1. Introduction

1

The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.

2

It’s about the instinct of survival. The West has lost this instinct, but China has it.

3On 20 June 2017, World Refugee Day, UNHCR posted a brief message raising awareness about the plight of displaced people around the world through its official account on Weibo, a preeminent Chinese social media platform. This modest post was soon bombarded with some 30,000 negative comments, and the reaction was so overwhelming that the organisation’s goodwill ambassador was eventually forced to come forward and clarify that she had never supported China to take in any refugees. The widespread anti-refugee sentiment in Chinese cyberspace [2] and the exceptional popularity of American President Donald Trump in the country (Hernández and Zhao, 2017; Carlson, 2018), at least before the trade dispute intensified, draws our attention to the emergence of a right-wing populist discourse that combines traditional elements of Chinese cyber-nationalism, which has been much discussed in international studies (e.g. Breslin and Shen, 2010; Hughes, 2000; Cairns and Carlson, 2016), with the ideology, vocabulary, and style of right-wing populisms in Europe and North America. In other words, it provokes a similar hostility towards immigrants, Muslims, multiculturalism, the so-called ‘liberal elites’, known as the ‘white left’ in Chinese online communities (Zhang, 2017), and progressive social movements in general. However, compared to its Western counterparts, right-wing populist discourse in China engenders a different global imaginary and integrates Chinese discontents with liberal hierarchies of the international order (Zhang, 2016) into expressions of nativist and authoritarian ideologies. Although reproducing many of the claims and fictions of nationalism, racism and Han supremacism that have long existed on Chinese internet (Cheng, 2011; Leibold, 2016; Pfafman, Carpenter and Tang, 2015), the emergent right-wing discourse also rearticulates national identity and self/other relations in new ways by shifting focus from historical memories of ‘pride and humiliation’ (Callahan, 2009; Gries, 2004) to debating political norms and values of the present.

4Puzzled by this unexplored phenomenon, this article examines how, in debating global political events such as the European refugee crisis and the American presidential election, well-educated and well-informed Chinese internet users appropriate the rhetoric of ‘Western-style’ right-wing populism to paradoxically criticise Western hegemony on one hand, and discursively construct China’s ethno-racial and political identities on the other. We also interpret the discourse as popular narratives of global order, which diverge in certain ways from (and converge in other ways with) official and academic discourses that largely monopolise accounts of what ‘Chinese’ visions of global order are. The study is premised on the recognition that the configurations of right-wing populist discourses in both Western and Chinese contexts bear an inextricable relationship to the hierarchies and paradoxes immanent to the liberal world order. Explicating the anti-Western Eurocentrism in ‘Chinese’ perceptions of world order helps us think beyond the East/West dichotomy and comprehend the complexity of ‘non-Western agency’ (Hobson and Sajed, 2017).

5The article explores the construction of self/other relations and global imaginaries in online populist discourse through qualitative analysis of 1,038 postings retrieved from Zhihu, a social media platform for knowledge sharing that has been actively engaged in debating Western politics and especially the ‘white left’. Using analytical tools from critical discourse analysis (Reisigl and Wodak, 2009), the study shows that the online debates not only exemplify the global circulation and reproduction of extremist discourses facilitated by the internet, but also, more importantly, demonstrate the changing ways in which Chinese national identities and the global order are imagined by pro-globalisation and anti-liberal urban netizens. Specifically, in criticising Western ‘liberal elites’, the discourse reconstructs China’s ethno-racial identity against the ‘inferior’ non-Western other, embodied by non-white immigrants and Muslims, with racial nationalism on one hand; and formulates China’s political identity against the ‘declining’ Western other with realist authoritarianism on the other.

6The narratives of global order criticise Western hegemony and perceive China’s rise with a prudent optimism. Taken together, we argue that the discourse epitomises what we would call anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies. It embraces and perpetuates assumptions of Western capitalist modernity on development, free market, competition, and reason to dismiss the self-reflexive sensitivity of liberal democracy as irrational, moralistic and destructive, which in turn is used to underline the superiority of the ‘pragmatic’ authoritarianism of the Chinese regime. Furthermore, it converges with the party-state’s strategy in turning anti-hegemonic sentiments and realist perceptions of geopolitical rivalries into excuses to eliminate difference and homogenise imaginations of Chinese political identity.

