I thought that the article immediately below this two paragraph introduction, published last July, on the “Fear of a Red Planet” blog (FOARP), would add to an ongoing Asia Healthcare Blog and ChinaHB discussion about race in China. I am posting this because it is good food for thought, because race, identity, and people rights in China are all intricately linked to health, and because it popped up on my Google feed reader today. Plus, the NYTimes has been on a “race in Asia” kick as of late, and I have grown increasingly curious about this topic. So, if you have any posts on the subject of race, identity, and people rights in China that you think good, please send them in.
If you want to see what ChinaHB has written on the subject, Paul Steele touched briefly on race in China in his excellent article for us, Some Thoughts on Nationalism in a Korean Context, and briefly delved into it myself a few months ago in a book review article titled, Creating a genetic map of Asia: a book talk.
[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]
I don’t want to get into the general discussion on race in China, an old one on China blogs which has been done to death here, here, here, here, and here. However, this translation by Roland Soong of a story on today’s protests in Guangzhou following the death of an African trader trying to evade the police, perhaps the first instance of an anti-government protest by foreign immigrants in modern China, is certainly big news as far as I am concerned. The idea of foreigners in China, who make up only a very small number of mainly short-term residents who do their best in the main to avoid any trouble is quite extraordinary.
The fact that it involved the African population in Guangzhou, who from my experience are mainly small-time traders resident on short-term visas (i.e., working illegally), and who suffer all the disadvantages of being a foreigner in China without most of the advantages enjoyed by those obviously from rich countries do, is not surprising. The violent language used in the article to describe their protest is not supported by the photographs, but typical of many articles written about foreigners, especially black people. I will be especially interested to see how the people at the demonstration are treated by the authorities, because whilst this kind of thing has happened at least once in most countries with immigrant populations, race relations (rather than trying to subsume all races into a single Chinese race) is an entirely new thing in China which the authorities may be unprepared for. Some may be inclined to find proof of Chinese racism in this story, all I will say is that Emmanul Egisimba is just as dead as Amadou Diallo, Steven Lawrence, or Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, and it will be the response of the authorities which will show their true attitude, especially if they choose to simply deport those who protested.
Comments:
China Healthcare Blog
It is also common knowledge that Africans, be they rich African Americans or South African, have the highest murder, rape, robbery, assault, etc rates in the world.
The Chinese are by far the least racist people on the planet, but they are also not politically correct to the point where they let Africans get away with crime simply because they’re African.
Likewise, the Chinese have a long history of “race relations” with regards to Indo-European invaders and enroachers in the West (Tocharians) and Austrics to the South (Baiyue).
Their “race relations” generally went well enough, and as a result both of those groups have more or less been absorbed into their neighboring East Asian groups.
FOARP said…
Looney tunes.
Anonymous said…
Keep in mind, they are a minority in all groups.
This is not really racism, just an incomplete science I suppose. The various races are not the same, the differences aren’t just in skin tone and facial features.
Anonymous said…
It’s nonsense. Many whites do the same thing in Japan, China and Korea.