Talk:Racism in China

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CELINEZ.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 19 March 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. There really isn't anything in the old article at Racism in China to merge, but I have moved it to Summary of racism in China and it should probably be deleted. Anyway, consensus is that the common name for racism is, in fact, "racism", and that consistency with other countries' articles about racism effectively mandates that this page be moved to the proposed title. There was great discussion about the scope of this title. As the title stands, it sure looks like it would be about the entire history of racism in China, a topic that will probably deserve multiple articles about multiple epochs in Chinese history. For now, the page is moved. (non-admin closure) Red Slash 17:14, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

---

• Ethnic issues in China → Racism in China
• Racism in China → tiny stub, easily merged with the current article

– This is one of only three Wikipedia articles in existence that uses the form "ethnic issues in Foo" instead of common "racism in Foo". We don't even have a redirect for ethnic issues, nor a Category:Ethnic issues. This is just an outlier in the Category:Racism by country. "Ethnic issues" is just a weaseling synonym for racism ("this country doesn't have racism problems, unlike rest of the world, we just have, errrr, some ethnic issues. Move on, nothing serious to see here."). Regarding the arguments in the prior RM last year that this article covers wider topics than just racism, no, sorry. Ethnic issues is just a rare synonym for racism that nobody even bothered redirecting yet. See the wider context at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Discrimination#"Ethnic_issues_in"_vs_"Racism_in"_problem. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: Racism in China titles a page with content and so it is ineligible as a new "target" title. If a merger is preferred, then please withdraw this request and follow the instructions at WP:MERGE. Otherwise, a new page name or disambiguator will be needed for the targeted article. This request has been modified to reflect that fact. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 02:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• A Racism in China article already exists. Are you proposing a page move or a merge? Either way, oppose. The points made in the last RM remain valid – some of the topics discussed in this article fall into the category of racism, but others don't. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:40, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think the Racism in China fleshed out enough to stand on its own, and think it makes sense for them to be merged.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:23, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

The right solution is to flesh out the Racism in China article, not to merge in a bunch of material about a different topic. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Mx. Granger, Per my comments above and below, it's the same topic. Ethnic issues is just a Wiki-invention that has been used by people who either misunderstand that racism is a broad term that applies to ethnicity, not just race (even UN agrees on this), or worse, used by those who want to muddle the waters and deny that racism is an issue in their country. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:21, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

So you're saying that, for instance, categorization of Han Chinese subgroups or Qing-dynasty conflicts between Hui and Manchus are racism? Is this analysis supported by reliable sources? To be honest this article is a mess and I'm not sure what should be done with it, but I don't think the answer is to fill the Racism in China article with a bunch of information about Chinese ethnicities and ethnic conflicts. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Mx. Granger, Some of this content simply needs blanking (or merging somewhere else). For example, "categorization of Han Chinese subgroups" is not even an "ethnic issue", it is just a weird see also. Caused, probably, by the very fact that this article using an ambiguous name inviting such a see also maybe it's related subsections. Anything that is not about racial or ethnic discrimination should go, as simple as that. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:48, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds fine to me. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 08:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Mx. Granger, In that case, maybe you can reconsider your object vote above? Note I have removed the most off topic sections (which don't belong in the current article anyway). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:12, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll switch to neutral. There is still material that I don't think fits in the Racism in China article, but the focus is clearer now and a merge seems feasible. More cleanup for focus, NPOV, and verifiability will still be needed. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

• Strong support per nom, also support merging with racism in China.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:23, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support - "issues" is vague expression, which is, to be blunt, probably used to avoid unpleasant gravity and association that word "racism" carries.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 19:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
  • "...probably used to avoid unpleasant gravity and association..." Possibly. Especially since this "Ethnic issues" article started life as "Racism in China" and kept that title until this move in 2010. But about half of the article now covers non-racism issues. Shanghainese, Cantonese, &c., are not races, but there are certainly some "issues" between some of them. —  AjaxSmack  00:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