7The article proceeds as follows. We start by clarifying the term of right-wing populism and its relationship with exclusionary nationalism and authoritarianism. We then point to the immediate and broader contexts in which right-wing populist discourse began to emerge in Chinese cyberspace, noting that the European refugee crisis and the American presidential election were key events that reinforced previous forms of ethnic nationalism and stimulated the circulation of transnational extremist discourses on Chinese internet. After introducing our methods and data, the main section summarises the major themes and ideological features of the discourse, which at its core reaffirms racial nationalism and realist authoritarianism through diagnosing the problems of Western ‘liberal elites’. It then scrutinises the ways in which China’s ethno-racial and political identities are constructed therein against the threatening other and the declining other respectively. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies for domestic politics and international relations.

2. Defining right-wing populism(S)

8The past two decades have seen an explosion of academic interest in the term ‘populism’ due to the success of what are conventionally called ‘populist radical right’ or ‘extreme right’ parties across Europe and most recently triggered by the unexpected outcome of the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election (e.g. Mudde, 2007; Caiani and della Porta, 2011; Wodak, 2015; Gusterson, 2017). Populism, however, is notoriously difficult to define. It has been variously described as a political and communication style (Moffitt, 2017), a strategy of mobilisation and ruling (Weyland, 1999; 2003), a ‘thin’ ideology in the sense that it does not offer a comprehensive or coherent belief system and is often combined with other, leftist or rightist, ideologies (Elchardus and Spruyt, 2014), or a combination of all of the above. Despite the conceptual diversity, scholars working with a minimalist definition of populism generally understand its core proposition as ‘an appeal to “the people”’ against ‘the established structure of power’ or the ruling elites (Canovan, 1999: 2; Elchardus and Spruyt, 2014). For democratic theorists, the populist claim to represent the will of ‘the real people’ against the ‘corrupt elites’ (Mudde, 2007: 23) may be considered both a threat to liberal democracy and a symptom of its failures. So long as ‘the people’ functions as a floating signifier that can be attached to any groups and subjects, constructing its boundaries and exact meanings is a crucial aspect of populist politics.

9The object of inquiry in this article is specifically limited to right-wing populism, which along with other variants of the term has been used to describe right-wing parties and movements that share certain similarities and take different forms depending on national political systems and socio-economic circumstances (Pelinka, 2013). Mudde identifies three core ideological features in his analysis of what he calls populist radical right parties in Europe, namely nativism, authoritarianism, and populism [3]. Our focus on right-wing populism as ideology and discourse also emphasises these features. The nativist aspect of right-wing populism is associated with the term ‘nationalist populism’. In addition to the antagonism on the vertical level between ‘the people’ and the ‘elites’, nationalist populism also presupposes a polarised opposition on the horizontal level between an imagined, ‘homogenous ethnic community and its ethno-cultural other’ (Stavrakakis et al, 2017: 2; Brubaker, 2017), embodied typically by the figure of immigrants, refugees and Muslims in the rhetoric of populist right parties. According to Stavrakakis et al (2017), some of the parties in contemporary Europe labelled as ‘populist’ are better categorized as ‘nationalist’ and are only ‘secondarily’ populist [4]. Pelinka similarly notes that the populist Zeitgeist in contemporary Europe is not so much about mobilising ‘against the (perceived) enemy above’ than against the perceived enemy from abroad, as anti-elitism is directed against those ‘deemed responsible for Europeanization and globalization’ (2013: 9).

10Compared to exclusionary nativism, theoretical reflections on the authoritarian dimension of right-wing populism are much more diverse [5]. Researchers of populist right movements in Western liberal democracies tend to use authoritarianism to refer to attitudes, beliefs, and values, rather than regime types. Influenced by social psychological approaches (Altemeyer, 1981; Feldman, 2003), authoritarianism is understood as a preference for ‘uniformity and order’ and a punitive approach to defending established rules and norms (MacWilliams, 2016: 717; Mudde 2007). Identifying authoritarianism as one of the two core components of extreme right ideology, Harrison and Bruter (2011: 100-02) further differentiate a social conception, which emphasises traditional values and a ‘previously existing utopian order’, and an institutional conception of authoritarianism, which calls for a strong state and especially strengthened state power to fight ‘disruptive elements in society’. In Inglehart and Norris’s account of what they term populist authoritarian parties (2017), authoritarianism signifies the cultural backlash against postmaterialist values, or values prioritising ‘autonomy, self-expression and the quality of life’ such as feminism, environmentalism and pluralist society (Inglehart, 2007). As to be shown below, institutional authoritarianism and criticisms of progressive values also constitute a core ideological dimension in the online discourse analysed here.

