TAIPEI, Taiwan – For one user on a Chinese social media platform, Waibo was American.
“British people make me anxious, but I hate Americans,” read a user’s comment.
In another case, it was in Japanese.
“I really hope the Japanese die,” the user repeated 25 times in the post.
Xenophobic and hypernational comments continue to appear on Chinese social media even after some of the biggest tech companies last year vowed to crack down on hate speech following a series of knife attacks on Japanese and American nationals in the country. It can be easily provided on the platform.
Since the summer, there have been at least four foreign stabbings in China. This includes the September incident in which a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy was killed in Shenzhen.
The attack took place on the anniversary of a false flag event orchestrated by Japanese military personnel to justify the invasion of Manchuria, so it not only demands an explanation from the Japanese government from its Chinese counterpart, but also forces the Japanese He urged them to ensure that more is done to protect them. Nation.
After the incident, some Japanese companies offered to send their staff and families home.
A few months ago, a knife attack that injured an American university instructor in Zilin strained relations between the United States and China.
Beijing maintains that the isolation of the stabbing was an isolated incident, while expressing its condolences to the attack and the victims’ families.
“Similar incidents can occur in any country,” Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a regular media briefing after the attack in Shenzhen.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese embassy in Tokyo did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., said Chinese law “prevents extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination, violence, and It clearly prohibits the use of the Internet to disseminate “other information.”
“The Chinese government has always opposed all forms of discrimination and hate speech, and calls on all sectors of society to jointly maintain order and security in cyberspace,” a spokesperson told Al Jazeera. spoke.
Although violence against foreigners in China is rare, an apparent increase in attacks and the prevalence of online hate speech in 2024 is prompting concerns at home, said a former Chinese state media journalist. said Wang Zichen, founder of the newsletter Pekingnology.
“We have started to move into a domestic discussion about this kind of speech and how to suppress it,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
Despite pledges by Chinese tech companies to crack down on hate speech against foreigners, cracking down on such content will not be easy, says a doctoral student at Tulane University in the US who specializes in China’s authoritarian politics. says Andrew Devine.
“Especially because[tech]companies have an incentive not to control hate speech,” Devine told Al Jazeera.
Although the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms to distribute content are shared with the Chinese government, they are not available to the public, making it difficult to know the exact mechanisms by which hate speech proliferates online. .
Elena Yi-Ching Ho, an independent research analyst focused on Chinese propaganda and social media, says that the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms are different from those used by platforms outside the country. said that it is likely that they are not similar.
“They want to maximize engagement among users on the platform, and they want users to stay on the platform as long as possible,” Ho told Al Jazeera.
Ho said it could be advantageous for Chinese influencers and bloggers to seek controversy with supranational content to get users’ attention.
In today’s China, any perceived patriotism can attract public outrage.
Last year, Chinese water bottle company Nongfu Spring removed bottles from its stores after social media users claimed the company’s logo depicted Japan’s Mount Fuji.
Online condemnation spread to the company’s owner, Zhong Shanshan, who had loyalties to China and was amplified by the fact that his son holds American citizenship.
In 2023, rocks and eggs were thrown at two Japanese schools in Qingdao and Suzhou after Tokyo decided to release treated radioactive wastewater from the attacked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
Wang said the spread of negative commentary about foreigners on Chinese social media is a result of growing hostility between China and several other countries.
“Relations with parts of China have deteriorated very significantly in recent years,” Wang said.
China and Japan have a number of historical and territorial disputes pending, including the status of the Jiayu/Sengkak Islands in the East China Sea.
The United States and China have also seen relations plummet in recent years amid disputes on topics ranging from trade to Beijing’s claim of ownership over self-excluded Taiwan.
But according to Ho, hate speech against foreigners predates some of these recent clashes.
“And Japan and the Japanese people were a particular target of that,” she said.
Some Chinese bloggers and social media users trace the roots of their negative feelings toward the Japanese to what they call Japan’s “hate education,” including their abuses during China’s imperial era.
Wang said Japan’s actions during World War II had a deep impact on China’s national spirit.
“Japan launched an invasion in World War II, where millions of Chinese people died and remains in the hearts of many Chinese people today,” he said.
“For some people, there’s a sense that the Japanese haven’t done enough to atone for that.”
Still, some Chinese citizens argue that Japan’s atrocities should not be used to justify today’s hateful sentiments against the Japanese.
“I think if we want to reduce hate speech, we need to change the way we did things in the past,” Tina Wu, a 29-year-old social media manager from Shanghai, told Al Jazeera.
Hate speech isn’t just a problem with the Chinese internet, but Chinese social media platforms, unlike their US counterparts, operate in a highly censored environment where the crackdown on sensitive topics is a semi-contrasting occurrence. I will.
China, along with Myanmar, has the world’s most free internet, according to a report on 72 countries by the US-based nonprofit Freedom House.
According to China’s Digital Times, in 2020, more than 35,000 words related to Chinese President Xi Jinping alone were subjected to censorship.
Devine said that while some hateful commentary is subject to censorship, content that reflects the official position of the Chinese government is less likely to be removed.
He said he did not believe that promises by Chinese tech companies to crack down on xenophobia and hate speech would do much to change the spread of such content.
“At the same time, tech companies want to avoid taking on the extra cost of policing it,” he said.
Regardless of incentives, social media platforms with more than 1 billion active users cannot realistically impose every instance of hate speech, Wang said.
“There is no way to eradicate or eliminate everything because there is so much information and so much information is being added all the time,” he said.
“China’s moderation capacity also has its limits.”
Wang said he was optimistic that there had been China’s friendly exchanges with several countries recently and the country’s growing power and influence would lead to less foreign sentiment.
“Rather than still being haunted by the memories of the past, China should have the confidence to walk into the future with greater security and confidence,” he said.
Wu, a native of Shanghai, similarly said he would like to see a reassessment of some of China’s major narratives, especially those related to foreigners.
“It’s a big part of the China story right now that we are always victims of foreign attacks,” she said.
“And as long as that continues to be a strong message, I fear there will be more attacks on foreign nationals in China.”