    AjaxSmack, As explained here and in the WikiProject discussion, the concept of racism is applied to ethnicity as well (the name is a bit misleading, which is why occasionally some scholars use different terminology like ethnic discrimination or xenorcism but generally most people, and scholars, stick with 'racism', and anyway, we can use redirects when necessary). You totally ignore the fact that the very term "ethnic issues" is a Wikipedia invention. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

If you see "ethnic issues" as a euphemism to obfuscate racism, I can understand that. I was being charitable and assuming that "ethnic issues in..." is a (vague) descriptive title which is certainly permitted at Wikipedia per WP:NDESC. I don't oppose the primary article being called "racism" or even having only one article to avoid a FORK, but if the title is to be "racism", then sections like Summary of Han Chinese don't belong. —  AjaxSmack  16:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

In post-modern and especially in postcolonial studies, racism definition is quite broadened (rightly so) to include both ethnic and cultural chauvinist concepts.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 20:21, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

AjaxSmack, As Santa said above. Racism is not just about race, the term is much more broadly understood these days. This is not a fringe viewpoint, this a generally accepted scholarly consensus. That said, the section you linked, as well as 'Summary of varieties of Chinese', should be removed - not only they are irrelevant to anything related to racism, but in fact, they are not relevant to 'ethnic issues'. Listing of ethnic groups/languages is not an 'ethnic issue' anyway. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose the (malformed) requested move based on the current text of the article per the previous RM above. Inclined to oppose a straight merge per User:Mx. Granger. The article as it stands is a mess. I'm not volunteering, but moving the racism material from this article to the Racism in China article or removing the non-racism material would be a start to improving the situation. (Note to admin/closer: if there is a merge, please merge the newer racism article into this one and then move it to preserve the more substantial edit history.) —  AjaxSmack  00:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

  Just a minor comment to the closer that I volunteer to do the merge if it is required, to ease the workload for the closers. The article is messy, but what we definitely don't need is a POVFORK under an ORish name that effectively tried to deny that racism is a problem in China._{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support Neither China nor Japan or the Philippines should get any kind of special treatment when it comes to their racism issues. Get rid of the current Racism in China article and move this there.★Trekker (talk) 17:47, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose: I see no reason why the points made in the September 2020 RM aren’t valid now. D🐶ggy54321 ^{(let's chat!)} 22:05, 20 March 2021 (UTC) Support: As said above, "ethnic issues" is a term generally used only by Wikipedia. The closest match Google can find is "ethnic conflicts". As well, I read the article with the lens of "Racism in China" and then again with the lens of "Ethnic issues in China", and the former just makes more sense. D🐶ggy54321 ^{(let's chat!)} 18:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

  Doggy54321, Did you read arguments made by me and Santa? Would you mind addressing them? Because we very much addressed the old points you refer them, pointing out why they are not valid. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: I don’t know why I said what I said. I had been up for around 20 hours and I was really tired. I’ve changed my stance from oppose to support after reading the article in full and reading everyone’s points (I had just skimmed over them before). Thanks! D🐶ggy54321 ^{(let's chat!)} 18:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support merging with Racism in China. CutePeach (talk) 16:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom. —hueman1 (talk • contributions) 06:21, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support merging with Racism in China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.115.4.205 (talk) 14:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Perhaps a better title would be Racial discrimination in China. Other possible titles: Discrimination of ethnic minorities in China or Repression of ethnic minorities in China. As written, the subject is not just a sentiment, but actual political repression, up to genocide, although "racism" possibly covers everything. In no way this is just "issues". My very best wishes (talk) 18:15, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support, as per the reasonings above. Morgengave (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article is still encompasses far more than racism. It's been a little more narrowed, but still not much improved since last RM. A separate article on "Racism in China" should still be maintained until this article is improved. It would be preferable for the elements dealing specifically with racism (as distinct from more generic language, caste, xenophobia, etc.) in this article be exported there, and leave this as a general "Ethnic issues" article. Walrasiad (talk) 20:44, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  Walrasiad, Which sections still present in this article do you think are not related to racism? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Everything before 19th Century, frankly. Heck, I'd remove everything that is not "Modern China". The word is being tossed around quite loosely and anachronistically here, without paying attention to scholarship on Chinese racism. There are articles on Sinocentrism and Zhonghua minzu which go unmentioned, nothing on Liang Qichao, "Great Han" race construction and historiography, etc. There deserves to be an article on "Racism in China". But this is not it. It just seems like a random slapdash crime blotter pasted together for no reason. Walrasiad (talk) 03:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Walrasiad, The fact that this article is poor and incomplete doesn't mean it is not about racism. There is no such thing as ethnic issues (if you disagree, please define this concept by writing an article about this - still a red link). You are welcome to both expand this article, and remove parts you feel are irrelevant. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