11Empirical studies seeking to explain voters’ support for right populist politicians in European and American contexts have suggested various individual-level and structural factors such as racial resentment, authoritarian values, and economic anxiety (e.g. Goodwin and Milazzo, 2017; Hooghe and Dassonneville, 2018; Inglehart and Norris, 2017; MacWilliams, 2016). While there is no space here to review this literature in detail, suffice it to note that both economic and identitarian explanations have an international dimension. For the populist right, globalisation and regional integration are blamed for both economic grievance and increased share of immigrants and ethnic minorities in society. Mutz argues that the perceived decline of ‘US global dominance’ also contributes to the sense of status threat among ‘traditionally high-status’ Americans (2018). Perceptions of the international order play an even more explicit role in the framing of extreme right ideologies on Chinese social media. If expressions of racialised nativism and authoritarianism in the ‘heartlands’ of the liberal order are linked to discontents with economic globalisation, they are entangled with a revolt against Western dominance in the normative and political hierarchy of world order in Chinese cyberspace.

12Before proceeding, a caveat about the use of the term ‘populism’ in the Chinese context is in order. As to be shown below, this research focuses on Chinese criticisms of Western left-leaning elites that ‘creatively’ reproduce and develop the anti-elitist, xenophobic, and anti-liberal narratives characteristic of right-wing populist discourses in Europe and beyond. Although these discussions adopt a populist style in the sense that they rhetorically refer to the interests of ‘ordinary people’ versus the manipulation of political and cultural elites, they are presented as observations and diagnosis of Western politics and do not seek to advance a populist, anti-establishment agenda to challenge the domestic regime. The discourse rather instrumentalises anti-elitist expressions to legitimate ethno-nationalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western claims. That said, it is not unusual that authoritarian and hybrid regimes rely on forms of ‘official populism’ as a tool of governance and regime stabilisation [6] (Robinson and Milne, 2017). In Russia and China, official populist rhetoric is used to legitimate the status quo by framing Western pressure for political reform and ‘imported ideas from abroad’ as detrimental to the interests of the people (Robinson and Milne, 2017; Tang, 2016). The popular discourse against the ‘white left’ thus in this respect converges with the officially-sanctioned campaign against universal values and ‘Western’ ideologies. Both popular and official visions, however, involve an authoritarian ‘schizophrenia’ that demands pluralism on the international level while discredits dissensus, in the name of resisting Western hegemony, in domestic politics.

3. From cyber-nationalism to right-wing populism online

13While it is not the purpose here to offer causal accounts of why some Chinese netizens are attracted to the rhetoric of the populist right, the approach of critical discourse analysis requires us to position texts, utterances, and discourses within their immediate context of situation and the broader socio-political context. The following domestic and international developments are most pertinent to contextualising the online discourse in question.

14First, the rapid development of online communication has created a dynamic digital space that allows citizens to participate in public deliberations that are otherwise impossible. Research suggests that new media in China has both given rise to opportunities of political contestation and enabled state apparatuses to develop sophisticated censorship and persuasion measures to strengthen authoritarian rule (Rauchfleisch and Schäfer, 2015; Yang, 2014; Han, 2018). The internet has contributed particularly to the diversification of nationalistic consciousness and become an important channel ‘by which the most globalised segment of the Chinese population, namely, educated urban youths, expresses the multifaceted discourse’ of nationalism (Zhao, 2007: 193-197). The extreme right end of nationalistic internet users have been drawn to cyber-racism (Chang, 2011; Frazier and Zhang, 2014) and Han supremacism (Leibold, 2010; 2016). The former reinforces globally imagined racial hierarchies and the latter applies a similar binary of progress and backwardness to the relationship between the Han majority and ethnic minorities within China. These forms of racial nationalism would be reaffirmed and amplified in the online debates on immigration, race, and Muslims in Western societies.

15Secondly, China observers have drawn attention to the emergence of a ‘hybrid socialist-neoliberal form of political rationality’ (Sigley, 2007) in the transformation of economic structures and modes of governance in post-reform China (Zhang and Ong, 2008; Bray and Jeffreys, 2016; Zhang, 2018). Wang Hui views the marketisation of society as enabling the formation of a ‘capitalist consensus’ based on a negation of revolutionary legacies and a politics of depoliticisation (Wang, 2007; Duara, 2008). Under this neoliberal-authoritarian hegemony, sociological research finds that patterns of value changes do not accord with Inglehart’s assumption that economic growth and individual-level affluence are likely to lead to support for postmaterialist and liberal values. Survey data show that postmaterialist values have been declining since the mid-2000s, and high-income groups, who have benefited most from the economic status quo, are no less ‘xenophobic, authoritarian or more desirous of democracy’ than low-status groups (Zhang, Brym and Andersen, 2017; Brym, 2016). On the other hand, however, citizen activism has become increasingly visible in the limited space of civil society, especially in areas that are not perceived as politically destabilising: first in environmentalism and then extended to feminism, LGBT rights and animal welfare in recent years. The visibility of new social movements, though highly oppressed in reality, on the internet can be mobilised by conservatives to generate a backlash against postmaterialist values. In fact, online criticisms of Western ‘liberal elites’ have made their way to debates on domestic issues, being adapted by internet users to ridicule Chinese nationals sympathetic with liberal egalitarian values.

