Detangling Sinophobia and criticism of the Chinese State

In May this year the enactment of the Colombo Port City Economic Commission (CPCEC) Bill provoked severe public backlash against China’s potential influence in Sri Lanka. More recently, China’s influence over Sri Lanka through ‘vaccine diplomacy’ has also attracted concerns. 

Such concerns with respect to China’s growing influence may draw from latent Sinophobia within segments of Sri Lankan society. However, should all negative sentiment on China be characterised as ‘Sinophobia’? 

This article examines Sinophobia within Sri Lanka’s social media discourse on China. It explores the extent to which Sinophobia may be driving an aversion to China’s engagement in Sri Lanka. The article then reflects on the risk of conflating Sinophobia with criticism of Chinese Governmental policy. 

Conceptualising [Chino]Sinophobia in Sri Lanka

A scenario may prove useful in helping us understand a typical example of Sinophobia. Imagine a person receives the wrong food order while dining at a Chinese restaurant. While venting out their frustrations about the restaurant’s service, they comment on the [Chinese] server’s inability to read the correct order because of the shape of the server’s eyes. The question arises as to whether the complaint about the restaurant’s service was driven by the patron’s irrational prejudice towards Chinese people or by a reason independent of any such prejudice. 

Sinophobia may be defined as an irrational hatred (or fear of or aversion) to people of Chinese origin, their language or culture, or even Chinese-made goods. For example, the comment on the physical appearance of the server at the Chinese restaurant is Sinophobic. By using this commonly accepted definition as a frame of reference, we can ask: should all negative discourse on China following the enactment of the CPCEC bill be classified as Sinophobic? 

Negative discourse on the CPCEC bill highlighted fears that the Colombo Port City would become a ‘Chinese colony’. On social media, these fears were further spread in the form of memes and satirical videos, which amplified racist Chinese tropes. Overall, Sri Lanka witnessed high volumes of social media content mocking physical features of Chinese people, cultural attire, language, food items that are not ordinarily consumed in Sri Lanka, and ‘cheap’ goods made in China. These posts depicted life in Sri Lanka as a ‘Chinese colony’. All of these instances are a direct attack against the Chinese people and their culture, and thus Sinophobic. In fact, this content reveals that Sri Lankan Sinophobia, similar to global Sinophobic discourse, appears to be fuelled by the perception that the Chinese are ‘uncivilised and culturally alien or inferior’. 

Criticism of China’s geopolitical manoeuvring in Sri Lanka are entangled among Sinophobic discourses. Critics accused China of ‘invading’ Sri Lanka to increase its economic foothold in the Indian Ocean region. They also cite threats to the country’s sovereign and territorial integrity. Whether such criticism is a valid assessment of China’s engagement in Sri Lanka is debatable. However, this strand of criticism displays antipathy towards the Chinese State, and not ‘irrational hatred’ towards its people or culture. Such criticism cannot be equated with Sinophobia. In this context, it seems that the circumstances that led to non-Sinophobic criticism, also provided a platform for Sri Lanka’s internalised Sinophobia.

Port City project: A platform for expressing Sri Lankan Sinophobia?

Returning to the restaurant scenario, imagine that the patron’s frustration with receiving the wrong order is a reason independent of their internalised prejudice against people of Chinese heritage, and is a valid critique of the restaurant’s service. The wrong food order provided a platform for Sinophobic remarks to manifest in the course of critiquing the restaurant’s service. 

Similarly, public aversion to Chinese engagement may be driven by non-Sinophobic fears. These fears can be a combination of Sri Lanka’s post-colonial anxieties regarding external control, post-war anxieties of threats to the country’s territorial sovereignty, and China’s own track-record in other developing countries, particularly in Africa. Whether these fears can be justified is irrelevant to the current discussion. In fact, these fears have in the past driven public opposition to agreements with countries such as the US and India. However, racial stereotyping of these countries’ citizens and/or culture was absent in the public’s opposition to these agreements. In China’s case, policy engagement that is being perceived as ‘threatening’ to Sri Lanka have provided a platform for Sri Lanka’s internalised Sinophobia to manifest in public discourse. 

Negative discourse on China could be characterised as follows: (a) Sinophobic, (b) non-Sinophobic, or (c) non-Sinophobic in terms of the underlying driver, but featuring Sinophobia. These distinctions are crucial for rational discussions of policy, especially on the Colombo Port City project. Clumsily labelling all types of criticism of Chinese policy as ‘Sinophobic’ risks delegitimising much-needed critical analysis of a foreign power’s engagement in Sri Lanka. 

[Mahoshadi Peiris works as a researcher in Sri Lanka. She graduated from the University of London with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB).]