Talk:Anti-Western sentiment in China

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Untitled[edit]

Removed "one-sided media". POV. If you're going to put "supposed" or "alleged Western bias", calling the CCP media one-sided in the same article is obvious bias. Huaxia (talk) 22:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not to start anything but is it just me or is all this "anti-West" stuff stuff that the West really did and China is sending backlashes for those actions? I mean the whole article paints the picture that because 3 people were bombed by a plane that "had the wrong map" or Olympic torch runners were attacked, that the Chinese public decided to go "anti-West" over it. Seems to me like the "anti-West" stuff is to be expected when people have really been hurt or injured or attacked by the west. Can we actually get some proof of anti-West that isn't a reaction to violence from the west? Sinophobia is defined by violence by the fearful against the Chinese like the Chinese massacre of 1871, but this article looks like its all reactions by the Chinese to violence against the Chinese. lol Can you really call anti-Sinophobia the same thing as anti-West? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.213.212 (talk) 21:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly the Ethnic Issues in China article shows some major incidents of "racism" in China. These include the Opium Wars? The Opium Wars? Really? How is it racist to defend the country against foreign invaders that have been poisoning its people with opiates illegally? Are African slaves that kill their slavers racist against whites? Then there's the Boxer Rebellion. Again are you kidding? So you have eight to ten industrialized European/Japanese nations all making decisions about what to do with Chinese land WITHOUT the Chinese and rebelling against that and the dynasty that's allowed it is racism? I guess the Americans were racist against their British oppressers then. Then and this is the kicker, the Second Sino-Japanese War is RACISM! WHAT? Does that mean the Jews are racist against Nazi Germany? When a country tries GENOCIDE on you how can anybody of sound mind even THINK that that's racist to hate them? Hanzhu (talk) 21:27, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

=[edit]

If the section 'Understanding Anti-Western sentiment in China' purports to explain the phenomenon then surely the possibility of real bias from the 'Western' (US & European) media should be cited. After all, the one-sidedness of the Chinese media is included. The absence of this factor suggests that anti-western sentiment in China is completely unfounded. No rational person would argue that this was the case for, say, anti-white sentiment on the part of African-Americans. Things such as the 'Yellow Peril' are documented historical fact and even now there are studies aplenty that prove that many Americans do in fact fear and dislike China. Surely its not unreasonable to assume that some of these Sinophobic may emerge in Western media coverage, particularly from relatively right-wing media outlets such Fox News.

220.233.239.252 (talk) 10:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Western media bias is discussed as a contributing factor in the first section (section 1.3) so mabye the problem is with the second section (section 2) being called "understanding anti-western sentiment" as this title suggests that the factors below are the only factors in understanding anti-western sentiment. If the title is changed to "other factors in understanding anti-Western sentiment" would that solve the problem?
(Defaultface (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]
I think then it would be better if:
"Many Chinese, however, argued that their anti-western sentiment comes from the western media's one-sided and selective coverage to demonize China. Many Chinese believe behind this it is the western-supremacism: the west believe the west deserve ruling the planet but China is the biggest potential rival to the west."
...was put in the section titled "Accusations of media bias". (Defaultface (talk) 23:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]

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The introduction to this article is extremely problematic for a number of reasons...

First of all, what is meant by "anti-Western sentiment" needs to be clearly defined. Is it sentiment as is held by Chinese citizens as a whole? Sentiment that is expressed in Chinese media? Sentiment expressed by Chinese leaders? This is important because of the claim that anti-Western sentiment has been "increasing since the early 1990s, particularly amongst the Chinese youth." From this we can see that the claim is that anti-Western sentiments held by Chinese citizens are supposedly increasing. But what is the metric by which these sentiments have been measured, and subsequently found to be increasing? Does this "increasing" describe more intensely felt sentiments, more extreme sentiments or that the sentiments are more pervasive within society? We don't know because it hasn't been defined.

"Anti-Western sentiment in China has been increasing since the early 1990s, particularly amongst the Chinese youth.[1]"

The citation for this is just a transcript of a conversation with a former Australian diplomat who casually mentions that he thinks Anti-Western sentiments during the 2008 Tibet protests APPEAR to be rising? There is nothing that supports the bold claim that Anti-Western sentiment has been rising continuously in the whole country for the last three decades. Does this mean that anti-Western sentiments amongst Chinese citizens as a whole have been increasing since the early 1990's? If so, where is the time series data from public opinion polls of Chinese toward Western countries that show sentiments have become increasingly negative over the years?

"Notable incidents which have resulted in a significant anti-Western backlash have included the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade,[2] the 2008 demonstrations during the Olympic torch relay[3] and alleged Western media bias,[4] especially in relation to the March 2008 Tibet riots.[5]"

Anti-Western sentiment was probably higher during and after these select incidents, but these still do not support the notion that anti-Western sentiment has been rising continuously for the last three decades amongst Chinese citizens. Just because the media reports isolated incidents of anti-Western protests by a small number of Chinese does not mean that anti-Western sentiment is increasing on average among the 1.3 billion people of China. Media coverage, which in general is skewed toward negative and sensational stories, provides no statistical basis on which to measure these sentiments and merely produces a clustering effect by which people falsely assume that these events are normal, frequent, widespread throughout the country and representative of Chinese people as a whole and thus demonstrate that anti-Western sentiments are increasing.

"While available public opinion polls show that the Chinese hold generally favorable views towards the United States,[6]"

So the only information presented about anti-Western sentiments in China that uses somewhat measurable data shows the opposite of what is being claimed, but then it is immediately discredited? I'm glad whoever wrote this took a college writing course and learned to make selective concessions to the opposition viewpoint, which they immediately discredit. For the future, if you're going to use this line of reasoning, either set up a better straw man argument for you to dismantle, or provide better support for your own...

"there remains suspicion over the West's motives towards China[6] stemming largely from historical experiences and specifically the 'century of humiliation'.[7]"

This sentence just muddies the waters to distract readers from the fact that they don't have any evidence with which to disprove the data cited above, from the same survey even, that show anti-American (Western) sentiments are not ubiquitous in Chinese society like this introduction would have us believe. Suspicion towards the West's motives is not equivalent to holding anti-Western sentiments. While this "suspicion" part is introduced as a caveat to the finding that there are actually positive sentiments toward the West (America) to show it is inconclusive, it is actually not an equal measure of sentiments toward the West. People can have positive attitudes toward the United States because of Hollywood, American businesses/products, American values, liberal principles, etc. while still being suspicious toward the US government's motives toward China because of real historical experiences/slights, US hegemony, etc. In this sense, Chinese hold a bifurcated view toward the United States. Without nuance, you can't claim over a billion people feel one way or another toward the West.

“Some allege that these suspicions have been increased by the Communist Party's "Patriotic Education Campaign".[8]"

If this article is going to claim that anti-Western sentiment is rising in China, particularly amongst Chinese youth, then mentioning the Patriotic Education Campaign needs to be because it shows the campaign has actually led to a demonstrable increase in nationalistic sentiments among Chinese youth, otherwise readers are made to assume it is such, even when no real evidence has been put forth.


How do we know if anti-Western sentiments among Chinese are increasing? According to the sources in this article, because the media tells us so. The evidence for this "rising anti-Western sentiment" is mostly anecdotal, based on non-random interviews with a small number of Western diplomats, non-random selection of Western academics' papers, the non-random selection of anonymous posts on the internet by Chinese nationalists, or selective reporting about relatively rare protests or street demonstrations by a small number of Chinese. The claim is made that anti-Western sentiment is rising PARTICULARLY among Chinese youth because it is assumed, though not shown, that the Patriotic Education Campaign launched in the early 1990s (what a coincidence that this is the same time that anti-Western sentiment among ALL Chinese is purported to have begun rising, even though the effects of such a campaign would surely take a few years to be seen, no?) is having its intended effect. Most of the citations in this article select on the dependent variable in that they only look at the evidence that confirms this increasing anti-Western sentiment argument. [1]

Garthkaspersky (talk) 03:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Winter 2016/17), pp. 7–43, doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00265 © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Article Outdated[edit]

The information in the introduction of this article seems to be highly inaccurate or at best outdated. Consider the following polling: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/30/6-facts-about-how-americans-and-chinese-see-each-other/

If one takes those 2016 Pew polls at face value, it follows that:

1) Most Chinese hold unfavorable views toward the US.

2) Young Chinese hold a more positive attitude of the US than older Chinese.

Of course, from (2) it doesn't necessarily follow that younger Chinese are more pro-Western in general, but I think it's fair to say the introduction should be revised; for instance, the current source [1] doesn't even seem to support the claim very well. I haven't checked the other sources, but overall it seems like everything in this article, even if well-sourced, is over a decade old and someone should probably update things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.178.207.20 (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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