27-6-2024 (BEIJING) Rising xenophobic sentiments have gripped Chinese social media in the wake of two recent knife attacks targeting foreigners, raising concerns about the safety of expatriates living and working in the country. Despite official assurances that these incidents are isolated, the vitriol spewed online has cast a shadow over China’s efforts to promote itself as an inclusive and welcoming destination.
The latest incident occurred on June 24 in Suzhou, a high-tech manufacturing hub west of Shanghai, where a Japanese woman and her child were assaulted by a knife-wielding attacker at a bus stop near a Japanese school. The suspected assailant, a 52-year-old unemployed Chinese man, was swiftly arrested at the scene. The Japanese victims, along with a Chinese woman who bravely attempted to intervene, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were rushed to the hospital.
蘇州日本人学校バス襲撃事件
蘇州は日本企業が最も投資している地域の一つであり、比較的安全な都市だったはずなのだが… pic.twitter.com/p7vDJuxpcP— 練塀 Sweet Disaster (@kounanronin) June 24, 2024
While the official investigation into the motives behind the attack is ongoing, the nationality of the victims sparked an outpouring of xenophobic comments on Chinese social media platforms. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, one of the top comments questioned, “Japanese people should reflect. Why were they targeted and not other people?” This comment garnered over 450 likes and 360 replies, reflecting a disturbing undercurrent of anti-Japanese sentiment.
On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, a user even hailed the attacker as a “hero,” writing, “Although I don’t agree with such extreme methods, I can’t help but ask, who is the hero that did this?”
The incident in Suzhou follows a previous attack on June 10 in Jilin province, where four American college instructors from Cornell College in Iowa were injured in a public park. A Chinese tourist who tried to intervene was also wounded in the assault.
Despite the authorities characterizing these incidents as “isolated,” they have fueled growing unease among foreigners residing in China, where violent crimes are relatively rare. The US and Japanese populations in China have plummeted in recent years, with an estimated 100,000 Japanese nationals currently living in the country, down from a peak of 150,000 around 2012. Similarly, the number of American students in China has dwindled to around 800 in 2024, a significant drop from 15,000 in 2012.
In a rare rebuke of his host country, US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns expressed concern over Beijing’s alleged intimidation tactics against citizens attending US-organized events in China and the stirring up of anti-American sentiments. Burns also criticized the lack of information provided by Chinese authorities regarding the motives behind the Jilin attack.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, dismissed Burns’ claims as “factually inaccurate” and stated that they did not contribute to the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations. She asserted China’s commitment to promoting cultural exchanges with the US while accusing the US of unreasonably harassing and repatriating Chinese students.
Zhang Dechun, a PhD candidate at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who has researched China’s cyber nationalists, shed light on the phenomenon. He explained that Japan and the US are common targets of outwardly directed nationalism online, fueled by wartime history and bilateral disputes. Anti-Japanese views, in particular, are prevalent on China’s tightly regulated internet due to factors such as disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.
Zhang added that while the Chinese government often tacitly promotes such nationalism to build national unity, it is also careful to manage it from spilling into social unrest in real life. Earlier in June, a Chinese blogger who filmed himself vandalizing the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which commemorates some World War II criminals, was cheered by Chinese netizens, exemplifying the complex dynamic at play.
