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Anti-Chinese Sentiment in Latin America: An Analysis of Online Discourse

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Abstract

After a decade long surge in Sino-Latin American trade, the bilateral relationship has gained political and cultural complexity. Recent public opinion polls depict a mildly positive opinion of China in Latin America. Nonetheless, these polls are not well suited to unveiling the framing of anti-Chinese attitudes that are present among the Latin American public. This research draws on Facebook users’ comments on news articles about China found in eight major newspapers from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. Our main goal is to gain insights into the concepts that structure negative views on China and to reconstruct narratives of anti-Chinese sentiment in Latin America today. Opinions triggered by news about China reveal that “China’s rise” has generated anxieties due mainly to the perceived threats posed by environmental impacts, outward migration, and the demand for natural resources. In addition, these opinions elicit concern over Latin America’s own development.

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Notes

  1. Facebook’s Application Programming Interface (API) is an interface between the social networking site’s databases and third party applications. For our purposes, we built our own application to capture the data through the R programming language (R [55]) and the Rfacebook package [56].

  2. See the appendix for the list of newspapers.

  3. We examined the comments found on the newspapers’ Facebook profiles rather than those found on their proprietary World Wide Web pages because the latter encourages anonymity which is conducive to irresponsible discourse (such as, spam, hate speech, etc.), while the former provides a platform where identifiable users broadcast their personal views in a more accountable manner. For a discussion on this challenge, see Diakopoulos & Naaman [57]. This methodological decision led us to tap into what Ruiz et al. [58] refer to as “communities of debate” rather than into “homogeneous online communities.” The goal of this project is to identify the substance of negative opinions rather than to gauge the level of debate on Chinese issues.

  4. Among these comments, there were 774 views on Latin American issues, 777 views on Chinese issues, and 184 views on Latin American and Chinese issues. A single comment could have multiple views, and thus there are more views than comments.

  5. Content analysis determined that comments clustered around the following topics: products, business, culture, development, and international relations. The volume of comments and news articles for each category differs substantially (e.g., comments on products are much more frequent than news articles about products).

  6. While we cannot claim that our sample represents anything other than the communities of on-line newspaper readers, our research design allows us to assume that most of the commenters are located in the home countries of the monitored newspapers.

  7. It is often difficult for the average individual to distinguish among Pan-Asian identities. In our study, people respond to news posts that refer to China (People’s Republic of China) and/or individuals of Chinese origin. We can only establish that their reaction is to the notion of China/the Chinese.

  8. According to the newspaper La Jornada, various executives from state-owned Chinese enterprises observed that after the collapse of these multimillionaire investment projects, the Chinese government was reviewing all its investment projects in Mexico [26].

  9. The results presented in this section are based on our own analysis of survey data obtained from Americas Barometer, Latin American Public Opinion Project ([54], [18]).

  10. Two years later, the percentage of average Latin Americans who viewed China as the most influential country in the region had declined to 17 %. Eighty-eight percent of the points lost by China were captured by the United States (57 % of Latin Americans viewed the US as the most influential country in 2014).

  11. A survey on perceptions on China in Mexico showed a difference between the general public and the leadership class concerning positive attitudes toward China’s influence in Mexico. While 49 % of respondents among the public viewed China’s influence in positive terms, only 35 % of the leaders were of the same opinion [59].

  12. Some of the reactions from Chinese netizens emphasized the paradox of a head of state who chose to ridicule her hosts during a visit that was intended to attract investment. The president’s mockery of Chinese pronunciation aligns well with our findings concerning cultural bias against the Chinese in Latin America. This kind of comment is not entirely surprising if we remember that in the case of Argentina, “the nation was built as the great contender of minorities” (Segato 1998 as quoted in [60], our translation).

  13. This trend is not exclusive to Latin America. For instance, a 2013 online poll in response to anti-Chinese remarks in Jimmy Kimmel Live! showed that a third of respondents believed that “America's media and education are currently slipping toward extreme anti-China sentiments” [61].

  14. On a framework for understanding negative attitudes, applied to the concept of anti-Americanism, see Jamal et al. ([8], 55–56), Katzenstein and Keohane ([1]:10).

  15. Sometimes, this discourse may develop into action. Mexico’s anti-Chinese rhetoric in the early decades of the 20th century “grew into expropriations of Chinese business and even physical aggression.” Ensuing animosity against the Chinese has largely involved protests, demonstrations, and other symbolic actions ([10], 63).

  16. For a selection of comments, see the appendix. The entire dataset is available online at https://github.com/nicvel/FB-LATAM-PRC.

