Anti-Chinese sentiment
Anti-Chinese sentiment or sinophobia refers to prejudice, hatred, hostility, and discrimination that is directed towards Chinese people or Chinese culture.
It is frequently directed at Chinese minorities which live outside Greater China and it involves immigration, nationalism, political ideologies, disparity of wealth, in-group loyalty, the past tributary system of Imperial China, majority-minority relations, imperial legacies, and racism.
A variety of popular cultural clichés and negative stereotypes of Chinese people have existed around the world since the twentieth century, and they are frequently conflated with a variety of popular cultural clichés and negative stereotypes of other Asian ethnic groups, known as the Yellow Peril. Some individuals may harbor prejudice or hatred against Chinese people due to history, racism, modern politics, cultural differences, propaganda, or ingrained stereotypes, often fuelled by reports of uncouth behavior from some Chinese nationals.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a resurgence of Sinophobia, the manifestations of it ranged from covert acts of discrimination such as microaggression and stigmatization, exclusion and shunning, to more overt forms of discrimination, such as outright verbal abuse and physical violence.
History
Looting and sacking of national treasures
Historical records document the existence of anti-Chinese sentiment throughout the history of China's imperial wars.Lord Palmerston was responsible for sparking the First Opium War with Qing China. He considered Chinese culture "uncivilized", and his negative views on China played a significant role in his decision to issue a declaration of war. This disdain became increasingly common throughout the Second Opium War, when repeated attacks against foreign traders in China inflamed anti-Chinese sentiment abroad. Following the defeat of China in the Second Opium War, Lord Elgin, upon his arrival in Peking in 1860, ordered the sacking and burning of China's imperial Summer Palace in vengeance.
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
In the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed in response to growing Sinophobia. It prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers and turned those already in the country into second-class persons. The 1882 Act was the first U.S. immigration law to target a specific ethnicity or nationality. Meanwhile, during the mid-19th century in Peru, Chinese were used as slave labor and they were not allowed to hold any important positions in Peruvian society.Chinese workers in England
Chinese workers had been a fixture on London's docks since the mid-eighteenth century, when they arrived as sailors who were employed by the East India Company, importing tea and spices from the Far East. Conditions on those long voyages were so dreadful that many sailors decided to abscond and take their chances on the streets rather than face the return journey. Those who stayed generally settled around the bustling docks, running laundries and small lodging houses for other sailors or selling exotic Asian produce. By the 1880s, a small but recognizable Chinese community had developed in the Limehouse area, increasing Sinophobic sentiments among other Londoners, who feared the Chinese workers might take over their traditional jobs due to their willingness to work for much lower wages and longer hours than other workers in the same industries. The entire Chinese population of London was only in the low hundreds—in a city whose entire population was roughly estimated to be seven million—but nativist feelings ran high, as was evidenced by the Aliens Act 1905, a bundle of legislation which sought to restrict the entry of poor and low-skilled foreign workers. Chinese Londoners also became involved with illegal criminal organisations, further spurring Sinophobic sentiments.By region
East Asia
Korea
Discriminatory views of Chinese people have been reported, and ethnic-Chinese Koreans have faced prejudices including what is said, to be a widespread criminal stigma. Increased anti-Chinese sentiments had reportedly led to online comments related to violent anti-Chinese racism.Hong Kong
Anti-Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong is mostly driven by political opposition to the PRC, but it is also motivated by racist hostility toward mainland Chinese.In 2012, a group of Hong Kong residents published a newspaper advertisement depicting mainland visitors and immigrants as locusts. In February 2014, about 100 Hong Kongers harassed mainland tourists and shoppers during what they styled an "anti-locust" protest in Kowloon. In response, the Equal Opportunities Commission of Hong Kong proposed an extension of the territory's race-hate laws to cover mainlanders. Strong anti-mainland xenophobia has also been documented amidst the 2019 protests, with reported instances of protesters attacking Mandarin-speakers and mainland-linked businesses.