To reiterate from the WikiProject, racism is about "race", a 18th/19th Century construction by European "scientists". There actually has been a construction of "Han race", by Chinese "scientists" in the late 19th Century, and Chinese revisionist history applying them retroactively, both feeding into something that is quite identifiable as "Racism in China" in the modern era. However, one should be very careful in Wikipedia using these terms haphazardly and applying them anachronistically to pre-modern China without solid scholarly backing at every turn. Not only is it imposing a modern Western ideological prism where it does not fit, but even more problematically it is inadvertently endorsing a modern racist Chinese view of Chinese history. Walrasiad (talk) 05:30, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

These are important points. Whether or not the two articles are merged, this one needs a lot of cleanup and the other one needs a lot of expansion. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Walrasiad, And I concur that eventually, the article should discuss those issues, which right now it pretty much does not. That fact, however, bears little relevance to the topics of merging or renaming, which for the n-th time, simply center on the issue that I keep pointing out and you keep ignoring - namely, that there is no well-defined construct as ethnic issues (either on Wikipedia or in academia). This article was a mess precisely because it was using a weasely, ill-defined concept as its name. After the cleanup (removal of topics that are irrelevant to racism), the article's present content is quite relevant to the topic of racism (which also, as explained is inclusive of the idea of ethnic discrimination). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:52, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:57, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removing race construction

Given that a plethora of Wikipedians have decided to support this move, I'd like to request the removal or revision of anachronistic sections where Wikipedia editors engage in gratuitous race construction without RS backing. I mean particularly passages like this:

Racial slurs by the ruling Han Chinese in imperial China has been documented in historical texts such as Yan Shigu's commentary on the Book of Han, in which the Wusun people were called "barbarians who have green eyes and red hair" and compared to macaques.[2]"

where a Wikipedian decided on his own to classify ancient Han and Wusun as "races", seemingly attracted by the defunct ideology that phenotypes constitute "races", and consequently slurs are "racial". Walrasiad (talk) 18:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Walrasiad, This can be reworded to "racial and ethnic slurs", but otherwise seems relevant here. As was explained to you several times, the notion of racism is not limited to race alone. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:38, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

This passage looks like original interpretation of a primary source, which is not permitted. I agree with Walrasiad that it should be removed unless a source can be found for the claim that this Book of Han quote includes racial slurs. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 04:53, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

@Piotrus, You keep repeating that refrain, but as I have asked of you many times, bring some reliable evidence to bear. You have yet to do so. Racism pertains to race. It's in the word, and it's in the ideology. Now, it may be that European and North American societies have been dominated by the ideological concepts of race and racism over the past couple of centuries, so I can understand if Westerners have a habit of viewing things in racial terms, and have a hard time conceiving or talking outside of them. But race construction is not something that Wikipedia should be engaging in lightly, much less implicitly promoting. That is merely repeating bad 19th Century habits and effectively endorsing and promoting racist ideologies. Wikipedia should not be a place for tossing around racial theories of editors' invention, so you have to take caution. Unless it is referred to explicitly in those terms in reliable sources, they should not be included. Walrasiad (talk) 09:13, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

More race construction problems. The following is in the first paragraph:

"China is a largely homogenous society; over 90% of its population has historically been Han Chinese.[1] Some of the country's ethnic groups are distinguishable by physical appearance and relatively-low intermarriage rates. Others have married Han Chinese and resemble them. A growing number of ethnic minorities are fluent at a native level in Mandarin Chinese. Children sometimes receive ethnic-minority status at birth if one of their parents belongs to an ethnic minority, even if their ancestry is predominantly Han Chinese. Pockets of immigrants and foreign residents exist in some cities."

