Yang Rui’s Rant
Prime time CCTV ‘Dialogue’ talk show host Yang Rui’s rant about cleaning out ‘foreign trash’ last week went viral over the blogosphere with netizens, Chinese and foreign, calling for his sacking. Commenting on the Beijing Public Security Bureau’s crackdown on foreigners overstaying their visas in a Weibo (micro-blog) post, Mr Yang delivered a tirade against foreigners that rivals the xenophobia reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution.
“The Public Security Bureau wants to clean out the foreign trash: To arrest foreign thugs and protect innocent girls…(to) cut off the foreign snake heads. People who can’t find jobs in the US and Europe come to China to grab our money, engage in human trafficking and spread deceitful lies…Foreign spies seek out Chinese girls to mask their espionage. We kicked out that ‘foreign bitch’ (‘pofu’), (referring to Al-Jazeera’s former Beijing English Bureau Chief Melissa Chan who was denied a visa extension). We should shut up those who demonize China and send them packing”, wrote Mr Yang.
Understandably, netizens vented their fury at Mr Yang, with some even linking his remarks to the infamous anti-foreigner Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th Century. Clearly surprised by the outcry, Mr Yang issued a response to the Wall Street Journal: “…Most (foreigners) are friendly. They travel, do business and make a living here honestly. But some are not…After looking at (videos of foreigner misbehavior), I termed these expats ‘foreign trash’…It was a reaction of the moment and nothing more…My posting of May 16 is a wake-up call. Western and Chinese, no one should be above the law…I want to separate (the bad apples) from the silent majority in the expat communities who obey and respect our culture and society.”
Reflecting on recent ‘ugly foreigner’ incidents – such as a Youku video showing a young inebriated Englishman apparently trying to sexually assault a Chinese woman in Beijing and another of a Russian cellist for the Beijing Symphony Orchestra acting obnoxiously and bad-mouthing a fellow passenger on the Shenyang to Beijing high-speed rail – the Economist magazine points out that such incidents have stoked indignation among Chinese toward the antics of unruly and otherwise repulsive foreigners, albeit who constitute a tiny fraction of the broader community.
The magazine also discussed the almost schizophrenic swings in the Chinese psyche toward foreigners. I would add that this bipolar behavior owes in large part to the century and a half of humiliation the Chinese have suffered at the hands of foreign powers and the extra-territorial privileges enjoyed by expats during the heydays of the foreign concessions. On the one hand, Chinese often fête foreigners (especially whites from rich Western countries) for any interest they show toward Chinese language and culture. But, on the other, as Mr Yang’s diatribe shows, admiration can easily turn into hatred and unfounded denigration of foreigners and their influence.
The English and Chinese editions of Global Times, while denouncing Mr Yang’s brazen comments as being too ‘harsh’, said it was unfair for netizens to unleash rage at the authorities’ crackdown on expat criminals and illegal immigrants onto one person. “We reiterate that we don’t think Yang was right in posting his message as it was, but we think the demand for his dismissal is harsher than his message.” The paper cited the example of CNN host Jack Cafferty viciously attacking Chinese leaders in 2008 as “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years”. Despite the fact that he said it on air (and Mr Yang had made his message on his personal Weibo), Cafferty was not dismissed.
The same could be said of conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh’s mocking of President Hu Jintao during his visit to Washington in January 2011. After complaining that Hu’s speech was not being properly translated, that “Hu Jintao was just going ching chong, ching chong, cha”, Limbaugh launched a lengthy imitation of Hu’s dialect that was seen as disgustingly racist by many in American politics and media.
Calling Limbaugh’s performance an embarrassment to the country, Andrew Leonard, a blogger and Salon.com editor wrote: “I’m sure the clip is already surging through the Chinese Internet and millions of Chinese citizens are contemplating that one of the heroes of a newly ascendant Republican Party is a nativist ignoramus intent on purposely humiliating the current leader of the world’s next great superpower.”
I will focus on foreigners and illegal immigration in China in my next post.