16Thirdly, China’s rising economic and military powers have led netizens to be more confident in the authoritarian status quo and disenchanted with the ideal of democracy. The immediate context in which Chinese internet users began to pick up the vocabulary of the populist right was the European refugee crisis and the US presidential election of 2016, which on the one hand prompted netizens to familiarize themselves with the anti-refugee and anti-liberal rhetoric of Western conservatives, and on the other hand were seen as epitomes of the inevitable decline of Western democracy. The internet plays a significant role in the ‘globalisation of extremist discourse’ (Baumgarten, 2017) and the transnationalisation of right-wing populist mobilisations (Caiani and Kröll, 2015). If the attention to the refugee crisis on Chinese social media was centred on anti-immigration, Islamophobic, and racist framings, then the subsequent discussions on the American election revolved more around criticisms of postmaterialist values and the disdain for ‘political correctness’. As the explosion of social media platforms radically decentralises the production and consumption of (mis)information, internet users can easily access and reproduce globally circulating narratives such as Islamophobia, white supremacism and anti-feminism. Resembling the transnational Islamophobic discourse elsewhere (Horsti, 2017), for example, the theme of ‘Muslim rape’ and the depiction of Sweden as a country ‘destroyed by Muslim immigrants and feminists’ also emerged in Chinese cybersphere.

4. Data and methods

17Based on participant observation conducted on major social media websites since 2015, we opted to collect textual data from Zhihu, a question-and-answer website known as China’s biggest knowledge sharing platform. This is because 1) the website hosts extensive debates on refugees, Trump, and Western ‘liberal elites’, which are the main nodal points in which right-wing populist discourses in Chinese cyberspace are anchored; and 2) comparing to other platforms, Zhihu contains more quality, argumentative and information-rich postings that are suitable for qualitative discourse analysis (Patton, 2002). The sampling strategy is therefore purposive. Demographically Zhihu users are in general better educated and better paid than average internet users in China. Market research shows that typical Zhihu users are university students and professionals living in first-tier cities, with 80% possessing a bachelor’s degree or above [7]. Some of the participants in the debates are international students or recent immigrants to Europe and the US, who would describe their first-hand experiences with ‘condescending’ liberal elites and various problems allegedly caused by the prevalence of postmaterialist values. For our purposes, the discussions on Zhihu can best illustrate how the segment of Chinese internet users most informed about Western politics utilise right-wing populist discourse to reimagine national identities, otherness, and global order.

18The quora-like website consists of user-generated question threads which are labelled with ‘topics’ (huati) or hashtags. Each question threads contain any number of ‘answers’ (huida), and each answer is followed by comments (pinglun). Figure 1 shows the distribution of posts (including all questions, answers and comments) under the hashtags ‘refugees’, ‘Trump’, and ‘white left’ between 2015 and 2018. Similar to ‘social justice warriors’, the ‘white left’ or baizuo is a derogatory term invented and mainly used by their opponents to refer to individuals in Western societies who endorse progressive values such as feminism, multiculturalism, equal rights movements, and environmentalism [8]. We opted to analyse question threads within this topic rather than the other two because discussions about the ‘white left’ bind together a variety of populist right narratives such as anti-elitism, anti-immigration, racism, and market liberalism. This could therefore give us an overview of major topics and ideological features of emergent right-wing discourses on Chinese internet. Three representative question threads on the ‘white left’ (Q1-Q3, Appendix I) were chosen based on their clear reference to the Chinese self-image and the large number of answers they had attracted. At the time of data collection (June 2018), the questions received a total number of 1,190 answers, of which 1,038 were deemed to contain relevant textual information [9], and these answers received over 11,744 comments. Answers are typically lengthy and informative essays directly addressing the posed question such as ‘why most Chinese people dislike the white left’. Comments are short remarks made with respect to each answer. We included all 1,038 textual answers, consisting of 363,445 words (354, 654 Chinese characters), in the analysis yet excluded the comments as a large share of them are irrelevant to the posed questions and due to concerns of feasibility.

