Chinese social media is quite
different from traditional media in many ways; netizens, for instance, express
their support or criticism of certain social groups more aggressively, with
much less reserve. This is due partially to the government’s tight control of
television broadcasters and newspapers, which does not allow any deviation from
the official line. Conversely, China’s Internet is
relatively open – government’s control notwithstanding, a netizen can post
angry comments from time to time with impunity.
Discussions on Muslims and
Islam has been a taboo for China’s traditional media for several decades.
I do not know the exact time when this began, but according to conventional
wisdom and experience in the media, it dates back to the Mao Zedong era. When metropolitan newspapers and television programs
flourished during the 1990s, it became even more
difficult to report on Muslim issues.
Some foreign observers tend to
forget that China has 56 ethnic groups and quite a few of them
are predominantly Muslims, most notably the Hui and the Uyghurs.
China is home to 20 million Muslims. That number may seem
insignificant compared to 1.4 billion, but the government cannot afford to
treat Muslims lightly. As a result, Beijing — and thus state-controlled
media — has been careful in maintaining good relations between different ethnic
groups and their religions. Official propaganda on ethnic issues seeks
to strengthen minority groups’ identification with China and to avoid
separatist tendencies due to ethnic and religious conflicts. For example,
the popular song “56 Nationalities and 56 Flowers” ends with the
line “love our China.”
To that end, traditional media
tightly restricts the way ethnic issues — particularly Muslim issues — are
represented. When I was working at a media agency years ago, there was a ban on
running anything related to pork or pigs along with stories about Muslims. As
another example, I remember reading an interview with then Israeli
President Shimon Peres, and right next to it there was another interview about
Arab countries, despite the fact the Peres did not mention the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict but only talked about Israel’s relations with
China. Such arrangements by the media were intended to serve the national
interest, fostering a positive environment both for solidarity among
China’s different ethnic groups and religions and China’s relations with Muslim
countries around the world.
The emergence of social
media has changed everything.
Recently, some netizens have been expressing dissatisfaction, in some
cases quite aggressively, with China’s supposedly “soft” policy toward its
Muslim population. Some netizens even took to
humiliating and insulting Muslims in China and the Middle East. This
anti-Muslim sentiment found on social media poses new challenges for
China’s regulators tackling ethnic and religious issues.
Plenty of examples indicate there is
a surge of hostility on China’s social media toward
Muslims. Netizens have invented a new phrase – “Green Religion” — to
refer to Islam, due to the color’s significance in the religion (including the
color’s inclusion in most national flags of Muslim countries). Muslims,
then, are referred to be the invested phrase “the Greens” — an openly
derogatory term. Each time an attack occurs in the West, for instance when news
came out about the attacks in Paris or Brussels, it sparked heated discussions
on China’s social media, and some would suggest that “this must have been done
by the Greens.”
Such attacks are the first
reason why China’s netizens have turned against Muslims. An increase in terrorist attacks has awakened the Chinese to
the threat of terrorism. Since most of these attacks were carried out by
Muslims, netizens’ attitude toward Muslims in general has deteriorated.
China has suffered fewer terrorist
attacks compared to the West, but the number of attacks has been increasing,
especially in the western part of China, for example in the Xinjiang Autonomous
Region. The suicide bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan is another
case in point. The interesting thing is, while China told its people to
support Arab countries, especially the Palestinian cause, during Mao and Deng’s
time, China’s netizens now are overwhelmingly
supportive of Israel taking military action against Arab countries.
As an example, the head of Al
Jazeera’s Beijing office has a Weibo account and almost every post is
subject to attacks. Some comments are extremely hostile – “Pack up and go
back to the Middle East” — or even violent — “We support Israel’s
killing of you all.”
The refugee crisis has
also contributed to negative views toward Muslims among the Chinese. Chinese pride themselves on their hardworking image, and
many of them look down upon refugees from the Middle East, especially
physically strong men who smuggled their way to Europe. Most of China’s netizens dismiss the refugees as mobs, or agents
working for Islamic State; the refugees are labeled “lazy” and
a security liability to the world. This dynamic also feeds into Chinese
netizen’s growing anti-Muslim sentiment.
China’s netizens are now making fun
of Europe’s policy on refugees, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
decision to accept refugees. Many netizens say in a mocking tone that
Germany will turn “Green” one day and Europe will become “Europestan.” When
some leaders in the West suggested that China should also accept some refugees
from the Middle East, it was rejected flat out on China’s social media. Some
netizens even suggested China should let the refugees stay in the West to bring
more disasters on Western countries.
In addition to events overseas,
however, China’s domestic policy has also been
responsible for the hostility toward Muslims online. As was mentioned
earlier, China has been trying to maintain the cohesion between different
ethnic groups and religions over several decades, but this has now sparked a
backlash on the social media.
For example, China is building large
numbers of mosques in its western region, and construction has even
extended to Shenzhen, a developed city on the east coast. Some Muslim
communities in the western region have started learning Arabic at school, and
road signs now have Arabic along with Chinese. Some Muslim women in China have
adopted the wearing of the hijab or even black burqas.
The spread of visually identifiable signs of Muslim identity has led to
criticism online. Some netizens blame these changes on China’s misguided ethnic
and religious policy; some even went so far as to compare Beijing’s policy
toward Muslims to the appeasement of the Nazis before World War II. They
believe if this tendency is not curbed, the Han Chinese position as China’s
dominant ethnic group will be at stake.
These comments stem from a
deep-seated fear that China may also “turn Green” one day. The hostility toward Muslims is in fact also an
objection toward what they consider as China’s misguided ethnic and religious
policy, which is viewed as too soft on Muslims. Since such sentiments could never appear
on television and newspapers controlled by the government, the Internet has
become their battlefield.
The dominant ethnic group in China
is the Han, making up around 90 percent of the total population;
unsurprisingly, then, most Chinese netizens also happen to be Han Chinese.
This is why anti-Muslim views that espouse a sense of superiority of the Han
Chinese are able to gather considerable support. Adding to this is the
obtrusive presence of Muslims in some parts of the country, which leads to
further animosity among the Han Chinese.
During Ramadan several months ago,
one major street in China’s biggest city Shanghai was sealed off to allow tens
of thousands of Muslims to line up to pray toward Mecca. Photos of the
scene deeply unnerved the “Han nationalists” and increased their anxiety about
the prospect of “China’s fall into Muslim hands,” following the example of
Europe.
China’s social media also regularly
churn out stories about conflicts between the country’s Muslim and non-Muslim
communities. For example, some Muslims demand that there should be no smell of
pork in their neighborhood. In other incidents, some Muslims, believing
the trucks carrying Halal food are not clean, have forced their way
onto the trucks for inspections. Once these small-scale conflicts are
labeled as a Muslim issue, they immediately go viral on social media,
which further antagonizes China’s netizens against Muslims.
In the most recent case, the tragic
murder-suicide of a mother and her four children in Gansu province has also
been given an anti-Muslim context by netizens. Media reports have blamed
extreme poverty for the grisly case. Some netizens, however, blame ethnic
policy — they argue that the government should not spend money on
mosques when people are living in poverty.
Only rational debate can lead to a
more secure China. The rise of aggressive anti-Muslim
sentiments on social media is a worrisome step in the wrong direction.
