Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2018. vii, 276 pp. (Figures, B&W photos, illustrations.) US$68.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-7579-4.
Yellow Perils is a timely publication that offers rich insights into one of the most puzzling global phenomena today: in spite of China’s ascension as a superpower on many fronts, the image of China and the Chinese tends to be vilified around the world, so much so that the seemingly anachronistic myth of the Yellow Peril continues to stir up a vast array of anxieties, fears, and hatred related to China’s growing influence. This volume attempts to solve the puzzle by uncovering the multifaceted ways in which contemporary representations of various “Yellow Perils” (7) are related to the earlier Yellow Peril discourse. As Franck Billé (chapter 1) points out, unpacking such relations is a difficult task, considering that Yellow Perils, conceptualized as a globalizing discourse in this book, can only be “a multilayer palimpsest” that is “eminently slippery and mutable,” with “its margins and mileposts shifting in line with the political situation” (9). Despite the difficulties, the contributors to this volume manage to analyze such an elusive subject productively and generate arguments collectively, while not losing sight of the implications for current affairs. I discuss their accomplishments below.
Christos Lynteris (chapter 2) shows that the outbreak of an infectious epidemic in southern China, regardless of time period, is susceptible to being subsumed under the derogatory image of a Yellow Peril. The comparison between the plagues of the late nineteenth century and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome of the early twenty-first century reveals that these diseases, which were first discovered in China, have been racialized, culturalized, and politicized to the extent that China and Chinese bodies can be understood only as ontologically inferior in an epidemiological sense. The subsequent chapters look at how various Yellow Perils have been enmeshed into the complicated national histories of Australia, South Africa, and Mongolia. David Walker (chapter 3) shows that the popular imagination of China and Asia in Australia has always been ambivalent, given that nation’s position of being sandwiched between the West and the East. As a consequence of this position, Australia’s nation building has been predicated on two contradictory ideas: safeguarding the “white” hegemony in Australia while continuously linking up with the “coloured” or “yellow” Asia through migration, trade, and other ongoing connectivities. The intensifying connections with Asia, and China in particular, are inevitably leading to a profound sense of anxiety in the local society, given that Australia has always lacked a vision for defining itself in relation to global power shifts. Romain Dittgen and Ross Anthony (chapter 5) offer a similar analysis of the growing sense of ambivalence toward China in South Africa. Thanks to the legacy of British colonial rule, everyday white supremacy, and the presence of old Chinese communities that are accustomed to being racially discriminated against, it has been difficult for South Africa to directly recognize the new role of China as a powerful player in trade and investments. Moreover, Franck Billé (chapter 7) argues that Sinophobic narratives in Mongolia should be understood as discourse about “a landlocked country” (171) wedged between two strong nations: China and Russia. As such, how Mongolians imagine China, regardless of what that image might be, can never escape Russia’s influence.
Chapters 4 and 6 bring our attention to Chinese migrants, especially those who have no control over political developments that are adversely affecting their lives. Xiaojian Zhao (chapter 4) examines the deteriorating attitudes of local Italians toward Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Prado. It shows that Chinese migrants’ contributions to the rejuvenation of Prado’s textile industries, which would otherwise be dying, are being ignored or even denied in this Italian city. The chapter tells an unfortunate story of the Chinese in Prado, who have become doubly caught up in both anti-China and anti-immigration sentiments that have been stirred up by mainstream politics and media in Italy. Yu Qiu’s ethnography (chapter 6) illustrates that two ways of imagining China, however much they differ, have become popular in Nigeria. The first imagining refers to the common expectation of Nigerians that the Chinese will eventually become “new colonial masters” who would give—as Western patrons did in the past—free gifts and informal protection to the local communities. Yet many Nigerians have ended up disappointed since most Chinese business owners refuse to meet such expectations. The second imagining, which focuses on China’s quick and phenomenal success as a role model, continues to excite young and aspiring Nigerians who are eagerly looking for an “alternative framework” (161) to create new career pathways.
The last three chapters zoom in on China from within. Sören Urbansky (chapter 10) offers a historical overview of how Chinese intellectuals changed their thinking about the Yellow Peril since the late Qing dynasty. The overview reflects the transformations of political ideologies over the last 150 years that have critically shaped modern Chinese history. Kevin Carrico (chapter 8) and Magnus Fiskesjö (chapter 9) shift the focus to the Chinese state today. These two chapters share a similar claim that the contemporary production of the Yellow Perils discourse, which certainly goes against China’s strategic interest, has been ironically induced by the Party-state itself. As Carrico shows, the anti-mainland sentiment, emerging as part of the “ethnicization” (197) of Hong Kong localism, is a reaction to China’s stubborn defence of its “anachronistic political system” (214), which is admittedly the root cause of social tensions in Hong Kong. Utilizing the notion of “all-knowing encompassment” (237), Magnus Fiskesjö describes the strong refusal of Chinese officials to accept any foreign criticism of the Confucius Institutes, a key initiative of China’s global outreach project. One consequence of such an all-encompassing refusal is the deepening of the Yellow Perils discourse globally because the Chinese government’s uncompromising stance conversely incites even more hostility from people and governments outside Chinese rule.
Connected by a strong theme yet largely free of repetition, Yellow Perils is a fascinating read for students interested in the global reconfigurations of interethnic relations, particularly those that have been triggered by the twenty-first-century rise of China.
Ka-Kin Cheuk
Rice University, Houston