Figure 1 Distribution of posts under the topics of Trump, refugees and the ‘white left’ (July 2015 - July 2018)

Figure 1 Distribution of posts under the topics of Trump, refugees and the ‘white left’ (July 2015 - July 2018)

19A two-step strategy of analysis is adopted broadly in accordance with Krzyżanowski’s (2010) ‘multilevel approach’ that integrates ‘entry-level’ and ‘in-depth’ analyses. In the first step, the dataset is manually coded in NVivo, and the objective is to map key topics and tendencies in the ‘overall framing of the discussed issues’ (Krzyżanowski, 2018: 103). In the second step, in-depth interpretative analysis aims to to decipher the ways in which us/them distinctions and self/other relations are articulated. A range of analytical tools developed in the discourse-historical approach (DHA) to discourse analysis are drawn upon. For example, the communicative strategies of nomination, which in DHA concerns how persons and groups are referred to linguistically, and of predication, which denotes the ‘discursive qualification of social actors, objects, phenomena’ and so on as ‘more or less positively or negatively’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2009: 94), are central to the demonisation of ‘blacks, Mexicans and Muslims’ (heimolü) as a collective out-group. The DHA also situates a text in relation to four levels of ‘context’: the ‘immediate, language internal context’; the intertextual relationship between ‘utterances, texts, genres and discourses’; social and ‘institutional frames of a specific context of situation’, and the ‘broader socio-political and historical context’ (Reisigl, 2017:53). Special attention is paid to intertextuality and historical contexts in our analysis. For instance, the proliferation of the term baizuo itself is instrumental to establishing the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between different issue areas ranging from refugees to feminism. The genesis of racial nationalism in the formative years of the modern Chinese nation and contemporary popular discontents with the Western-dominated liberal order are historical contexts indispensable for comprehending the online discourse. Finally, the broader interpretation also draws on the author’s everyday observation of extreme right discourses on leading social media websites including Weibo and Zhihu.

5. Identity, otherness, and global imaginaries

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If those whose first reaction after their country gets in trouble is to go to other countries, eat for free, behave like masters, keep committing crimes, and act extremely aggressive are devils, then the white left is Pandora who unleashed devils [sic] from the box.

21This section presents the findings by first outlining the key topics, themes and rhetorical strategies emerged in the discussion, and then explicating how different dimensions of self/other relations are constructed and global imaginaries mapped. As Figure 2 shows, the vast majority of the sampled postings take a negative attitude towards the so-called ‘white left’, while a small percentage of responses are ‘ambivalent’. The latter means that these users either question the validity of the term as such or agree that the group exists, yet their contribution should be acknowledged despite their flaws. The topics, ideologies, and strategies of argumentation in Chinese criticisms of the ‘liberal elites’ overlap to a large degree with those of right-wing populist discourses in the West (Wodak, 2015; Krämer, 2017)  [10]. The most salient issue categories are immigration/refugees, race/racial relations, and Islam/Muslims. Questions related to the economy and social welfare are also important. Discussants either criticise redistributive social policies and the welfare state itself or assert that immigrants and ethnic minorities (bar Chinese immigrants) are welfare dependents and a burden to the economy. Other topics deal with postmaterialist values such as feminism, environmentalism and LGBT rights (Figure 2 and Figure 3). Prevalent ideological features include anti-elitism, nativism, racism, Islamophobia, authoritarianism, market liberalism, and Social Darwinism, which can be further categorised into racial nationalism and realist authoritarianism.

Figure 2 Attitudes towards the ‘white left’ and count of postings by topics discussed. Note that one posting may discuss multiple issues.

Figure 2 Attitudes towards the ‘white left’ and count of postings by topics discussed. Note that one posting may discuss multiple issues.

22First, discussants take an anti-elitist stance by naming a presumably identifiable group of well-educated, left-leaning elites the ‘white left’, and characterising its members as either stupid or evil. The ‘stupid’ pack are said to be naïve, simple-minded, and ignorant of ‘real problems’ in the world, whereas the ‘evil’ ones are corrupt, deceptive, and hypocritically endorsing progressive ideas only to stay in power. Many refer to their own upbringings and claim that they could relate more to the ‘ordinary people’ in the US than American liberal elites do. A famous phrase from Emperor Hui of the Jin Dynasty (259 – 307 AD) – ‘why don’t they eat meat porridge?’ – is mentioned in 33 answers [11], and has become a paradigmatic catchphrase for Chinese netizens to ridicule Western elites, who, just like in the US, are seen as ‘out of touch with or indifferent to the concerns and problems of ordinary people’ (Brubaker, 2017). However, anti-elitism as such remains a secondary ideology in our interpretation of the texts. Users criticise Western ‘liberal elites’ not because they are elites per se, but because what they stand for - in this framing, what they stand for are immigration, Muslims, and an egalitarian society threatening hierarchy, law and order. As the following postings put it:

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We’re just ordinary people concerned about the changes in the world because these changes will affect us. The ultimate reason why I hate the white left is that they’ve turn my worldview upside down. They want a world in which everyone would have freedom; everyone should be equal; both humans and dogs would be protected; and there wouldn’t be billionaires or paupers.

