Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

I have a friend who was raised in Vietnam of pure mainland Chinese parents (from the diaspora). Educated in Chinese schools (there was a huge Chinese community in Saigon where the Chinese dominated business), he spoke primarily Chinese until the age of 14. In his 14th year, Chinese schools were forced by the Vietnamese government to use the Vietnamese language in all classes, so he had to learn formal Vietnamese, and to read, write and speak Vietnamese in, say, geography class.

In summary we have an individual who

- culturally is classical Chinese,

- was born in Vietnam,

- is a naturalized US citizen,

- whose Chinese cultural habits and language date from the time of his parents' migration (circa 1920's) and are classical (non-Mandarin) Chinese,

- whose Vietnamese language and cultural skills are weaker, dating from middle school on,

- who also took English as a foreign language beginning in middle school,

- who also learned Mandarin so he could speak to his brother's new wife, a mainland Chinese woman.

Anyway, he worked in an office in the USA with mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and the usual mishmash of other Americans. Astonishingly, each of the Chinese groups, and the Vietnamese group, treated him as an outsider. With the exception of the Vietnamese, these groups tended to promote from within and to prefer their own group in inter-office politics. He went so far as, at one point, to specifically inquire into people's beliefs and was surprised to find that there was _no_ group that accepted him as a member, except the Americans! This despite the fact that everyone liked him.

Recently, for reasons unknown to me, he has become a flaming pro-mainland Chinese proponent vis-a-vis the USA, despite having no direct ties to the current Chinese culture or government. Many times I've had to point out to him that the only thing he truly is, and the only culture that truly accepts him, is "American".

I really got his goat by pointing out that he has little in common with mainland Chinese, certainly neither language nor culture, and that he is to them, culturally the equivalent of their grandfather or even great-grandfather.

China is what happens when you enclose a really big population in a box. And this box is really comfortable; you have little incentive to go outside of it. You have the company of millions of other Chinese folk, and Chinese culture and its derivatives (to this day many of us see Korea and Japan as copies of Chinese culture) can entertain us indefinitely. The average Chinese has little incentive to run off and seek interaction with other races, other bits of culture. I suspect (but might be wrong) language barriers also play a role in this.

Even today in places outside China, you can notice how Chinese will naturally gravitate toward each other into little "bubble" communities. The fact that there are just so many of us makes this very easy. I know other cultures do this as well, but like I said, we have the population advantage.

Chinese are racist because we have very limited experience with other, non-East Asian cultures. Oftentimes you will see Chinese follow straightforward stereotypes regarding ethnicity. For example, Chinese attitudes toward blacks easily stem from what they see in the news or media (Movies, crime reports, etc.). Confirmation bias does play a bit in here: Chinese culture already has a pretty simple ideal in which darker-skinned people are unfortunately shafted and considered undesirable.

When it comes to history, Chinese people again suffer from the box-syndrome - many are proud and fervently study Chinese history, and thus barely scrape the surface of world history. My immigrant father could recite many Chinese emperors by name, but knows nothing about American, European, even Japanese history (except WW2, of course). One thing I found interesting was that my dad is totally fine describing the brutality of ancient and medieval Chinese rulers, but as we get closer to the present, the spotlight turns to Japan and then things get quieter. Even today he watches media pretty much exclusively on Chinese apps - no Youtube, etc. I can tell there's so much there for him, he has no incentive to look elsewhere.

It is not obvious to me that the American approach of racial quotas in high education (which incidentally penalizes Asians very heavily today, perhaps more than any other group) is particularly different from the Soviet approach of racial quotas in high education (which to some degree penalized ethnic Russians by reserving spots for people from the other "republics", and heavily penalized students from "overrepresented" minorities, quite similarly to penalizing whites somewhat and Asians more heavily in today's US.) It doesn't seem different from Israel's affirmative action where Arabs get preferential treatment at the expense of Jews, either. Perhaps it seems reasonable to some to blame Chinese for not having racial quotas which supposedly "address" racism, but especially since Asian Americans get heavily penalized in the scheme, it's hard to respond to an argument from a Chinese person that the scheme doesn't address racism but institutionalizes it.

