Claims of “China’s Afrophobia” show we need new ways to think about
race and racism
Posted on August 12, 2016 by Roberto Castillo
Racism in the West and racism in China are not the same thing.
Immigration officials stop African traders in Guangzhou. Credit: Sam Piranty.
Immigration officials stop African traders in Guangzhou. Credit: Sam Piranty.
Is Afrophobia really on the rise in China?
Roughly two months have passed since the Qiaobi detergent
advertisement went viral. The advert, in which a Chinese woman shoves
a black man into a washing machine only for him to emerge as a shiny,
clean, Asian man, prompted Western media to call it “the most racist
ad ever”. At the height of the controversy, commentators from all over
the world quarrelled endlessly over whether or not the advert was
evidence of China being a racist society. Eventually, the Chinese
government intervened and the company behind the offensive advert
issued an apology.
Across my social and academic networks, the ad caused a major storm.
Everyone from traders to academics and advertisers weighed in. With
tensions running high, African traders in Guangzhou were quick to
point out that Chinese ignorance in race-related matters was probably
behind the advert.
Academics debated the need to “contextualise” racism and racial
prejudice in China. They also highlighted how international media tend
to portray China and the Chinese in a negative light (especially in
the context of Sino-African relations). At the same time, advertisers
pointed out that adverts like the Qiaobi one are influenced by the
long history of racist advertising in the West. They also explained
that the advert showed how Chinese advertisers were unaware that their
adverts could have a global reach.
Racialism and a rising China
Despite the fact that “race” as a biological category was discredited
long ago, racial thinking or “racialism” is still common in China.
Racialism is the belief that humans are naturally divided into
biological categories called “races”. Sometimes, the term racialism is
used interchangeably with “racism” to mean a race-based way of
thinking through human differences.
Contemporary racial thinking in China is informed by historical ways
of imagining “otherness”. These ways centre around differences such as
skin colour, class and “ethnicity”. Contact with 19th-century European
colonialism and racial theories was also influential. More recently,
the “rise of China” within the context of global consumerist societies
has stirred up ethno-nationalist sentiments that affect how Chinese
people think about “race”.
In China, like other places, racial thinking is often accompanied by
stereotypes and prejudices. Dark skin, for instance, is often seen
negatively. This is something many of us foreigners have to live with
in China.
Within this context, the Qiaobi advert was seen by some as proof that
there’s racism in China, and as evidence that “Afrophobia” was on the
rise. Those who “see” Afrophobia are quick to point to Chinese hiring
practices, which prefer white foreigners to black ones.
Any non-white foreigner living in China knows that these practices do
not only discriminate against black people. They extend to other
dark-skinned people. So, while deplorable, it’s not exactly
Afrophobia.
Despite little concrete evidence supporting claims of Afrophobia or
“Anti-African” campaigns, these claims are often picked up by Western
media. Some journalists seem all too ready to cast China and the
Chinese as “racist” and Africans as the poor victims with no agency.
This pattern is replicated in coverage of China as a “neo-colonial”
power in Africa.
To equate Chinese rac(ial)ism with racism in the West is
intellectually and historically dishonest. Rac(ial)ism and racial
prejudice in China are still far from producing the exploitation,
oppression, discrimination and murder that racist worldviews continue
to produce in the West.
In short, while there are deep-seated forms of rac(ial)ism in China,
the rise of “Afrophobia” is difficult to prove. The issue is much more
complex than that.
‘Race’ and racism in global media
In most of the articles and comments following the offensive Chinese
advert, people from all over the world used the terms racism,
stereotypes and racial prejudice interchangeably. It quickly became
clear to me that we haven’t figured out how to talk about “race” and
racism in globally inclusive ways.
The conversation is usually dominated by the American ways of talking
about “race” and racism. Needless to say, using the black/white binary
paradigm of race as a measuring stick for racial issues in global and
non-Western settings is problematic. If the many “racist” comments
I’ve heard from African men about their Chinese counterparts is any
guide, the problems highlighted by the Qiaobi advert are far more
complex than what the American binary suggests.
