How Online Communities Consume and Reinforce the Anti-Chinese Sentiment

• In Event: Negative Side-Effects of Social Media: Extremism & Hate Speech

Abstract

This study examines how online communities are functioning as platforms to express and reinforce anti-Chinese sentiment in Korea. The anti-Chinese sentiment is getting severe in South Korea. Recent surveys show that South Koreans hate China more than Japan, a country that has colonized Korea for more than thirty years. Also, Koreans hate China more than their long-time enemy since 1950, North Korea, despite the fact that the two Koreas are technically at war (Choe, 2021; Lee, 2021). The “emotion temperature” towards China and the Chinese people were the lowest among other neighbors – the U.S., Japan, and North Korea. South Koreans felt 26.4 out of 100 toward China while they felt 57.3 toward the U.S. They felt 26.3 towards Chinese people while Americans marked 54.6. Also, 58.1% of South Koreans think that China is “close to evil” (Lee, 2021).
Pew Research Center has reported similar findings. Negative views towards China have reached the highest level in South Korea in the eighteen years since the institution started surveys. In 2002, 31% of South Koreans made an unfavorable evaluation of China. In 2020, in contrast, 75% of South Koreans made a negative evaluation of China (Silver et al., 2020).
What makes South Koreans have a negative perception of China and Chinese people? More than 80% of Koreans reported that it is because of air pollution caused by China, the Chinese government’s handling of COVID-19, and economic issues such as illegal fishing committed by Chinese fishermen (Lee, 2021). The result implies that South Koreans may have a perceived threat to their health and economy posed by China and the Chinese people.
It is noticeable that the anti-Chinese sentiment prevails among younger generations. The emotional temperature of China was 31.1 out of 100 among the 60s and over, followed by 30.8 among the 50s, 28.3 among the 40s, 21.8 among the 30s, and 15.9 among the 20s (Lee, 2021). According to Pew Research Center, South Korea is the only country where young people have more negative perceptions than older people. The difference between the evaluations of China among the oldest and youngest in the U.S., Canada, and the UK were 25, 24, and 22. South Koreans showed reversed number of -12, which indicates that younger people see China more negatively than older people (Silver et al., 2020).
This study focuses on online communities to capture such pervasive anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. More than 70% of the 20s are engaging in online communities (Oh & Kwon, 2020), and using uncivil words about China and Chinese people became popular in the online communities. By exploring such online communities, we can see how the prevalent anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea is being expressed in text and images. The slur “jjang-ggae (짱깨)” has long been widely used. This is a contemptuous term for China and Chinese people, like the n-words in English. Abbreviation of the sentence “The only good Chinese is a dead Chinese (착짱죽짱)” is also easy to find. “Nanjing Grand Festival (난징대축제)” is a twisted version of the Nanjing Massacre, indicating that killing Chinese people is a good and enjoyable thing.
In a recent survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 79% of South Koreans think that online hate speeches are “serious” (National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea, 2021). They reported that they have encountered hate speeches about women (80.4%), certain regions (76.9%), and feminists (76.8%) online. 65.7% reported that they have witnessed incivility about immigrants. More South Koreans are worrying about such hatred and incivilities causing discrimination and controversies over time, compared to the previous survey in 2019.
Observing such incivility in online communities, mostly expressed by young Koreans, I aim to find out how online communities function as platforms to consume and reinforce the anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea. I expect to show that users’ engagement and their emotional attachment to the online communities have an association with the anti-Chinese sentiment and their actual consumption of slurs about China. The threat perception that Koreans have towards China is expected to moderate this relationship.
A survey will be conducted with 300 South Koreans who are engaging with online communities to examine their patterns of engaging in the online communities, perceptions, and behaviors regarding anti-Chinese slurs, and perceptions of China and other countries. I expect to show that users’ engagement and their attachment to online communities have an association with anti-Chinese sentiment and the actual consumption of slurs about China. Also, based on the integrated threat theory of prejudice, I test how different kinds of threat perceptions moderate the relationship between online community engagement and anti-Chinese sentiment and behavior.

Author

• Yu Jeong Hwang, University of Arizona