Showing posts with label guangdong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guangdong. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Dealing with racism in China – Zhang Lijia

 

Zhang Lijia

As the Black Lives Matter movement took over some of the headlines, China typically dismissed racism as a Western problem. Author Zhang Lijia begs to differ, in The Wire. “The Chinese government claims to have “zero tolerance” for racism, but there have been no reports that anyone has been punished for the actions against the Africans in Guangzhou or elsewhere,” she adds.

Zhang Lijia:

Women who married  Black men were often insulted publicly for 下嫁 – marrying beneath them – whilst women with white husbands were sometimes accused of being “gold diggers”.

It dawned on me that as they grappled with modernisation, many Chinese were placing themselves in the middle of a racial hierarchy: above the black and below the white.

The outbreak of racial tension in Guangzhou last April did trigger some reflection. One unidentified African resident of the city – a man – made a video confessing his love for China and uploaded it on social media. In fluent Chinese he said he had been living in China for nine years, regarded himself as Chinese and considered China his mother. Sadly, he was rewarded with a deluge of taunts and jeers.

“Don’t be a hypocrite!” one Chinese netizen replied. “You love China only because China is richer than your country.” Another slung an insult. “You aren’t a Chinese at all. Don’t outstay your welcome. You lot are cockroaches and rats!”

China’s rising position in the world has led to the rise of nationalism, which is all apparent in those messages. With this lack of public awareness, racist discourse has become an integral part of Chinese nationalism.

In a book about race and medicine in China, sinologist Frank Dikötter pointed out that in China darker races were “discursively represented as hereditarily inadequate and waiting to go into extinction.”

As it has rippled across the globe, the BLM movement has forced civil society in several Asian countries to confront their own racial and ethnical prejudices. The result has been a spate of protests and public debates on issues such as the discrimination against Papuans in Indonesia, the privilege of the Chinese in Singapore and the death of Indians in custody in Malaysia.

Let’s face it: racism exists in every society. Professor Barry Sautman, a professor in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology wrote a paper, ‘Anti-Black Racism in Post Mao China,’ in which he called for an enforced legal deterrent. “Without it, no place in the world can diminish racial discrimination,” he said to me in an interview.

As a Chinese citizen I can only hope that the government will take the opportunity created by the rise of the BLM movement to deal frontally with racism in China, allow its people to discuss and show their support for it and encourage public debate, as Japan is doing.

The Chinese government claims to have “zero tolerance” for racism, but there have been no reports that anyone has been punished for the actions against the Africans in Guangzhou or elsewhere.

More in the Wire.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Guangdong: cradle for rich female entrepreneurs - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf
Rupert Hoogewerf
The Hurun China Rich List has published its annual list of richest Chinese women. Guangdong, says Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf in Crienglish, has a special position in creating female wealth. Chen Lihua, 75, founder of Fu Wah International Group tops the list.

Crienglish:
Chen Lihua, 75, founder of Fu Wah International Group, a company engaged in real estate development, has become China's richest woman with a net worth totaling 50.5 billion yuan (US $7.5 billion), according to the report Richest Women in China 2016 released by Hurun Research Institution on Tuesday. 
Chen is followed by Yang Huiyan, the 35-year-old heiress to Country Garden, a property development company based in Guangdong Province. Yang is worth 48.5 billion yuan (US $7.2 billion). 
Zhou Qunfei from Lens Technology, the major touchscreen maker, ranks third on the list with a net worth of 45 billion yuan (US $6.6 billion), shrinking by 10 percent, Qianjiang Evening News reports. 
According to Hurun, only women with a net worth exceeding 8 billion yuan (US $1.2 billion) are eligible to be selected as one of the top 50 richest women in China. Further, 32 out of the 50 newly selected female billionaires started their businesses from scratch. 
Among the top 50 richest women in the world, Chinese female entrepreneurs account for 56 percent. Further, 23 percent of wealthy Chinese women work in real estate, a decline of 2 percent year-on-year; 18 percent of them are involved in finance and investment, followed by manufacturing accounting for 14 percent, as Qianjiang Evening News reported. 
Beijing and Shenzhen are the two most popular cities to live in by those Chinese female entrepreneurs, with 12 of the richest women on the list living in Beijing and 9 in Shenzhen, respectively. Shanghai is the third most popular city, home to 5 of the women that made the list. Only two live outside of the Chinese mainland, one in Hong Kong, the other in the U.S. 
From the perspective of birthplace, most female entrepreneurs are born in south China's Guangdong Province. "Guangdong is not only the cradle of business startups for Chinese female entrepreneurs, but also one for the world's female entrepreneurs," said Rupert Hoogewerf, also known by his Chinese name Hu Run, publisher of the Hurun Report.
More in Crienglish.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.
Are you looking for more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check out this list.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Dying Guangdong pigs worry the world

A mysterious disease is killing Guangdong pigs at least by the hundreds and the authorities have been celebrating their May holiday, not giving any information, writes the New York Times. In a scenario that looks very similar to that in 2003 when SARS hit the world.
officials in Hong Kong, at the World Health Organization and at the Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that they had been told almost nothing about the latest pig deaths and that they had been given limited details about the apparently unrelated problem of wheat gluten contamination.

Chinese media have not been reporting about the issue, as far as I could notice.