1994/06/01 by Barry Sautman · 164 citations
Social Sciences · #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy #China's Global Influence and Migration #China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance #Xenophobia #China #Racism #Plague (disease) #Ethnic group #Political science #Population #History #Development economics #Gender studies #Sociology #Demography #Ancient history #Law
paper · doi:10.1017/s0305741000035827
published in The China Quarterly 138, 413-437 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1994/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Expressions of anti-black sentiment by Chinese students have caught the world's attention periodically since the end of the 1970s. Demonstrations against African students in Nanjing and other cities between late 1988 and early 1989 received wide press coverage. Because the African population in China is small and transient, some observers saw these events as a manifestation of a vestigial xenophobia, not as part of a developing trend of thought within a key segment of Chinese society. Placed next to the brutal ethnic conflicts that plague much of the world, the episodic, non-lethal incidents in China seemed evanescent, with only fleeting implications for China's foreign policy.