Japan
A survey in 2017 suggested that 51% of Chinese respondents had experienced tenancy discrimination. Another report in the same year noted a significant bias against Chinese visitors from the media and some of the Japanese locals.Mongolia
Mongolian nationalist and Neo-Nazi groups are reported to be hostile to China, and Mongolians traditionally hold unfavorable views of the country. The common stereotype is that China is attempting to undermine Mongolian sovereignty in order to eventually incorporate it into China. Fear and hatred of erliiz, a derogatory term for people of mixed Han Chinese and Mongol ethnicity, is a common phenomena in Mongolian politics. Erliiz are seen as a Chinese plot of genetic pollution to chip away at Mongolian sovereignty, and allegations of Chinese ancestry are used as a political weapon in election campaigns. Several small Neo-Nazi groups opposing Chinese influence and mixed Chinese couples are present within Mongolia, such as Tsagaan Khas.Taiwan
Following the end of Japanese rule in 1945 and the transfer of Taiwan to the Republic of China, tensions emerged between different social groups on the island. Long-established Han Chinese residents — commonly referred to as benshengren, meaning families whose ancestors had migrated to Taiwan prior to 1945 — increasingly came into conflict with mainland Chinese newcomers whom were known as waishengren, who arrived with the Kuomintang government after World War II. One frequently cited derogatory expressions from the late 1940s was “the dogs have left and the pigs have come”, in which the departing Japanese colonial rulers were derisively compared to dogs and the incoming KMT authorities to pigs. Discontent with the KMT regime culminated in the February 28 Incident in 1947, when island-wide protests were violently suppressed. The incident and its aftermath deepened mistrust toward the ruling authorities and reinforced social divisions between benshengren and waishengren.In contemporary Taiwan, negative sentiment has at times been directed explicitly toward waishengren, particularly in political rhetoric and online discourse related to cross-Strait relations. Taiwanese media have reported public controversies involving the use of derogatory language toward waishengren, prompting condemnation from political leaders and commentators across party lines.
Academic studies have also examined social attitudes of contemporary Taiwanese towards people from mainland china. Research indicates that mainland Chinese, particularly marriage migrants, have sometimes been portrayed in public discourse as culturally inferior or politically suspect. The use of ideologically charged and derogatory terms, including gòngfěi and zhīnà, by some Taiwanese when referring to mainland Chinese was also observed.
Southeast Asia
Malaysia
Due to race-based politics and Bumiputera policy, there had been several incidents of racial conflict between the Malays and Chinese before the 1969 riots. For example, in Penang, hostility between the races turned into violence during the centenary celebration of George Town in 1957 which resulted in several days of fighting and a number of deaths, and there were further disturbances in 1959 and 1964, as well as a riot in 1967 which originated as a protest against currency devaluation but turned into racial killings. In Singapore, the antagonism between the races led to the 1964 Race Riots which contributed to the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia on August 9, 1965. The 13 May Incident was perhaps the deadliest race riot to have occurred in Malaysia with an official combined death toll of 196, but with higher estimates by other observers reaching around 600-800+ total deaths.Malaysia's ethnic quota system has been regarded as discriminatory towards the ethnic Chinese community, in favor of ethnic Malay Muslims, which has reportedly created a brain drain in the country. In 2015, supporters of Najib Razak's party reportedly marched in the thousands through Chinatown to support him, and assert Malay political power with threats to burn down shops, which drew criticism from China's ambassador to Malaysia.
It was reported in 2019 that relations between ethnic Chinese Malaysians and Malays were "at their lowest ebb", and fake news posted online of mainland Chinese indiscriminately receiving citizenship in the country had been stoking racial tensions. The primarily Chinese-based Democratic Action Party in Malaysia has also reportedly faced an onslaught of fake news depicting it as unpatriotic, anti-Malay, and anti-Muslim.
Philippines
The Spanish introduced the first anti-Chinese laws in the Philippine archipelago. The Spanish massacred or expelled the Chinese several times from Manila, and the Chinese responded by fleeing either to La Pampanga or to territories outside colonial control, particularly the Sulu Sultanate, which they in turn supported in their wars against the Spanish authorities. The Chinese refugees not only ensured that the Sūg people were supplied with the requisite arms but also joined their new compatriots in combat operations against the Spaniards during the centuries of Spanish–Moro conflict.Furthermore, racial classification from the Spanish and American administrations has labeled ethnic Chinese as alien. This association between 'Chinese' and 'foreigner' have facilitated discrimination against the ethnic Chinese population in the Philippines; many ethnic Chinese were denied citizenship or viewed as antithetical to a Filipino nation-state. In addition to this, Chinese people have been associated with wealth in the background of great economic disparity among the local population. This perception has only contributed to ethnic tensions in the Philippines, with the ethnic Chinese population being portrayed as being a major party in controlling the economy.