I hate how normalized sinophobia is in the west
I hate how normalized sinophobia is in the west
So I was browsing reddit out of boredom, and I saw a random post on the hoi4 subreddit and I clicked it without much thought. It was about Chinese players giving bad reviews to the game due to India getting cores for Tibet but not China. I clicked on it due to my masochistic desire to see if anyone else would recognize how stupid it was, and was sorely disappointed.
There were the usual 'muh ccp' jokes there, also shit about 'west taiwan' (ah yes 'I understand history very well'), and then one guy who really caught my attention saying Chinese 'people' (savages) don't matter because they speak a different language from 'us' (the civilized white people). Now granted that isn't the most charitable interpretation, but... like... come on, this is reddit.
Shit like this makes my blood boil. Because libs will go, 'oh we accept everyone!' 'we hate the government not the people!' and drop the most disgusting garbage like this because they're proud little pigs knowing how much propaganda they can fucking shove down their own throats and see an entire race as subhuman. I've always thought reeducation was better than punishment and that a lot of these folks are simply misguided, but jesus christ they're not making it easy for me to suppress the desire to bind them to a rock with metal chains and beat their ribs to pieces with my bare fists and/or a metal bar while screaming "BEG FOR MERCY NOW YOU RACIST SHIT-FOR-BRAINS!"
It gets even more frustrating when it's people you know in real life. I have a trans friend who generally has pretty good takes on stuff like palestine, disabled rights etc, but even he regurgitates the same shit from the state department and about how he'd 'definitely kill xi if he got the chance.'
It's so fucking tiring that these assholes can just turn the 'counts as human' switch on and off whenever they want for whatever race they want and suffer no consequences whatsoever. Really makes me wish I could Diver Down their screens and remind them of the weight of their words by bashing in their pale distorted sweaty reddit faces.
rant over.
yea i cant really understand why my relatively irrelevant country (mexico) has this deeply internalized sinophobia, it gets old quick having the same silly racist remarks whenever i bring up China in a conversation especially coming from "catholics".
when it's people you think should be your friends it's incredibly isolating. In the last 5ish years of increased sinophobia ive had both trans and asian friends who are "left" of democrats try to get me to affirm sinophobic stances (eg through jokes) and the sad thing is, this is the norm. most westerners can expect ABCs (and CBCs) to pop out with some assimilatory "I'm one of the good ones" signifier.
anyway as an ABC I've definitely noticed that the torchbearer of sinophobia is other chinese diaspora. I loathe it so much, but it's definitely an avenue towards personal success, particular in careers related to media, writing, art, etc. white society audiences crave to hear their sinophobia affirmed through a chinese face. I dont even have to scrape the gunk on the bottom of the barrel, the whole "container" is just infested, like these are just two randos I found on goodreads (diaspora writing in english on topic of china) (1) (2). on the flip side, if you don't give them that (sinophobia affirmed through a chinese face), and stay quiet or ambivalent on the topic of the mainland, well that's the hard road of proving yourself through pure merit. on the worst end, if you as a chinese diaspora dare say that communist china is actually good for chinese people, you don't get a platform, you get brushed aside and more or less forgotten. han suyin (who published in english) is out of print since the cold war ended and the nonaligned movement evaporated. meanwhile pearl s buck's the good earth is still being taught as required reading in american high schools.
It pisses me off that I’m able to change white people and other poc’s minds on China more easily than Chinese Diaspora. There is a reason why Hollywood only promotes self hating Chinese voices and the same goes for literature
and the media does this too. this is a very interesting observation.
