In China, Tragedy Sparks Push Against Online Ultranationalists

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: A knife attack against a Japanese woman and her child triggers backlash against China’s online ultranationalists, Indonesia announces new tariffs on Chinese goods—specifically textiles, and Norwegian authorities arrest a suspected Chinese spy.

Attack Triggers Crackdown on Ultranationalism

Last week, Chinese police detained a man who is accused of attacking a Japanese woman and her child on their way to the Japanese international school in the city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu province. Hu Youping, a 54-year-old school bus attendant, fought off the attacker but died of her injuries a couple days later; the mother and child did not receive life-threatening injuries.

Hu’s death has sparked mourning in China and led to a crackdown on ultranationalist and anti-Japanese sentiment online. In the wake of the attack, censors deleted hundreds of posts, several dozen nationalist accounts were banned from multiple platforms, and major technology companies issued statements decrying “extreme nationalism” and hate speech.

The Chinese government has a complicated relationship with ultranationalism, especially that directed against Japan.

Chinese revolutionary history begins with the May 4th Movement in 1919—when thousands of people, mostly students, gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest the handover of German colonial holdings in China to Japan. (In ensuing violence, one pro-Japanese government minister was attacked.) The demonstrations ultimately turned into a wider movement that mixed revolutionary sentiment with fierce opposition to Japanese colonialism.

In recent years, Beijing has made strategic use of ultranationalism, most notably in the 2012 dispute with Tokyo over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, when protesters in major Chinese cities were effectively given free reign—including burning cars and vandalizing businesses—for a few days before being curtailed by city authorities.

Sometimes the Chinese government has been more reactive—as during nationwide protests in 2005 that arose more spontaneously from online outrage about Japanese historical revisionism but were at first sanctioned by the authorities. Some city governments sent text messages encouraging people to act, and buses were provided for protesters. Ultimately, the protests were shut down by an increased police presence but only after days of anger.

This time is different. Although there is always simmering tension between China and Japan, there is not an active dispute between the two countries at the moment. There has not been a recent swelling of anti-Japanese sentiment among the public. The attacker’s motive is ultimately unclear.

Now, the wind is clearly blowing in one direction: Among the figures expressing concern about ultranationalism last week was former Global Times editor Hu Xijin, usually an enthusiastic nationalist himself. (Interestingly, Hu decried both anti-Japanese sentiment and extreme anti-American nationalism, perhaps recalling the knife attack on American teachers in the northeastern city of Jilin this year.)

The government reaction is another indicator that the Chinese political leadership now seeks calm and stability as it struggles with a faltering economy—not flash points of contention. For example, Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly recently said an invasion of Taiwan would be falling into a U.S. trap. To be sure, there are contraindicators, most notably continuing clashes with the Philippines at sea, but even those tensions have now led to new talks.

Yet the effect of Hu’s sacrifice should not be underrated. She has become a hero online, celebrated by both the public and the government. The moral effect of her story has been genuinely powerful in quelling nationalist sentiment.

But Hu’s life is also a microcosm of the economic uncertainty of the Chinese working class, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like tens of millions of so-called factory girls, Hu left her village to move to nearby Suzhou at age 20, around 1990, after being recruited by a textile factory. She changed factory jobs but left manufacturing entirely when she got laid off at 46. Her family lived on the edge of the city.

For four years, Hu did gig work for a housekeeping company before opening a small shop in her neighborhood in 2020. Hu tried to prop up her business with e-commerce sales, transforming herself into a “director” online. But her hopes were dashed by the pandemic, which shuttered her business.

In Hu’s last job as a bus attendant, she made around 3,000 yuan (about $412) a month. In an expensive city like Suzhou, that’s economically marginal, highlighting income gaps sharpened by the pandemic despite Xi’s efforts to push “common prosperity.” And it’s likely that she still held the rural hukou (residence permit) she was born with, like most migrants, making it impossible to access social services in Suzhou.

What We’re Following

Indonesia announces tariffs. Indonesia announced substantial new tariffs on Chinese goods this week, seeking to protect its own enterprises from a wave of imports that one spokesperson said could cause small businesses to “collapse.” The tariffs will mostly target textiles, of which Indonesia is a major producer, and may go as high as 200 percent.

China has not yet responded publicly to the move, but Beijing may see it as an indication of Indonesia leaning toward the United States—which, like other Western powers, has increasingly adopted protectionist measures against Chinese exports. Anti-Chinese sentiment can be political dynamite in Indonesia, which has a long history of riots and pogroms targeting the Chinese ethnic minority in the country.

Norwegian spy case. On Tuesday, Norwegian authorities announced the arrest of a suspected Chinese spy, continuing a series of European arrests of alleged Beijing assets this year. Intriguingly, the Norwegian police did not yet name the suspect but described him as “well known,” suggesting he may be a political figure.

The rash of arrests may be because of stepped-up Chinese activity in Europe in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine—or it could be related to the run of European elections taking place this summer. Issues related to China have played a minor but important role in the United Kingdom’s July 4 election, including Beijing’s alleged hacking of the country’s Electoral Commission.

Tech and Business

Chip problems. A Huawei-produced artificial intelligence chip that was hailed as a potential competitor with U.S. models is facing severe production problems, with only 20 percent of chips coming off the line currently working. U.S. sanctions have led to more complicated and inefficient production processes, potentially preventing China from reaching its ambitious goals in a sector where it remains several years behind the United States.

However, the restrictions have also prompted Beijing to pour even more money into the sector.

Failed space rocket test. Last week produced good and bad news for China’s space sector. The state-run Chang’e 6 mission, named after the Chinese lunar goddess, returned from a pioneering trip to the far side of the moon. In the growing private sector, however, one company saw a disastrous test that led to an accidental launch of a space rocket—followed by a crash that scattered debris in a nearby city.

Similar debris fell during a state-run routine satellite launch on June 22. Due to historical concerns about the Soviet Union and the United States, many of China’s launch sites are unusually close to populated inland areas.

FP’s Most Read This Week

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• Europe Alone by FP Contributors

A Bit of Culture

Chinese politician and reformer Liang Qichao made an eight-month tour to the United States in 1903, including a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt. Liang jotted his observations in a book published shortly after his trip, mixing political and economic thoughts with castigation of his fellow Chinese (as well as a smattering of racist ideas about American groups).

Liang was both fascinated and repulsed by New York City, which caused him to recall the works of the famous Tang poet Du Fu.—Brendan O’Kane, translator

From Notes From a Journey to the New World
By Liang Qichao

There is a poem by Du Fu that says, “In noble houses, wine and meat go bad / While the roads are littered with the frozen dead. / Splendor only feet away from squalor / Too wretched to describe it any further.” I have seen this for myself in New York City.

By the calculations of the socialists, 70 percent of the United States’ wealth belongs to its 200,000 richest people, while the remainder is split among the 79.8 million poor. The rich, comprising as a class no more than one four-hundredth of the population, are rich indeed: It is as if a hundred dollars were divided among 400 people, with one man keeping $70 for himself and leaving $30 to be divided 399 ways, at less than a dime apiece for each of the others.

Is it not a bizarre and unnatural state of affairs? Yet it may be observed in every civilized country—though most acutely in such metropolises as New York and London. Considering the extremes of inequality in the slums of New York, I can only sigh at the utter inevitability of socialism.