden from view. In Chinese societies, and China in particular, there is no culture of anti-racism except at the very margins because the dominant discourse of Han chauvinism has never been seriously challenged. [806] [806] Chen, ‘Notes on Han Chinese Racism’. Racist attitudes are seen as normal and acceptable rather than abnormal and objectionable. As M. Dujon Johnson, a black American scholar of China, puts it:

In Chinese society one of the reasons that the issue of race and racism is rarely discussed openly… is because racism is universally accepted and justified… Racism is… an issue that is not addressed among Chinese because most Chinese see themselves as superior to darker-skinned people. Therefore, within the Chinese mindset it would be a waste of time to address an obvious fact of darker-skinned people’s inferiority. [807] [807] Johnson, Race and Racism in the Chinas , p. 45.

In the Chinese perception there is a clear racial hierarchy. White people are respected, placed on something of a pedestal and treated with considerable deference by the Chinese; in contrast, darker skin is disapproved of and deplored, the darker the skin the more pejorative the reaction. [808] [808] Ibid., pp. 50–51. People from other East Asian countries, traditionally regarded as inferior, are not immune. A Filipina friend studying at Beijing University was shocked by the level of discrimination she experienced. Unlike her white colleagues, who were treated with respect, she often found herself ignored in restaurants, with waiters refusing to serve her. Local Chinese would audibly refer to her as ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’. One day she was refused entry on to a bus by the conductor in a manner that suggested that she was afflicted with a disease that the other passengers might catch; after such public humiliation she avoided travelling by bus. Dujon Johnson, who conducted a survey of the experience of black Americans and Africans in China and Taiwan based on interviews with them, describes how people frequently moved seats when a black person sat next to them on public transport, or proceeded to rub that part of their body that a black person had innocently brushed against in a crowded place as if it required cleansing. Most depressingly of all, African interviewees indicated that they tried to avoid contact with the Chinese public as much as possible and ‘normally venture out only when it is necessary’. [809] [809] Ibid., pp. 76-7.

There has been a long history of discrimination against African students in China. Emmanuel Hevi, a Ghanaian who studied there in the early sixties, wrote: ‘In all their dealings with us the Chinese behaved as if they were dealing with people from whom normal intelligence could not be expected.’ [810] [810] Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China , p. 194. In December 1988, after an incident between Chinese and African students at Heihai University in Nanjing, there was a march of over 3,00 °Chinese students to protest against the presence of African students, with demonstrations subsequently spreading to Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere. [811] [811] Dikötter, The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan , pp. 25- 6; Erin Chung, ‘Anti-Black Racism in China ’ (12 April 2005) and ‘Nanjing Anti-African Protests of 1988- 89’, posted on www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/04/nanjing_antiafr.php. On some of these marches, the climate was so hostile towards African students that a number of universities decided to move them out of their dormitories because of a perceived threat to their physical safety. No attempt was made by the authorities to halt or prevent the demonstrations, which went on for many days, suggesting that they perhaps enjoyed a certain measure of tacit official sympathy. [812] [812] Johnson, Race and Racism in the Chinas , pp. 48, 50, 71. At Wuhan Industrial College, students marched demanding that ‘all blacks be removed from China ’. [813] [813] New York Times , 19 January 1989, cited by Johnson, Race and Racism in the Chinas , p. 46. According to Dujon Johnson, the race riots and demonstrations in 1988 were by no means unique: similar events occurred in Shanghai in 1979 and 1980, in Nanjing in 1979, 1980, 1988 and 1989, and in Beijing in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1989. [814] [814] Ibid., pp. 41, 44–50. In September 2007 there was a report that a group of at least twenty black men, including students, tourists and the son of a Caribbean diplomat, had been arrested by a team of police in black jumpsuits in a Beijing night-club and severely beaten. A white American witness reported that: ‘He had never seen anything so brutal. There was blood on the streets. They were basically beating up any black person they could find.’ [815] [815] Jennifer Brea, ‘ Beijing Police Round Up and Beat African Expats’, Guardian , 26 September 2007. It should be borne in mind that a black face remains an extremely rare sight in China: in 2006, there were reported to be 600 Africans in Beijing, 500 in Shanghai, 100 in Shenzhen, and over 10,000 in Guangzhou (with a population of 12 million), mainly as a result of the growing trade with Africa. [816] [816] Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, ‘Friends and Interests: China ’s Distinctive Links with Africa ’, African Studies Reviews 50: 3 (December 2007), p. 91. No doubt this lack of familiarity with black people may partly explain the Chinese sense of suspicion and mistrust, but it cannot be the main explanation for the deep-seated racism. Dujon Johnson’s account of the black experience in China avoids recounting his own experiences except at the very end when he writes, ‘[my experiences] demonstrated to me on a daily basis how life in Chinese society is racially segregated and in many aspects similar to a system of racial apartheid.’ [817] [817] Ibid., pp. 147- 8.

In response to the visit of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, to Beijing in 2005, there was a flurry of racist postings on the various nationalist websites. The veteran Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo was moved to write in protest:

I have browsed China ’s three biggest portals’ BBS articles [blogs] about Rice’s six-nation visit… Just take Sina as an example. I examined over 800 BBS articles… excluding repetitions, there were over 600 articles. Among them, there were nearly 70 articles with racial discrimination, one-tenth of the total… There were only two with a gentle tone, the rest were all extremely disgusting. Many stigmatized Rice as ‘really ugly’… ‘the ugliest in the world’… ‘I really can’t understand how mankind gave birth to a woman like Rice’… Some directly called Rice a ‘black ghost’, a ‘black pig’… ‘a witch’… ‘rubbish of Humans’… Some lament: Americans’ IQ is low — how can they make a ‘black bitch’ Secretary of State… Some, of course, did not forget to stigmatize Rice with animal [names]: ‘chimpanzee’, ‘bird-like’, ‘crocodile’, ‘a piece of rotten meat, mouse shit, [something] dogs will find hard to eat’. [818] [818] This was published on www.ncn.org. See also Martin Jacques, ‘The Middle Kingdom Mentality’, Guardian , 16 April 2005.