Figuring out who’s the racist, or if this or that is racist, or if the
Chinese are racist, is a waste of time. Rather than being black or
white, it’s a complex matrix of practices that reproduce global
systems of exploitation and oppression. Despite our skin colour,
gender, sexual orientation, “race”, nationality or faith, we are all,
to different degrees, participants in these systems.
White supremacy the Chinese way?
As pointed out early on during the Qiaobi controversy, the advert is a
revamped iteration of old Western racist tropes. To understand why
such iterations emerge in China – and elsewhere in Asia – it’s
important to look at how contemporary global media imaginations are
influenced by long-standing racial theories and ideas. Enter white
supremacy.
As I write this piece, a tram covered in advertising stops in front of
me on Shipyard Lane in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. In the advert, a young,
handsome, white guy in a suit is levitating in front of a building.
The Chinese words next to him are about leadership and success.
On the next tram a blonde woman wearing a Swarovski ring is being
admired by a young white man. Any survey of street advertising in
this, or any other big Asian city, will show that white bodies are
pervasively used as the markers of success, power, beauty and romance.
It is hardly news that global media are deeply shaped by a racial
hierarchy that frames whiteness as a superior state of being. What I
find fascinating is how these racially informed imaginations are
negotiated by people in China when they imagine themselves and the
world they live in.
These negotiations have to be factored in against the backdrop of the
“rise of China” – a rise that has led many to believe that the country
will take up the reins of the global capitalist system.
I believe that there are few indications that China would be willing
(or able) to transform the (old imperial, capitalist, white
supremacist and patriarchal) structures and practices that inform
contemporary capitalism and that are, ultimately, behind the Qiaobi
detergent advert.
For me, these reflections were the main takeaways amid the uproar that
followed the advert controversy.
Roberto Castillo, Lecturer in China Africa Relations, University of Hong Kong
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the
original article.The Conversation
For more, see:
The erased protagonists: Afroargentines and the whitewashing of history
China loans Africa much less than you think (and four other
lessons from a new database)
AAP#5: China in Africa with Deborah Brautigam
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5 thoughts on “Claims of “China’s Afrophobia” show we need new ways to
think about race and racism”
Qhuacai says:
August 13, 2016 at 11:42 pm
“To equate Chinese rac(ial)ism with racism in the West is
intellectually and historically dishonest. Rac(ial)ism and racial
prejudice in China are still far from producing the exploitation,
oppression, discrimination and murder that racist worldviews continue
to produce in the West.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There are 55 ethnic minorities in China. Why
do you think they don’t have countries of their own? The Han Chinese
took them of course. You can’t pretend to know Chinese
culture/history, but not mention anything from China’s 5000 years
history. You can’t pretend to know Chinese culture/history, but only
learn from Han Chinese people.
Roberto Castillo says:
August 14, 2016 at 3:30 am
55 ‘recognised’ ethnic minorities. There were many more ‘ethnic’
identities prior to the CP granting official status to some very few
of them (55).
You’re right, the ‘ethnic minority’ issue in China is also a
history of oppression and discrimination. I think that the formation
of every national identity entails the suppression/oppression of
diverse (sub national) identities.
In other parts of my work, I have strived to draw a comparison
between the struggles of ethnic minorities in China (i.e. facing
discrimination and other problems) and what some foreigners in the
country face.
I still believe, however, that equating (i.e. blurring the
differences between) Western and Chinese histories of racism is
intellectually and historically dishonest.
Roberto.
Shauna says:
August 14, 2016 at 4:37 am
What you’re saying is that racism and racialism are real and alive
in China, but since they don’t do it as well as the West does it
doesn’t really count? Sure, that makes sense, nothing to see here
folks.
Nia Provenzano says:
August 14, 2016 at 5:10 am
Yeah China is flooding the labor force with cheap African
labor.Also displacing workers by sending
work to African nations.Racism?More like rage
at usurpers.
Commentator says:
August 14, 2016 at 7:17 am
Chinese themselves are discriminated anywhere they go… In the US;
Australia; UK; France; Italy; HK; Japan; South Korea; Taiwan;
Philippines; Thailand; Vietnam etc. almost anywhere…
The discriminated discriminate ! Fair enough !
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