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==Japan== |
==Japan== |
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Sinophobia is especially common in Japan. While Japan was maturing under [[Tokugawa shogunate]] into a modern aristocracy society, a belief in |
Sinophobia is especially common in Japan. While Japan was maturing under [[Tokugawa shogunate]] into a modern aristocracy society, a belief in superiority over Chinese was promoted, theorized as the contemporary Chinese society was not made of the Chinese blood of the classic time, from which Japan had founded the base of own culture. |
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[[Meiji Restoration]] (1866 – 1869) has made Japan an industrial power ready for colonization abroad, timely enough, China was sinking into the deepest state of dysfunction. That has provided further ground for Japanese education system |
[[Meiji Restoration]] (1866 – 1869) has made Japan an industrial power ready for colonization abroad, timely enough, China was sinking into the deepest state of dysfunction. That has provided further ground for Japanese education system depicting Chinese as sub-specie, encouraging Nazism and racism among Japanese citizens. While Japan finally embraced Nazism in 1930s, their military attacks on China proper was meant to be as brutal as the Mongol attacks. |
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These Sinophobic sentiments helped to materialize the Imperial soldiers commit atrocities in massive scale against the Chinese, officially began with the [[Nanking Massacre]]. |
These Sinophobic sentiments helped to materialize the Imperial soldiers commit atrocities in massive scale against the Chinese, officially began with the [[Nanking Massacre]]. |
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In the post-war Japan under American protection, occupier's policy was general tolerance and encouragement for Japan's cultural integrity. Unlike Germany, Japan government had oppotunity to retain the tradition in education system a culture of anti-Sino sentiments, inclining to the western sinophobia, though deprived of the world Yellow, often referring Chinese in borrowed word “Chino” instead of the high classic name of ‘Chiugo’. |
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==In the West== |
==In the West== |
Revision as of 04:48, 3 July 2006
Sinophobia is a consistent hostility toward people of Chinese origin, and may also refer to hostility towards China's culture or history and government. The term describes the actions and attitudes of individuals as well as the policies and pronouncements of governments and other organizations.
Sinophobic attitudes often have Chinese minorities outside of China proper as their target. This is true both in Asia (historically and in the modern era) and in the West. In this sense, the term essentially denotes an ethnic bigotry, often complicated by the economic and political exigencies of immigration and majority-minority relations. Where it is directed at the country itself, anti-Chinese sentiment may or may not qualify as an ethnic or racial prejudice, as criticisms of the Communist Party of China are not necessarily meant to impugn the Chinese population per se. One obvious example is protests against the PRC government by supporters of Taiwan independence.
Historical Background of Sinophobic Sentiments
Largely drawn to the Chinese empire's persistent existence over a vast (somewhat overreaching) territory in East Asia employing a system of bureaucracy relying on self-efficiency (Confucianism) from plebeian, Chinese society has shown sign of declining vitality in both military ambition and individual creativity in the last two millennia. Even as Han as highly heterogeneous and ever-evolving ethnic identity, however its major cultural identity was defined in its classic time before 3rd century B.C., thus casting a long shadow for other ethnic cultures within the territory to fertilize. A few major military success in subduing China proper by Mongol (1271), Manchu (1644) and Japan (1937) powers further consolidated subconscious fear in the modern Chinese society. Industrial revolution has brought shocking impact for Chinese society under Manchu rule to find reasons to be perceived as a society living in the remote past. Growing resentment from outside world against general values of Chinese society since the successful western colonization or westernization in the surrounding countries has left the large empire unconquered but deeply isolated. The pan-Chinese Sinosphere including Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Burma had successively taken opportunities to wean from Chinese influence as sign of their own national maturity, some nations including Japan had employed cultural repellent sentiments to quicken their own cultural advancement. By the end of 19th century, internal chaos of China in both civil life and the Manchu regime reached the point of dysfunction, giving rise to quick popularization of negative images of Chinese as representation of a corrupt and undesirable state of living. That was done both overseas by Chinese export of coastal farmers as labours, and in China proper by quick adaptation of western elitism.