The "has historically been" is OR. The reference is to current population as listed CIA factbook. It makes no conjectures about past composition. The rest of the paragraph is completely OR, with some very speculative and rather sinister connotations of race construction ("distinguishable by physical characteristics" .. say what?). No references are given. This should be revised or removed. Walrasiad (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Walrasiad - I know this was back in 2021, but I have removed that entire subsequent sentences because it seems to be original research that doesn't cite RS. The only information from CIA Factbook is that China is relatively "homogeneous", with a majority Han Chinese population.

On a tangent but still related to racial constructions, I have somewhat of a problem with several Western media sources cited that assert Western racial constructs onto a non-Western society like mainland China. For example, the section about "Biases in favor of European and European-descended people" notes that English teachers who are "white" are allegedly favoured over other peoples. All the sources are from American- or British-based media. I know in the West, being considered "white" is associated with European ancestry and appearance, but mainland China is not America and it seems like some Western sources discussing discrimination in mainland China have a hard time accepting that. I have seen labels like "Yellow" being used in non-Western countries, which are considered obsolete in the Anglophone world.

For example, many Han Chinese do consider themselves to be "white" people due to their "white" (or light) skin tone. White skin (the Chinese like to consider themselves white)[1] As noted in this American article discussing discrimination in China. This goes against modern American/Western connotations of "whiteness", but does not invalidate how Han Chinese may see themselves.

One of my problems with said article, written by American writer and journalist James Fallows, is that when trying to discuss discrimination, he applies an American-centric view of "race" and "discrimination". Seemingly downplaying discrimination in Chinese society as not being "KKK levels" of hatred. Also, despite literally noting that the Han Chinese people he met do consider themselves to be "white people", Fallows, being an American and Han Chinese people are not considered "white" in America, doesn't take their claims of "whiteness" seriously. Especially since he himself is considered a "white" man in America.

Though, as far as this article is concerned, I have no problems with the section saying "European or European-descended people" instead of "race" (i.e - "Caucasian", "White", etc), as it's in-line with the other sub-sections identifying ethnic/religious/cultural terms instead of "race". Though I'm not sure if the alleged "biases" in favour of Europeans or European descended people is an entirely true statement. It seems to be more for foreigners. Ethnic Russians are one of China's 55 recognized minorities, and Russians are considered an Eastern European ethnic group (though most of their modern county is geographically in Northern Asia). Some Chinese of Russian descent have discussed being treated like "outsiders" in their own native country, like this man.[2] He doesn't appear to talk about having any "favourable biases" he has in society. Though the article is from an American media company (CNN), and does try to get into pseudo-science about Han Chinese "racial features"... which is rather ridiculous since many peoples have "Han Chinese racial features", if that means stereotypical East Asian appearance. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 10:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how noticing that a group of people tend to look a certain way is pseudoscience. Noticing that the Dutch are tall or have high rates of blue eyes is not pseudoscience.

And merely saying something is "racial" in this context probably means it is proposed to be a genetic tendency for that "race". As opposed to say, a cultural difference in dressing habits. Gelbom (talk) 03:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

About https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Racism_in_China&diff=987140450&oldid=986740874

I saw {{Failed verification|date=March 2018}} that was adding by Solniun(Rajmaan).Does anyone know where {{Failed verification|date=March 2018}} was copied from? Because this edit adds too much content and it takes too much time to check, it is difficult to confirm reliability.If anyone knows the copy source, we can check from the copy source's edit history. Rastinition (talk) 05:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)