the torchbearer of sinophobia is other chinese diaspora
I've noticed this as well and it's infuriating. Literally had one Chinese liberal in a group doing everything in their power to segue group conversations to some "China bad" topic. Always twisting the truth and selectively leaving stuff out, short of telling outright lies. Like one example: they grew up in China, so they know social credit score isn't a thing, but still mentioned banning people from travelling first class om trains or something similar, with the underlying assumption that this is just one example of the "social credit score" because that's what someone had mentioned previously. Or one time they said how they never got to vote in any election, conveniently leaving out the fact that they weren't of voting age when living there (that came out later). Or another time they repeated all the tinyman square massacre crap. Also turns out their family is filthy rich but lost some due to some unspecified misfortunes with their businesses. Smells like classic gusano.
white society audiences crave to hear their sinophobia affirmed through a chinese face
This too, the westerners in that group love getting all their racist views confirmed by that Chinese person (who also made tons of racist blanket statements about Chinese people being this or that bad thing). They don't even question it. They swallow the Yeonmi Park-level of bullshit immediately. And that Chinese person loves the attention they're getting.
I thought this person was an outlier but sounds like they're the norm.
Thanks, great post gave me some things to read.
To be fair, I wouldn't exactly expect the people you find on the hoi4 subreddit to be best humanity has to offer.
I can't speak for the entirety of the USA but at least in my neck of the woods the odds of running into someone with anti-china sentiment is extremely high. I try my best to break through to my own family and the few friends I have but even the extremely few left wing people we have in this place struggle to break through the propaganda.
My family is very very anti-west, but most of my extended family has emigrated to the West and have been inundated with this funky anti-China shit (despite us being Chinese diaspora). It gets worse because a few of them are married to people who work in government of these Western countries, so they're sure to be getting political knowledge from them.
I plan on having them go to China, because I have seen anecdotes of people being cured of their anti-China brain worms, or at least it plants the seed of doubt in their mind. But also I just kinda want to see their chud reactions, in awe that the supposed authoritarian state is literally 10x better.
I would really recommend them go to China! Shameless plug here but my home city Shenyang is a very good place to visit. Prices are very low there, and you can get a lot of places just using subway, bus, and taxi for places too far between stations. Even close to the city center I couldn't see any poverty in places you'd expect like below bridges etc, the worse you'll find is piss.
I know what you mean about what's happened with Hoi4 lately, I've been browsing those posts myself, and you're right that the usual racists and very "funny" jokes about China's government were obviously present, but for the first time in years, I also noticed that a significant portion of people, maybe even half or possibly more, were very pragmatic and fair when discussing the subject matter, even going so far as to sympathize and agree with the chinese viewpoint. To my shock I even saw plenty who were outraged at the racist comments and confronted them (hell, it might have been you for all I know).
If you told me just a few years ago that this sort of thing would happen on a Gaming subreddit of all places I would not have believed you. So I think there is some progress being made, and I know it disturbed you to see those shitty people voice their shitty views, but don't succumb to doomerism, the truth is currently taking hold, and more and more westerners are seeing it.
I've seen some of this too, although more on the vic3 subreddit. A lot of it is diluted with ultra garbage, but it's encouraging.
We call Asian uncle toms "Chans". The Asian Diaspora community has a huge problem with them, we try to call them out whenever we can. People like Ken Jeong are the worst offenders.
Ken Jeong is an Uncle Chan? I'm slightly surprised but also not surprised.
Why is he one?
I don't know if theyre bots or just chronically online brainwormed people or a combination of both, but honestly in the real world anti China sentiment isn't nearly as strong as online spaces would lead you to believe.
ehh i don't know. from my own experience, i haven't found a single person that speaks highly of china and chinese people in mexico 💀 its the same racists talking points always, "chinese are filthy" "cheating is in their blood" "if its chinese made its garbage", are some things i regularly hear from my good catholic acquaintances. the west and western adjacent countries have very deeply internalized racism is almost insane
but all the best stuff is made in China
Disagree, my local takeaways still get there windows panned in monthly with racial slurs put all over them referencing asian tropes + even bringing up china in a mildly positive way is enough for libs to try and socially ostracize you for not repeating their gestapo narratives on the Untermensch
Maybe it's just because I'm a crackerburb cracker whose social circle comprises other crackerburb crackers, but in meatspace the opinions I've come across range from, at best, seeing the Chinese as backwards savages to, at worst, basically Satan.
