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Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)
- User23 8y agoThe ongoing Chinese colonization of Africa is one of the biggest stories the western news media has absolutely no interest in reporting.
- Angostura 8y agoEh? Comes up quite a lot in UK broadsheet media.
- Lordarminius 8y agoThe ongoing Chinese colonization of Africa is one of the biggest stories the western news media has absolutely no interest in reporting. Perhaps because the Chinese are not (being allowed) to 'colonize Africa'. They may have a large presence in East Africa but are of limited significance elsewhere in the continent.
- djtriptych 8y agoYeah like every African colonizer ever. What is your point? Colonization doesn't happen in continent-sized chunks.
- laum 8y agoThe BBC made a show about it as far back as 2011. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ykxg9 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ykxg9
- m3nu 8y agoWith China being very homogeneous in terms of race, they never worked through those issues. I don't blame them. My grand parents, who lived in the countryside all their life would react in a similar way. Small anecdote: I attended an English class at a Chinese business university. The teacher (young girl, never left China in her life) told us that everything "French" means "sex/porn/etc", i.e. "french book", "french movie". Funny, but tragic. Also remember the racist ad for washing powder (girl washes a black guy and a Chinese jumps out afterwards). They will probably need some slightly more tragic events and pushback to acknowledge it's a problem. Would be better if they learnt from the west's painful lessons, but my hopes for that are low.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago> With China being very homogeneous in terms of race Uh, no.
- m3nu 8y agoUh, yes. For the country as a whole Han Chinese are 91.6%. The workers who go to Kenya are probably from coastal regions, where the ratio will be even higher. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
- inferiorhuman 8y agoUh, no. There are fifty five formally recognized by the PRC including ones they're actively trying to exterminate (e.g. Uyghur). Within the Han community there is still a significant amount of diversity including countless dialects of the Mandarin and Cantonese languages. Your comment is a bit like claiming that with all the white people in Europe, it's not a very diverse place. In contrast the Japanese government recognizes about four indigenous races.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoYour comment and the parent can be true at the same time. A quick search leads me to this Wikipedia entry that claims exactly that: As of 2010, the combined population of officially recognised minority groups comprised 8.49% of the population of mainland China. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_minorities_in_China
- PakG1 8y agoI think you genuinely think you're right and everyone else wrong. I'm not sure how to explain to you the implications of over 90% if you don't understand already. China could have a million ethnic groups and it wouldn't change the specific situation being discussed when you have one group over 90%.
- leongrado 8y agoFor the most part, Chinese in China don't have a culture of condemning racism like the US or other western nations. As apparent in the video, he isn't even ashamed of being called racist.
- withhighprod 8y agoHe looks like from Guangdong(by appearance), northerners actually frequently refer them to monkey
- throwaway0923 8y agoThat’s because China’s racism is more about stereotypes and less about physical KKK type violence. If there was violence, it would definitely be condemned. The best analogy I can think of is the current Harvard Affirmative Action lawsuit. There are people who don’t feel they are racist/biased, but somehow justify to themselves that having a quota on Asian American students is fine.
- 50656E6973 8y agoGoogle "uighur muslims china", and you will see its much more "physical" than you claim
- mothsonasloth 8y agoI think I posted this before but my old university buddy who's from Zambia, jokes with me that the Chinese are colonization 2.0 The Chinese government have no scruples which is why they are out-competing Western companies and governments in Africa, who are tied behind political and moral restrictions. Also the Chinese have a major resource in man power which they can deploy anywhere for cheap.
- whooshee 8y agoYup, China built railroads and other infrastructure at a relatively low price in Africa, they have no scruples. Not to mention died dozens of workers in 80s. Some Western companies are plumbing oil in Africa, they are moral heros. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/04/shell-nigeria-oil-pollution-clean-up-amnesty https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/04/shell-ni...
- nabla9 8y agoGlobalization and colonization have been always linked and globalization usually starts with either with colonization or something that looks like it. Adam Smith himself argued that the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus accelerated the process of globalisation [1] (without using the word globalisation). When Chines build roads to extract resources with questionable intent, those roads and electric grids are free for all and not all traffic goes to China. Some even question the net value of Chinese efforts for the Chinese. [1]: https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/23/when-did-globalisation-start https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/23/when-did-...
- veddox 8y ago> my old university buddy who's from Zambia, jokes with me that the Chinese are colonization 2.0 Lived there myself, can confirm.
- perseusprime11 8y agoThe picture in this tweet is very timely and appropriate to this post. https://mobile.twitter.com/effyzhangmy/status/1091688146448732160 https://mobile.twitter.com/effyzhangmy/status/10916881464487...