Nor is it obvious to me whether the average Westerner of any particular group is more or less racist than a citizen of Russia, including both ethnic Russians and those who are not. It's fairly obvious that the Westerner might be more reserved in expressing racist views, fearing repercussions, although at other times the Westerner will actually be very loudly racist if it is currently in vogue to be racist against this particular race (right now anti-white sentiment is celebrated, which, whatever its reasons, will surely produce terrible results; the broader point is that it's not obvious that being racist against one race at one time is fundamentally different than being racist against another at another time, and even if we agree that it's done for very different reasons, it does not follow that it will produce very different results.)

I'm not saying that Russian attitudes toward race are the same as Western attitudes, just that the report's claims about the Russian society and the Western societies which I kinda sorta know things about (though it's hard to summarize millions of people very precisely or to inform oneself about them fully in the first place) make me suspicious with respect to its main topics, Chinese attitudes to race. It would be interesting (though not necessarily representative of the entire Chinese population) to hear Chinese people weigh in on this.

What really stuck out to me was this line that explains how racism benefits the Chinese government: "First, the Han Chinese possess a strong in group identity with a polarized and tightly defined out group. This allows the Chinese government to expect sacrifice and as well as support from the considerable majority of the Chinese people."

Perhaps a lot of these attitudes come from how in many Chinese people's eyes, their golden years were when they had very little outside influence and were able to invent some of the most useful inventions in human history (compass, paper, gunpowder). From the time that they have mixed with the West, they have had some very negative experiences, (as the report brings up, the Opium wars, burning of the palace). Perhaps their attitudes will change slowly now. In my experiences, racism is something that is slowly taught/instilled, and so I don't expect any easy reversal.

(Or maybe I've missed it, I've only read the summary and a few paragraphs that contained the term "white")

I'm probably biased since I'm Chinese. I agree with most part of this report. The author did a lot of good homework. But I think his thoughts to work out those strategies need some update to better fit in the world today and tomorrow. There are similar parts and there are different parts.

200+ pages, no clear summary, unclear what it is it? Other than appearantly it is confidential who has written it, seemingly academic and it is about Chinese and/or China being racists.

Where is this document from? And why was it written?

"Racist" is probably the most damning word that one can use in politics (here international politics) and can be used justify a great deal of wrong doing.

In Chinese history and contemporary culture, the Chinese are seen to be unique and superior to the rest of the world. Other peoples and groups are seen to be inferior, with a sliding scale of inferiority.

The Chinese commonly believe that they are cleverer than others, and so may shape events in an oblique manner or through shi [势], the strategic manipulation of events. This conceit among the Chinese that they can manipulate others is supremely dangerous for Asian stability.

An overconfident China will continue to make the mistakes it is presently in the South China or East China Sea disputes. That is, making threats, issuing demands, heavy-handed shows of force, are generated by China’s overconfidence.

Analysts do have insight into how China will behave in the future based on its behavior in the past, when it was the hegemon of Asia, the known world as far as China was concerned. China sees itself as the center of the universe, all others are inferior, with varying degrees of inferiority. That is not an attractive model of winning allies and influence.

In contrast, China portrays itself as an apolitical rising superpower that does business in your country, pays a fair price for your commodities, and builds your infrastructure with no string attached.

There often is considerable resentment toward the Chinese due to their ruthless business practices, which undercut and destroy African businesses.

Not sure if USA can exploit negative perceptions of China, given our history and the histories of other white-dominated nations (e.g. GB and France) in Africa and Latin America.

For all we know, the Third World might not mind at all seeing the West taken down a peg, especially if they see no change in their status. But even if things go worse for the TW because of China, what can they do about it?

Update: I see you've reworded your post and removed the quotation marks, I appreciate it.

While the Chinese might have a sense of exceptionalism, Americans also do, as well as many other countries. The Chinese have objectively received many humiliations historically and it is understandable if they do not feel good about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation