Taichung, Taiwan – For a user on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, the problem was the Americans.
“The British make me anxious too, but I hate Americans,” reads the user’s comment.
For another, it was Japanese.
“I really hope the Japanese die,” said the user 25 times in a post.
Xenophobic and hypernationalist comments are easy to find on Chinese social media platforms, even after some of the largest technological companies in the country last year committed to repressing hate speeches following a series of Knife attacks against Japanese and American nationals in the country.
Since the summer, there have been at least four stab wounds of foreign nationals in China, including an incident in September during which a 10 -year -old Japanese schoolboy was killed in Shenzhen.
The attack, which took place on the birthday of a false flag event orchestrated by Japanese military personnel to justify the invasion of Manchuria, prompted the Japanese government to demand an explanation of its Chinese counterpart as well as Insurance he would do more to protect the Japanese Nationals.
Following the incident, some Japanese companies proposed to repatriate their staff and their families.
Months earlier, a knife attack that injured four American college instructors in Jilin placed American-Chinese relations under pressure, the American ambassador R. Nicholas Burns accusing the Chinese authorities of not being to come with Information on the incident, including the attacker’s reason.
Beijing, while expressing regrets on the part of attacks and condolences to the families of the victims, insisted that the wave of stab wounds was isolated incidents.
“Similar cases could occur in any country,” said Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said a regular media conference after the attack in Shenzhen.
While the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo did not respond to requests for comments, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC declared that Chinese law “clearly prohibits use Internet to spread extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination, violence and other information ”.
“The Chinese government has always opposed any form of discrimination and hate speeches, and calls on all sectors of society to jointly maintain the order and safety of the Cyberspace,” said spokesman for Al Jazeera .
Although violence against foreigners in China is rare, the apparent increase in attacks in 2024 and the prevalence of online hatred speech sparked concerns in the country, said Wang Ziche, former Chinese state journalist and founder of the Pekingnology newsletter bulletin.
“He has set in motion domestic discussions on this type of discourse and how to hold it back,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
Despite the promises of Chinese technological societies to suppress hatred speeches against foreigners, the police of such content is far from simple, according to Andrew Devine, doctoral student at the University of Tulane in the United States who specializes in politics authoritarian China.
“Especially since [tech] Companies have incentives not to control hatred speeches, “said guest in Al Jazeera.
Although the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms to distribute content have been shared with the Chinese government, they were not disclosed to the public, which makes it difficult to know the exact mechanism by which hatred speech proliferates online.
Elena Yi-Ching Ho, an independent research analyst focused on propaganda and social media in China, said that the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms are probably not different from those used by platforms outside of the country.
“They want to maximize the commitment between users on their platforms, and they want users to remain on their platform as long as possible,” HO told Al Jazeera.
In the search for user attention, it can be lucrative for Chinese influencers and vloggers to seek controversy with hyper-nationalist content, HO said.
In today’s China, a perceived lack of patriotism can attract public anger.
Last year, the Chinese Bottle of Water Bottle Nongfu Spring had its bottles from mass stores withdrawn after social media said that a company logo represented Mount Fuji in Japan.
The online conviction has spread to the owner of the company, Zhong Shanshan, who had his loyalty to China, a charge amplified by the fact that his son holds American citizenship.
In 2023, a rock and eggs were launched in two Japanese schools in Qingdao and Suzhou after Tokyo decided to release the treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima -hit nuclear power plant in the sea.
Wang said that the proliferation of negative comments on foreigners on Chinese social media is partly the result of growing hostility between China and in certain other countries.
“Chinese relations with certain countries have deteriorated quite significantly in recent years,” said Wang.
China and Japan have argued on a number of historical and territorial conflicts, including the status of the Diaoyu / Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
The United States and China have also seen relations falling in recent years in the midst of disputes on subjects ranging from trade and the origins of the Pandemic COVID-19 to the demands of property of Beijing on Taiwan Autict.
But the speech of hatred towards foreigners is prior to some of these recent clashes, according to HO.
“And Japan and Japan have been special targets,” she said.
Some Chinese bloggers and social media users have retraced the roots of the negative feeling towards the Japanese to what they call “hate education” on Japan, including their abuse of the imperial era in China.
Wang said Japan’s actions during the Second World War deeply affected the China National Psyche.
“Japan has launched invasions during the Second World War where up to tens of millions of Chinese have died, and that remains in many Chinese spirit today,” he said.
“For some people, there is a feeling that the Japanese did not do enough to atone for this.”
However, some Chinese citizens argue that Japan atrocities should not be used to justify the hateful feeling towards the Japanese today.
“I think we have to change our way of dealing with our past if we want to see less hate speech,” said Tina Wu, a 29 -year -old social media in Shanghai, Al Jazeera.
Although hate speeches are not only a problem on Chinese Internet, Chinese social media platforms, unlike those in the United States, operate in a highly censored environment where repressions on sensitive subjects are a semi-consistent event .
China has the least free Internet environment in the world with Myanmar, according to a report on 72 countries of the non-profit Freedom House based in the United States.
In 2020, more than 35,000 words related to the Chinese president Xi Jinping were subject to censorship, according to China Digital Times.
Devine said that if hateful comments are subject to censorship, the content that echoes the official position of the Chinese government is less likely to be deleted.
He said he did not believe that the promise of Chinese technology companies to repress xenophobia and hatred speech will do a lot to change the proliferation of such content.
“At the same time, technological companies want to avoid taking the additional cost of the police,” he said.
Regardless of incentives, social media platforms with more than a billion active users cannot realistically eradicate each hate speech body, Wang said.
“There is so much information and more is constantly added that there is simply no way to eradicate or eliminate all of this,” he said.
“Even Chinese moderation capacities have their limits.”
Wang said it was optimistic that China’s friendly exchanges with certain countries recently and that the country’s growing power and influence will lead to a less anti-foreign feeling.
“China should have the confidence to enter the future with a greater feeling of security and confidence instead of being even haunted by memories of the past,” he said.
Wu de Shanghai also said that she hoped to see a re -evaluation of some of the dominant stories in China, especially foreigners.
“This is a large part of Chinese history at the moment that we are constantly victims of foreign aggression,” she said.
“And as long as it continues to be a strong message, I fear that there are more attacks against foreigners in China.”