If someone thinks freedom is more important than security, they must be either a lunatic or a criminal.

24This brings us to the core ideological features in the online debates: racial nationalism and what we propose to call realist authoritarianism. Racial nationalism refers here to a kind of exclusionary ethnic nationalism that defines national belonging primarily in ethnic and cultural terms, and that views ethno-cultural others as ‘fundamentally threatening to the homogeneous nation-state’ (Mudde, 2007: 19). The narratives of ethnic lineage and cultural homogeneity are also associated with implicit or explicit formulation of ethno-racial hierarchies and the naturalisation of cultural differences. Taking the forms of xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia, racial nationalism undergirds the discussion on issues of immigration, race and Muslims in both Western and Chinese societies. Realist authoritarianism prioritises materialist values, defined by Inglehart (2007) as those focused on economic and physical security, to the extent that it regards political values and goals that are deemed irrelevant to economic development and societal/national security as at best useless and at worst destructive. Realist authoritarians are inclined to justify their preference for authoritarian values (e.g. strong authority, strict social order, and punitive justice system) and contempt for morality, pluralism or democracy in utilitarian/pragmatic rather than normative terms. Such a worldview often entails a social Darwinist belief in survival of the strongest (ruorouqiangshi), which is on the international level preoccupied with competitions between nations/races/civilisations, and, on the domestic level, linked to a market liberalism emphasising self-reliance, competition and individual performance.

Figure 3 Word clouds of the corpus (excluding ‘white left’)

Figure 3 Word clouds of the corpus (excluding ‘white left’)

25Western biases against China are also a recurrent theme in the discussion (Figure 2), which implies that unlike their Western counterpart, Chinese critics of ‘liberal elites’ frame anti-liberalism as a revolt against the normative hierarchy of the liberal world order rather than its economic structures. Nationalist commentators cite the fact that the ‘white left’ unjustly criticise China based on so-called universal values as one of the reasons why they dislike them and disdain such values. Before we illustrate how these ideological features (racial nationalism, realist authoritarianism, and anti-hegemonic sentiment) are at work in the construction of Chinese ethnic and political identities, it is helpful to briefly comment on the political function of neologisms invented by the online community, which as a ‘community of discourse’ has its own ‘parole’ and ‘grammar’ (Salazar 2018).

26The very term ‘white left’ is a key rhetorical device in establishing a ‘chain of equivalence’ between anti-elitism, anti-Western attitudes and other far-right ideologies. It brings something into being by naming it and defining it in certain ways while excluding others. By framing progressive social movements as either an unrealistic fantasy or a conspiracy of privileged white elites, it effectively excludes the struggles of people of colour from left politics and mobilises the poignant awareness of Western hegemony and white superiority in Chinese society to advance racist or anti-immigration arguments. The label ‘left’, on the other hand, ignores extensive criticisms of (neo)liberalism from the left and plays to the general antipathy to left ideologies in post-reform China. Krämer suggests that one of the communicative strategies deployed by right-wing populist leaders is ‘routinely establishing equivalence’ and characterising any upcoming issues as an ‘equivalent manifestation of the same crisis’ (2017). In Chinese cybersphere, the proliferation of the term baizuo helps establish interdiscoursive linkages between different issue areas and enables one to utilise criticisms of Western ‘liberal elites’ to discredit social activism within China. It is also frequently used in compound words such as baizuo-nüquan (white left feminists) and baizuo-shengmu [12]. As an effect of this linguistically constructed equivalence, for example, Islamophobic discourse also commonly features anti-feminist claims. It is noteworthy that the vocabulary is essentially misogynist, as these derogatory compound words carry evidently feminine connotations and are used to attack users expressing a sense of morality or empathy. Just as in other countries [13], the ‘liberal elites’ are portrayed as effeminate, sentimental, and irrational, whereas their opponents claim to favour reason, law, and force.

5.1. The threatening Other and ethno-racial identity

27Although the main themes, ideologies, and rhetorical strategies seem familiar, the fundamental difference between extreme right discourses on Chinese internet and those in Western societies lies in what kind of us/them oppositions are presupposed and reiterated. If central to the latter are polarised oppositions along the line of white/non-white identities and Western/non-Western cultures, then the former adopts, reinterprets and instrumentalises these antagonisms to construct a threatening other (the non-Wester other) in relation to China’s ethno-racial identity, and a declining other (the Western other) vis-à-vis China’s political identity (Table 1). The two dimensions of othering are inextricably interrelated, as in the eyes of these observers, the decline of the Western other is caused precisely by its inability to take a hard line on the non-Western other.