No, it's not just you. There's plenty of people from all groups who believe China is either some world-conniving cabal or libs who think they're authoritarian snakes trying to coopt democracy globally.
Somehow this person has not put together where those opinions or values may be coming from, especially when the government is literally out-loud saying they're pouring money into "anti-china" propaganda.
I am not a cracker nor is my social circle mostly composed of crackers. A lot of muslims and nonmuslim brown and black people love cracker lib crocodile tears because they are very nourishing or because they are thoroughly assimilated into the middle and upper classes of america believe this shit. The fact that they can never be white like let's say the Irish or Italian or lately zionists hasn't revealed itself to them.
It's pretty common place. I know someone who worked in China decades ago who claims they can't innovate because their people just don't think correctly. I know people in the military who constantly talk about Chinese hacking and how if we're not careful we'll all be speaking Chinese after they invade us. It's everywhere.
I think it's not as clumsy in the real world (most people aren't redditors), but there's still plenty of ambient negativity that is not even remotely challenged. A statement as benign as "the Chinese government is doing a lot of good things" will usually invite a bunch of the standard propaganda as pushback.
You would be surprised. I had a piece of shit trying to lecture me on Chinese treatment of muslims the same afternoon the IOF killed 500 people in strike on a refugee camp.
The cool thing about imaginary genocides is that they can always be worse than real world genocides, because they are only limited by imagination.
This person is completely ignoring the flare of Uighur propaganda being used like a "gotcha" when it came to actual discussion from left-wingers on the Israeli genocide. I'm convinced they're one of those "GOSH BRO, I'M SUCH A SUPER COOL STOIC" who believes all politics is dominated by brain-worms, doesn't pay attention to them and has their bias reconfirmed in a loop.
In the real world it is far more casual and internalized. It's never a racist frothing at the mouth about people, it's always just someone saying something ignorant that others people.
I wouldn't say that frothing at the mouth racists don't exist at all, but I definitely agree with your sentiment that much of racism is less visible than that.
All the people I know have internalized sinophobia and russo phobia. It's pathetic. One of them was born in the USSR and thinks russian are out to get her. Her family is russian, dog gammit!
I have been accused of being pro china because I was not jumping on the china bad bandwagon. My actual stance is that all organized states are bad and these people know it!
I guess being from Apartheidland (no, the one in africa was the copycat) and having no culture of its own but american propaganda movie is some sort of an explanation, of not an excuse.
But yeah, it's anedoctally endemic to "liberal by default" people from my experience.
It depends, maybe you don't experience it but I constantly hear that kind of garbage.
Are you for real saying this after watching the slew of "At What Cost" China bad articles and the profound impact they had on discussion relating to Chinese politics? From the same government that put millions into "Anti-China propaganda" specifically?
Or are you saying this after Filipinos and other SE asians are harassed in L.A, Florida and Texas? I'll make sure to tell my partner that their problems are actually just made up by "chronically online brainwormed people". Perhaps a combination of both, right?
Y'all should free Tibet
China does indeed need to free that part of China from western imperialist meddling, but that's their business to work out. :) Who knows, maybe the US's own meddling with its "USAID" already did some of the work for China on that front!
Go ahead, go to Tibet and tell them they should return to being slaves again.
Even better, go to southern states in the US and say 'Free The Confederacy!' every time you see a black person, should be a riot.
It is free. It no longer functions as a religious monarchy and literal slave society under Dalai Lama.
The "free tibet" thing has always been a joke considering what Tibet was pre-CPC rule.
The PLA already did free it from the rapey lamaists
you should beat your brains out against a rock (in minecraft)
I second this move.
This is the "freedom" you want to return to:
Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” ...
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation--including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation--were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.
Xizang is always China.