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With trade and commerce drawing ever larger numbers of foreigners to China’s cities, tensions have become more common in a country of little racial diversity. This summer, African immigrants, mostly traders and merchants, who make up a growing enclave in the city of Guangzhou, protested police harassment. And in a well-publicized cultural moment, a 20-year-old Shanghainese contestant named Lou Jing, who appeared on the Chinese “Idol”-like talent show, caused a national debate (and drew racist attacks on the Internet) about what it means to be Chinese. Lou, the daughter of a Chinese woman and an African-American man, whom she has not met, considers herself completely Chinese.

As China expands economic ties with the rest of the world — including Africa, where it has considerable investments — how might increased immigration alter Chinese perceptions of race? How has the society historically dealt with ethnic differences?

Millennia of Multiethnic Contradictions

Yan Sun, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, is the author of “A Sichuan Family and Tibet’s Future” and “My Han Relatives’ Views from Xinjiang.” She is co-writing a book about ethnic relations in contemporary China.

When it comes to ethnic relations and perceptions, China is a paragon of contradictions: its majority ethnic group, the Hans, are non-racist in the sense that most are not aware of their own multiethnic background and care little about it.

The surname of the Chinese leader Hu Jintao is multiethnic in origin, meaning “foreign, barbarian.”

But they hold prejudices, not only about China’s minorities and foreigners but also about members of their own group, in that those deemed more “developed” receive deference, while those deemed “backward” are looked down upon. If Western racism is about genetic dispositions, Chinese prejudices and racism are more about achievements and standing in the world as applied to individuals or groups.

Unlike Korea and Japan, China has long been a melting pot. The Han people, now the largest ethnic group on Earth, originated from the central plains of East Asia and was expanded by nomadic invaders from the steppes of inner, central and Western Asia. Driven by their hunger for the wealth of the settled villages and aided by mounted archery, the nomads periodically toppled the Chinese states and controlled them, becoming in the process fused and assimilated with the agrarian people.

Read more… Tibetan and Uighur diasporas may wonder nowadays if China could ever have an ethnic minority like Barack Obama as its top leader? The answer is simple: there have been many. Of China’s two dozen imperial dynasties, most founding rulers were non-Han or only partly Han. The Shatuo Turks, related to the Uighurs, founded three post-Tang dynasties. The Xiongnu, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen, and Qiang groups founded major dynasties in the North and the West. And twice, under the Mongols and Manchus respectively, the nomads conquered and ruled the whole of China. The China we know today is a product of their conquests: to prevent nomadic rivals rising on their flank, the Mongols and Manchus ruthlessly brought all of China’s surrounding prairies and plateaus under their rule, including Tibet. The Northern people of present-day China are tall and lighter-skinned, thanks to fusion with the steppe peoples. The southern Chinese are descended from people from the central plains (pushed south by nomadic invasions) and southern tribal groups. In an ironic twist, the coastal areas of the South and East –- once inhabited by the so-called Southern and Eastern “barbarians,” and the Northern cities around Beijing –- once the hub of Northern “barbarians” –- are now considered the most “advanced.” The central plains of China, the birthplace of the agrarian people, are among the least developed among Han regions. Most Chinese would be surprised that Hu, the surname of the Chinese leader Hu Jintao, is multiethnic in origin. Hu, meaning “foreign, barbarian,” used to designate the nomads east of the Xiongnus (Huns). Some assimilated groups came to adopt “Hu” as a surname, although this is one of its several origins. My mother’s last name, Ma (meaning “horse”) is another multiethnic surname. “Of ten Mas,” so goes a Chinese saying, “nine are Muslims” (this Ma is derived from Muhammad). But most of my mother’s relatives think it silly to trace the exact origin of their Ma. While this ability to blend made China’s melting pot possible, it can also be a barrier to ethnic sensitivities. As market and globalizing forces cause the Chinese to interact more with minorities at home and foreigners from abroad, conflict will be inevitable but so is progress. A Liberian singer won second place in the CCTV’s Star Walk (a variant of the American Idol) in 2006. A Sierra Leonese won fourth place in 2007. Both are beloved by the Chinese audience and recently, both appeared as judges on the show.

Chauvinism and Nationalism

Ho-fung Hung is a historical sociologist and a senior associate of the Research Center for Chinese Business and Politics at Indiana University. He is the editor of “China and the Transformation of Global Capitalism,” and the forthcoming “Protest with Chinese Characteristics.”