- perseusprime11 8y agoIf you think this picture is photoshopped, it's not. Check out the video: http://v.ifeng.com/dyn/m/video/32078215/index.shtml http://v.ifeng.com/dyn/m/video/32078215/index.shtml
- yuhe00 8y agoCorrect translation: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=%E5%BC%80%E6%8B%93 https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary....
- beerlord 8y agoAnd here it is from the Chinese perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-QpyF7rNc&t=3512s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-QpyF7rNc&t=3512s
- dm3730 8y agoI watched the video. It shows a Chinese site manager having a confusing interaction with several African workers. He then expresses somewhat racist views to the camera, eg: all Africans are well built because it is a survival of the fittest environment. But I could not follow what you meant by the Chinese perspective. Could you elaborate?
- Bakary 8y agoI do recommend watching the documentary in its entirety but there's also an interview with the director that addresses some of the themes in this thread. https://filmmakermagazine.com/35197-empire-of-dust-an-interview-with-bram-van-paesschen/ https://filmmakermagazine.com/35197-empire-of-dust-an-interv...
- swervematchbook 8y agoThis is almost certainly going to be an unpopular view but when you view the Chinese behaviour through the lens of a Western view of the world, you are insensitive to the fact that modern Chinese culture has a really different starting point, the nation is mostly ethnically homogenous and was not really involved in the enslavement. I'm not necessarily out to defend the behaviour of this person - I think they were pretty callous, and some of the other practices also seem pretty horrendous but I also think some of the offence readers of this article may take come from projecting our own personal views onto the behaviour of others, ignorant of the different origins and cultural contexts of the offender. When slurs such as referring to people as monkeys are used by the Chinese, they are not steeped with the kind of hatred and historical context when wielded by someone from the West. ---That doesn't make it any less hurtful or insensitive--- That said, it also doesn't necessarily carry the same intent as it may outside of China. Comparison with animals is far more normalized and entrenched in culture: for instance, everyone is assigned a zodiac by their birth month and the Monkey King is a household mythological hero.
- oriol11 8y agoAfricans are not racist and the rwandan massacres and centuries of tribal wars were a mirage. It's only when Europeans or Chinese land in the continent that the racial harmony is broken.
- iguy 8y agoCan anyone knowledgeable comment on the depth of Kenya's internal divisions? From the NYT's perspective clearly Kenya is racially uniform, but I know that there was significant political violence at recent elections, to do with which tribe or language group candidates or parties represented. Do such distinctions matter only at voting time, or do they matter in everyday life too... like whether X landlords will be happy to rent to Y people, or employ Z? Can such distinctions be perceived immediately on the street (e.g. from accent) or only once you know someone's surname, or something?
- mmczaplinski 8y agoA westerner who used to live in Kenya for about 6 months. The tribal divisions are very much present in Kenya. You can tell the tribe that someone belongs to by their surname and to a lesser extent by physical appearance. People are definitely more happy to hire others from their own tribe or rent rooms to them but it's more just nepotism than outright racism, at least in larger cities. The violence that happened during the last elections was also driven mostly by political factors first, rather than race. It just so happens that the president Kenyatta and the political elites of Kenya come mostly from the Kikuyu tribe, which then leads to tensions along tribal lines. In my experience, the tribal divisions are more pronounced in the countryside. Until recently, in some parts of the country there has been open conflict between tribes, e.g between Turkana and Samburu in the north. I have witnessed numerous times the Samburu use racial slurs to describe the Turkana and vice versa.
- iguy 8y agoThanks, that's helpful.
- amaccuish 8y agoWhy does the nytimes offer translations into Chinese? I've never seen that for articles to do with Russia for example?
- ardy42 8y ago> Why does the nytimes offer translations into Chinese? I've never seen that for articles to do with Russia for example? I think it started because they tried to start a Chinese edition for the PRC, but that was eventually blocked after they published a story the communists didn't like. Maybe continuing to pay for translations is not too expensive in the grand scheme of things, and keeps them well-positioned (with mind-share and the like) if there's ever a thaw and they're unblocked.
- robertwalsh0 8y agoThis article made me think of a Chinese film called ‘The Wolf Warrior 2’ where the benevolent Chinese save an unnamed African country. I believe it’s one of the highest grossing Chinese films ever and might shed some light on Chinese attitudes toward Africa/Africans. It feels like ‘Starship Troopers’ level propaganda and is completely straight faced. The villagers constantly thank the Chinese hero for his over-the-tip acts of bravery, they celebrate when he wins local drinking contests, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Warrior_2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Warrior_2
- 0max 8y agoIt doesn't help that in China down to Southeast Asia, the tanner your skin is, the less respect you get. That being that those who are more tan are people who work fields historically.