28The elaborations on why various outgroups, most notably non-white immigrants, black people, and Muslims, constitute a threat to both Western societies (them vs. them) and China (them vs. us) range from overtly racist speech to ostensibly objective reports on their detrimental impact on social order, the economy, and the ‘ordinary people’. These often include highlighting the link between outgroups and crimes, claiming that they are treated favourably (by the ‘white left’) and having an ‘unjustified sense of entitlement’ (Krämer, 2017), and insisting that they are dependent on state welfare funded by the ‘ordinary people’. Internet users again use neologisms such as heilü (blacks and Muslims) and heimolü (blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims) to establish an equivalence between outgroups, and present these enormously diverse racial, ethnic and religious groups as a collective whole that is lazy, welfare-dependent, prone to crime, and self-entitled. Europe in the refugee crisis, then, is projected as seeding its own destruction for accepting non-white immigrants and Muslims.

Table 1 Dimensions of self/other relations in online discussions

The ‘Other’	The Chinese Self-image	Typical arguments	Ideological features
Immigrants and refugees; Muslims; Black people; US Latinos (the non-Western other)	The Chinese people (both nationals of the PRC and diasporas) as hardworking and high-achieving; the Chinese nation as homogeneous	Blacks and Muslims are lazy, crime prone, self-entitled and enjoy preferential treatment.	Racism; xenophobia; nativism; Islamophobia
The Western ‘liberal elites’ (the Western other)	Chinese people (nationals of PRC) as pragmatic, realistic, more aware of the danger of ideologies, and rightly focused on economic growth and social stability	Liberal elites are either ignorant or deceptive. Progressive or postmaterialist values are destructive and leading the West to its own decline/destruction.	Authoritarianism; anti-elitism; realism; pragmatism; social Darwinism; market liberalism
The ‘Western world’ in general	China as a rising power but marginalised in the normative hierarchy of the liberal order	Western criticisms of China are biased. Western imperialism is the root cause of most problems in the world.	Anti-hegemonic nationalism

Table 1 Dimensions of self/other relations in online discussions

29When it comes to how these outgroups might pose a threat to the Chinese self, the question is addressed differently in relation to Chinese diasporas and the Chinese nation-state. As the threads scrutinised here are clearly focused on diagnosing ‘Western’ problems, many postings are concerned with the tension between Chinese diasporas and other ethnic minorities in the West (especially the US), and some contributors present themselves as overseas students or immigrants. The narrative of diasporic Chineseness depicts transnational Chinese communities as diligent, highly-motivated and high-achieving, but are oppressed by the white majority, who are described in several posts as ‘sitting at the top of the food chain’, and other minorities. A complex sense of inferiority (to the white majority) regarding social status and superiority (over other minorities) regarding essentialised traits and characters of ethnicities is pervasive in this discourse. On the one hand, the representation of Chinese diasporas subscribes to the mainstream ‘discursive distinction between “good” (i.e. hard-working) and “bad” (i.e. free-loading) immigrants’; and align the transnational Chinese ethnic identity with the ‘good’ immigrant, which is an integrating strategy commonly used by other immigrant minorities [14] (Jackson and Bauder, 2013). On the other hand, the experiences of structural discrimination in a white majority society are interpreted through social Darwinist analyses of ruthless competitions between races for power and survival that appeal blatantly to biological racism.

30

Who would be a threat to the white left ruling class? Obviously, it’s not the heilü [blacks and Muslims]. First of all, they don’t have the intelligence. Secondly social welfare would destroy the only bit of motivation to succeed they have. Only white people and the Chinese, with high IQ and high motivation to succeed, can pose a threat to their status. That’s why they treat blacks and Muslims favourably and discriminate against whites and the Chinese.

Within the country [the US], the white left collaborate with the heimolü [blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims] to oppress Chinese people. Internationally they’re ideologically driven and always against China brainlessly. ... If one day the Chinese in America are sent into the gas chamber, then the one who presses the execution button must be the white left and their black alliance, not those they call racist.

