President Obama's visit to China has highlighted, as usual, the many inequities and iniquities of life under the Han. Coverage this week on PRI's The World and the Seattle Times underscore, yet again, the sad state of affairs regarding the views of the Han people towards people of darker skin colour. Various apologists said that the lashing out at the young biracial (black Chinese) woman on the Chinese TV show was just due to ignorance...listen to/read the comments: I think not.
The increasing number of Africans moving to China for economic reasons (the influx of Chinese investments in various countries in Africa) has lead to an increasing number of cases of harassment against these people. During the heyday of Chinese and Soviet jockeying for spheres of influence in the developing world, they encouraged African students to travel to China and the Soviet Union for training. Even then, being black in those parts of the world was not easy. But in the name of comradeship and worker solidarity, overt racist behaviour was suppressed. With the rise of the ultra right nationalists in Russia and China flexing it's geo-political muscle, and with both countries trying to control minority populations within and around their borders, racism is rearing it's ugly head even higher.