Today’s racialist self-perception of Han Chinese can be traced back to the rise of Chinese nationalism amidst the chaotic collapse of the Qing empire in 1911. The Qing empire was multi-ethnic and ruled by the Manchus.

Rising chauvinism is a menace to China’s internal stability and its cooperation with other countries.

Many Han Chinese revolutionaries, influenced by racial Darwinism from the West, advocated the expulsion of the “barbaric” Tartars (a vague racial category referring to the Manchus and other Central Eurasian peoples) and the restoration of “superior” Han rule as a path to China’s resurgence. Han nationalists justified the subordination of non-Han peoples in modern China by their “backwardness” and need to modernize under Han’s tutelage.

Persistent prejudice against ethnic minorities caused Mao repeatedly to warn of the danger “Han chauvinism” posed to the unity of the newborn People’s Republic in the 1950s. The Communists, however, failed to eradicate such prejudices, but hid them under the language of class struggle, conveniently denouncing all minorities’ quests for cultural autonomy as reactionary demands for resurrecting backward social systems (like Tibet’s “slavery”).

Read more… State propaganda glorified Chinese solidarity with dark-skinned foreigners as comrades in the struggle against Western imperialism, repressing whatever racial prejudices that ordinary Chinese might have against these peoples. These prejudices resurfaced in the post-Mao years, unleashing the protests and racial violence against African students in many universities on the eve of the 1989 student movement. They also contribute to the xenophobic interpretation of Tibetans’ and Uighurs’ resentments as pure fabrications by “hostile foreign forces.” China’s economic success, the government’s promotion of nationalism, and large-scale internal and international migrations have increased Han interaction and frictions with other ethnic or racial groups and intensified Han chauvinism in recent years. This chauvinism, as a menace to China’s internal stability and its cooperation with other countries, is a twin of the century-old Han-centric Chinese nationalism. It needs to be transformed into a more cosmopolitan form based on values and cultures rather than ethnic identity.

Inclusion and Rapid Change

Zai Liang is a professor of sociology and director of the Urban China Research Network at the University at Albany, SUNY.

China’s encounter with foreigners is not new. This is especially true for Chinese who live in the coastal region. What distinguishes today’s Chinese experience is the unprecedented scale and diverse number of countries and regions involved.

The language barrier is a huge obstacle for understanding between Chinese people and new migrants, but that can change.

In today’s world, this encounter is a two-way street, with many Chinese migrating to other countries and citizens of other countries moving to China for economic or educational opportunities.

Race matters in China, as it does in the U.S., with foreigners and immigrants of darker skin often treated poorly. This is true despite the warm relationship between China and African countries during the Mao era.

Another factor for tension is the language barrier, which is complicated by the fact that many local people speak regional dialects rather than Mandarin. This has created a huge obstacle for understanding between Chinese people and those who don’t speak Chinese.

Read more… As a result some businesses transactions — and even some rental contracts — are done in English. A good command of Chinese language would go a long way in resolving issues such as disputes with neighbors or dealings with law enforcement agencies. One of the challenges that China faces now is the rise in undocumented migrants or visa over-stayers. We have already seen this play out in the case of Africans in Guangzhou and this is likely to become a bigger issue as China’s growth attracts more people from abroad. At a fundamental level, I do not expect overwhelming difficulties of integrating foreigners into the Chinese society. China is a huge country with a long history of interacting with other groups within its borders and beyond, and it includes over 50 minority groups with different languages and religions. The past 30-year history of opening up shows that Chinese culture can be inclusive.

Learning From the West

Dongyan Blachford, associate professor of Chinese studies, is associate dean in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Regina, Canada.

Growing up in Beijing, as a member of the Han majority, I did not see China as a country which exhibited racial discrimination; after all, the mission of the Chinese revolution was to build a class-free and egalitarian society.

As a result of living abroad, many Chinese returnees have developed new perspectives on minority rights.

However, after having lived outside China for over 20 years, and having experienced and witnessed discrimination in various forms, I now realize that many in China are simply unaware of the racism and prejudice that exists.

Among the Han Chinese themselves a judgment is often made in a split second based on people’s looks, places of residence, types of employment, parents’ titles, or who their relatives are. As for foreigners, they may also be subject to hasty judgment; blacks are often associated with backwardness and poverty, whites with money, advanced technology and even beauty. The attitude towards China’s non-Han ethnic groups is more complex: they are often viewed as inferior, but they are still considered insiders.