This is something I occasionally come across in Western media and also heard IRL from a Chinese émigré (very lib and hates China, so I take whatever they say about the country with a grain of salt) - that the Chinese internet (and by extension, society, though probably less visibly) has a problem with widespread chauvinism and racism, against black people and ethnic minorities in China in particular, and other things such as wishing genocide on the people of Taiwan (???) or Japanese people.
Now, I’m sure China has its fair share of fascists and generic reactionary nutjobs, but I’m wondering just how bad it is. Most studies/articles come from Western institutions, so I don’t know how to feel about those.
I’m curious what studies there are in China about this, how widely discussed this is (i.e. have these sorts of internet trends ever gotten the same level of awareness that 4chan and the alt-right got in the West? What was the reaction? Is the CPC doing anything about it?), and what direction is this going in, e.g. looking back 10-20 years, has this improved or gotten worse?
Thanks, this is informative. I guess this is just another case of westerners cherry-picking data and blowing it out of proportion, because from what you’re saying, this sounds just like what one would expect to find in online communities in any other country.
It’s a bit disappointing to see takes such as 留岛不留人 are common enough to have their own slogans that are known even to people outside the circles who don’t support this (anecdotal, but that Chinese émigré I mentioned in the post also referred to this slogan). For the Japan part, I’m not surprised - I’ve heard casual calls for genocide by people of some countries against other countries for far smaller historical offenses. Not surprised there’s so much animosity towards Japan, given all they’ve done and how they treat the issue to this day. Still a horrible take to call for genocide, obviously, but I’m not surprised that there is a niche of society thinking like this. I bet you can find nazi/genocide enthusiasts in any country