From Foreign Foes To Domestic Devils: The Expanding Meaning of 'Anti-China'

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 9: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Race and Politics

Abstract

For decades, the Chinese state has used the term “anti-China” (反华) to denounce foreign governments and geopolitical adversaries. Historically, the label marked external hostility and moments of diplomatic conflict. Yet in recent years, it has migrated into everyday social media discourse, where figures as varied as Lionel Messi, feminist bloggers, and fashion brands have been accused of being “anti-China.” How did a geopolitical accusation become a vernacular epithet for cultural deviance? This paper argues that we are witnessing a process of enemy creep—a bottom-up transformation in which an enemy label expands beyond its original domain. Drawing on two large-scale Weibo corpora from 2012 and 2022–2024, and combining entity extraction, embedding regression, and qualitative analysis, I trace three shifts: expansion from foreign states to domestic cultural actors; moralization from institutional conflict to emotional judgment; and bottom-up transformation, as ordinary users appropriate a state-originated category to police internal boundaries of belonging. Theoretically, this case revises classic accounts of enemy construction that treat naming enemies as an elite, top-down project. Instead, it shows how publics co-produce and extend enemy categories, embedding nationalist discipline within everyday discourse. In doing so, repression becomes participatory and morally authorized, helping sustain authoritarian rule not only through institutions, but through the voluntary enforcement of boundaries from below.

Author

• Yuchen Luo, New York University