  17. We should note that China’s exports do not only consist of cheap manufactured goods. China also exports quality high value products to most markets. These high value goods range from electro-medical devices and wireless communication equipment to construction machinery and motor vehicle engines and components. We should also note that our study might be missing the lower socioeconomic strata of the population, which has benefitted significantly from the availability of cheap consumer goods imported from China.

  18. The most important vehicles for the communication of discriminatory attitudes are likely to be schools, the media, and hospitals [44].

  19. In contrast, an ongoing comparative project on Chinese immigrant organizations in Latin America co-directed by Ariel Armony and Alejandro Portes does not only show that children of Chinese immigrants tend to be bilingual, but also that the “market value” of Spanish-Chinese bilingualism has increased dramatically as a result of China’s global expansion.

  20. We found that positive comments about Chinese culture among netizens are strongly linked to direct experiences with cultural events organized by the local Chinese community (such as the Chinese New Year celebration).

  21. The hardening of anti-Chinese cultural bias could have serious implications for bilateral relations. It would be interesting to examine the role played by Confucius Institutes and other government-sponsored initiatives in helping to spread Chinese culture and language. The results of our study suggest that China’s public diplomacy faces a number of challenges in the region.

  22. Colombia and Peru were not included in the Pew Research Center survey. The poll included Brazil, where 58 % of respondents rejected the spread of Chinese ideas and customs, and 75 % expressed dislike of Chinese pop culture. In this context, the generalized admiration for Chinese science and technology revealed by the Pew survey indicates that this is a topic that requires further examination.

  23. Opinions sometimes express contradictions: readers expressed negative opinions on China’s population growth but also, simultaneously, on China’s One Child Policy.

  24. It is interesting to note that González González [59] finds that Mexicans’ knowledge about China is in the highest category of the Knowledge Index, above the average for all countries.

  25. Maca (Lepidium meyenii) is an edible plant endemic to the Peruvian Andes, known in Asia as an invigorator. Peruvian legislation protects it as a national symbol of significant economic value, and forbids its export in raw form (See [62]).

  26. Future research on perceptions toward China should explore territorial variation within countries. It would also be interesting to examine negative attitudes toward the Chinese vis-à-vis other groups defined on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, and race. A different comparative approach would be to contrast people’s comments generated during times when important news was being heard about China (for instance, the visit of a head of state to China, or a visit made by the Chinese head of state) with times when there was little news about China.

  27. In Brazil, 51 % of respondents admitted to disliking Chinese ways of doing business, compared with 40 % who approved of Chinese business operations.

  28. The news on China and the Chinese elicits almost as many observations on Latin America as on China. About 50 % of such observations come from news articles that focus on both China and Latin America, and 16 % come from news items focused solely on China.

  29. The fact that Chinese investment in Peruvian mineral extraction increased so much during this period led to fears of a multiplication of cases similar to that of Shougang-Marcona ([63], 119; [64], 10–13). Chinese corporate newcomers to Peru’s mining sector emphasized community relations, stressing their commitment to social responsibility projects and a “win-win” rhetoric reminiscent of the Chinese official foreign policy ([64], Chapter 7).

  30. Studies have shown that the relationship between “prevailing images” and “openness to new information” plays a key role in the ways that people evaluate actions, policies or outcomes— particularly if they do not like them. If the balance between prevailing images and openness to new information is tilted toward the former, it is likely that people will ascribe actions, policies or outcomes to “essential features” of China or the Chinese, “rather than merely to specific situations” ([1], 21). This is rather problematic for the expansion of Chinese soft power in regions such as Latin America.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 4400 Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Ariel C. Armony

  2. Department of International Studies, University of Miami, 1300 Campo Sano Drive, Coral Gables, FL, 33124, USA

    Nicolás Velásquez

Authors
  1. Ariel C. Armony
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  2. Nicolás Velásquez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ariel C. Armony.

Appendix

Appendix

List of newspapers’ Facebook profiles:

  • Argentina

    • La Nación (https://www.facebook.com/lanacion);

  • Chile

    • El Mercurio Online (https://www.facebook.com/emol.cl)

    • La Tercera (https://www.facebook.com/laterceracom);

  • Colombia

    • El Tiempo (https://www.facebook.com/eltiempo)

    • El Espectador (https://www.facebook.com/elespectadorcom)

  • Mexico

    • El Universal Online (https://www.facebook.com/ElUniversalOnline)

  • Peru

    • El Comercio (https://www.facebook.com/elcomercio.pe)

    • La República (https://www.facebook.com/larepublica.pe)

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Armony, A.C., Velásquez, N. Anti-Chinese Sentiment in Latin America: An Analysis of Online Discourse. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 20, 319–346 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-015-9365-z

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