Berkley Center

With its fusion of ancient traditions and increasingly modernizing society, Chinese culture has been intriguing, confusing, and at times, downright frustrating. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has undergone unprecedented amounts of growth and change over an amazingly short period of time. With this transformation, homogeneous, historically isolated China has become increasingly engaged with the rest of the world. This rapid change, and increasing global exposure, however, has been accompanied by its fair share of growing pains. Racism and tension with China’s African expatriate community is one such example of adjustment issues.

Since economic growth has become the primary focus of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China has drastically increased its engagement with countries near and far in order to secure the oil supply necessary for continued growth and provide markets for its manufactured goods. This economic approach to international engagement is complemented by its foreign policy of guoji guanzi minzhuhua, or "democracy in international relations," which refers to the CCP’s desire for a more multipolar world order, with developing countries holding a greater amount of wealth and influence. With these two goals in mind, the CCP has increased its engagement in the developing world, particularly Africa.

China has greatly influenced Africa’s development through investments in infrastructure projects (receiving access to oil in return); however, it has also been greatly affected by the educational aid it has provided to the continent. As part of its efforts to develop relations with African countries, the CCP has focused on the continent’s future leaders, providing scholarships for African students to study in China. While this program began in the 1950s, the number of scholarships has risen substantially as the CCP’s interest in the region has intensified. However, the Chinese public has been much less enthusiastic about the growing African population in their midst.

The Chinese people are not known for their sense of tact and political correctness; a street vendor told me I looked pregnant one day, one of my Chinese friends asked me what is was like to be from such an intellectually superior, penny-pinching people (referring to my Jewish background), and when we learned how to say boyfriend in Chinese my teacher suggested maybe I would have one if I spent more time getting ready in the morning.

Still, I was taken aback by the very open, unusual type of racism I encountered in China. By and large, Chinese people did not exhibit a distaste for dark colored people, rather, a distaste for darkness itself; they have been very open in asserting that dark skin was, well, ugly. A couple of older ladies tried to get my friends to cover themselves while they were doing work outside, expressing concern that they were going to get "dark and ugly." After this whenever someone got color, we would compliment them how "China-ugly" they had become. This reflects a sentiment common throughout the region, originating from historical class structures, but is amplified by other issues in society, playing a significant role in China’s racial tensions today.

Tensions have existed between the African expatriate community and their Chinese compatriots since the beginning of the educational exchanges. Racial incidents intensified during the eighties and nineties, and in China today there exists a common assumption that Africans males are drug dealers and troublemakers. This combination has huge implications because China does not provide protections for minorities, and greatly fears threats to stability. In the past this has resulted in harsh, sometimes baseless, conduct from the police, and on one casual night out in China, I unexpectedly saw firsthand how prejudice without protections can affect any part of society.

A few weeks ago a group of us decided to go out dancing; however, as we approached the entrance the bouncer barred the one African-American in our group from entering because "he wasn’t on the list." Somewhat stunned, we informed the bouncer that none of us were on the list. He (who himself was African-American, but was following orders I am assuming) looked back at our friend, turned back to us, and stated matter-of-factly, "Your situation is different." We were livid. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, he continued to let everyone in except the black males, picking them out one by one. Apparently, someone in power saw this as the easiest way to keep the "drugs and troublemakers" out. It felt like I was in the 1960s, but the most frustrating part was that there was not much we could do about it.

That evening stayed with me, and immediately came to mind when I contemplated what to write for this blog entry. Some have referred to racism in China as being "naïve racism"; a homogenous society (about 90 percent of China is ethnically Han), China is still relatively new to the process of modernization and development, both social and economic. Major social changes do not happen overnight, and it is unrealistic to expect that specific ethics, such as tolerance and human rights, will immediately take hold in China just because other countries value them. However, as with many social issues of the day, a natural sort of liberalization will likely occur with time as older, more traditional members of society are replaced by the younger, more exposed generation.

As China increases its engagement with the international community, it also becomes increasingly dependent on these links, and therefore vulnerable to international pressure. African governments’ reactions to racial incidents have led to CCP condemnations in the past, and international pressure (particularly pressure that could threaten trade) is a promising means to incentivize Chinese reform. Anti-black racism is not a particularly difficult issue for the CCP to deal with, since it does not directly threaten the CCP’s goals. However, pressure regarding protection of minorities would greatly benefit this community and could be a small, but significant, step to dealing with the much more daunting challenges, such as issues with the Tibetan and Uighur minorities.