20th Century has seen China struggling to define itself in successive panic reactions to its social dysfunction and world isolation. Communism gained a stronger foothold in a series of nationalistic panic in mid 1930s. With crumbling down of communism ideologies, social dysfunction resurfaced in 1990s, giving rise to another wave of negative sentiments in China-bashing. This time, it took the double-effect of anti-communism together with the tradition of Yellow Peril complex.
Southeast Asia
Beyond Sinosphere countries, in tradition China Empire had maintained little interest or influence over. However a small portion of Chinese population from the trading coastal provinces and Hakka warfare refugees had made huge impact on the Southeastern economies. Populations wise they reached a majority in Singapore, a large minority in Malaysia, and minorities of less than 5% in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand amongst others. The stronge tradition of trading and clan-style self-reliance did bring them into a tradition of controlling much capital and general economic activity in these countries, often compared to Jews in Europe, and in a similar sense encouraging a different kind of Sinophobic sentiments. One study of Chinese as a "market-dominant minority" notes that: "Chinese market dominance and intense resentment amongst the indigenous majority is characteristic of virtually every country in Southeast Asia." (Chua, 2003, pg. 61)[Full citation needed] In the countries with small Chinese minorities, the economic disparity is remarkable: with 1% of the population in the Philippines and 3% in Indonesia, Chinese controlled 60% and 70% of the nations' private economy, respectively, in 1998 (Chua, pg. 3, pg. 43)[Full citation needed]. Similar statistics hold in Vietnam and Burma.
This radically asymmetrical economic position has often created explosive anti-Chinese sentiment amongst the poorer majorities. This has led to violence, such as in 1969 in Malaysia and in 1998 in Indonesia, where more than 2000 people died in rioting [1]. In the Philippines hundreds of Chinese are kidnapped every year and often killed regardless of a ransom—a problem the poor, ethnic Filipino, police are often indifferent to (Chua, pp. 1-5)[Full citation needed]. The government of Malaysia is constitutionally obliged to uphold the privileged status of the Bumiputra, at the expense of but not limited to ethnic Chinese.
Japan
Sinophobia is especially common in Japan. While Japan was maturing under Tokugawa shogunate into a modern aristocracy society, a belief in superiority over Chinese was promoted, theorized as the contemporary Chinese society was not made of the Chinese blood of the classic time, from which Japan had founded the base of own culture. Meiji Restoration (1866 – 1869) has made Japan an industrial power ready for colonization abroad, timely enough, China was sinking into the deepest state of dysfunction. That has provided further ground for Japanese education system depicting Chinese as sub-specie, encouraging Nazism and racism among Japanese citizens. While Japan finally embraced Nazism in 1930s, their military attacks on China proper was meant to be as brutal as the Mongol attacks. These Sinophobic sentiments helped to materialize the Imperial soldiers commit atrocities in massive scale against the Chinese, officially began with the Nanking Massacre. In the post-war Japan under American protection, occupier's policy was general tolerance and encouragement for Japan's cultural integrity. Unlike Germany, Japan government had oppotunity to retain the tradition in education system a culture of anti-Sino sentiments, inclining to the western sinophobia, though deprived of the world Yellow, often referring Chinese in borrowed word “Chino” instead of the high classic name of ‘Chiugo’.
In the West
China has figured in the Western imagination for more than two millennia in a variety of ways: positively, as an inventive, well-organized alternative civilization and negatively as a monolithic and repressive society.
In modern times, China has been an ambivalent immigration source for the west and obviously Sinophobic policies (such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, the policies of Richard Seddon, and the White Australia policy) and pronouncements on the "yellow peril" were in evidence as late as the mid-20th century in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This has largely subsided however, and Chinese immigrants are often considered to be a model minority. In Russia, and especially in Siberia and the Russian Far East, there is a fear of a demographic takeover by Chinese immigrants in sparsely populated Russian areas [2] [3].
Internationally, China's booming economy and tremendous growth in power has been the subject of much speculation and apprehension with many believing that China could soon be in a position to challenge the United States as the sole superpower. Many are uneasy with the prospect of burgeoning Chinese hegemony as a country controlled by an unelected, single-party communist state. Many observers concerned with the lack of political and religious freedom in China increased their dislike of Chinese political machinations after watching the suppression of protesters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.