31In the context of discussing domestic issues, conservative netizens cite misinformed statistics, personal anecdotes, and political upheavals in Europe and the US as dire warnings against accepting any refugees or ‘appeasing’ Chinese Muslims, and a supporting evidence for maintaining ethno-cultural homogeneity. While some feel relieved that China is relatively safe from the ‘dangers’ of immigration and ethno-cultural diversity, others claim that the country is currently facing similar challenges, namely the ‘problems’ of African immigrants in Guangzhou, whose number is hugely exaggerated [15], and Chinese Muslims. As mentioned earlier, anti-black racism has been epidemic in Chinese cyberspace (Li, 2017). Racist nationalists portray African immigrants as a threat not only to social order, but also to the ‘purity’ of the ethnic lineage of the Chinese nation. Muslims on the other hand are framed more as an existential threat to the Chinese nation the same way they are to Western civilisation [16]. Although there had always been a discernible Han supremacism online (Leibold, 2010), it had not been targeted specifically at Muslim minority groups before the globally circulating Islamophobic discourse on ‘Islamisation’ gained momentum on Chinese internet. Recent incidents of terrorist attacks linked to separatism in Xinjiang have also fuelled Islamophobia online, and have been invoked as attesting to the violent, backward and barbaric nature of the religion.

32

The white left have turned the beautiful and affluent Sweden into a notorious ‘rape capital’...I feel so lucky that I am Han Chinese (hanzu): our nation can never be assimilated by the inferior culture of extreme Islam, past, present, or future. The white left and feminists who defend extreme Islam are double-standard bitches. They’re either stupid or evil.

33The distinction between civilisation and barbarism, which generally views the Han as civilised and culturally superior, was a categorical one in the Sino-centric worldview of imperial China (Phillips, 2018). However, it was not until the late 19^th century when ideas of race and racial hierarchies were introduced to China by intellectuals seeking reforms and modernisation. As Dikötter (2015) has shown, a particular mode of racial thinking, according to which mankind is divided into distinct, hierarchically organised, biological groups, has profoundly influenced social and political thought in modern China throughout the 20^th century. From the very beginning, Chinese intellectuals’ translation and interpretation of Western scholarship at the turn of the century tied theories of race with an evolutionary understanding of human history as struggles between different races, as exemplified by Yan Fu’s famous (mis)translation of T. H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics. Translating the doctrine of survival of the fittest in biological evolution as ‘the superior win, the inferior lose’ (youshenglietan), Yan’s evolutionist analysis of human society was widely celebrated at the time, when China was faced with unprecedented challenges from Western imperial powers. The category of race and the notion of racial struggles were appropriated not only to make sense of the international system China had been forced to engage with, but also to construct the concept of a Chinese nation (zhonghuaminzu) as an ‘organic entity with an uninterrupted line of descent’ (Dikötter, 2015). Under the influence of prominent intellectuals and political leaders such as Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen (Zhang, 2014), the idea that the Chinese belong to a biological group called the ‘yellow race’, and that the white and yellow races are superior to others in terms of intelligence and cultural traits was instrumental in the formation of national consciousness [17].

34While racism is formally denied under communist rule, racial thinking continues to underpin various ‘myths of descent’ in official and popular imaginations of Chinese ethnic identity (Sautman, 1997). Furthermore, the Soviet Union inspired approach to governing ethnic minorities has not been free from hierarchisation and paternalism despite official criticisms of Han chauvinism (Law, 2012). Racism and Han supremacism entails parallel structures of racialisation that essentialise differences and look down on certain ethno-racial groups as inferior or backwards. In this light, the online discourse on the racial superiority of whites and the Chinese as well as on the struggle between races clearly mirrors prevailing racial theories in the early 20^th century; and has its roots in the long-standing racial nationalism inseparable from the formation of Chinese national identity. On the other hand, this racial nationalism has been refashioned by adopting and expanding on the arguments and perspectives of xenophobic populism in contemporary Western societies. Although the emphasis varies in imagining ethnic identity in diaspora and domestic contexts, in both cases the reproduction of the diligent, intelligent and unified Chinese self involves ascribing inferiority and barbarism to both external (non-white immigrants) and internal others (Muslim minorities).

6. Conclusion: on anti-western eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies

49This article has investigated emergent right-wing discourses on Chinese internet that combine the vocabulary and arguments of right-wing populism in Western politics with pre-existing expressions of cyber-nationalism, cyber-racism and Han supremacism. Through qualitative analysis of around one thousand postings discussing the European refugee crisis, the American presidency, and Western ‘liberal elites’ retrieved from a popular social media website, this research details the changing ways in which informed internet users in China adopt the style of right-wing populism to reconstruct self/other relations and produce popular narratives of global order. Instead of populism as such, the core ideological features of the anti-baizuo discourse can be theorised as racial nationalism and realist authoritarianism. By naming, analysing, and denouncing the ‘white left’, conservative netizens reiterate the superiority and homogeneity of China’s ethno-racial identity against a threatening, non-Western other, and articulate China’s political identity against a declining Western other.

50While the rise of right-wing populist movements in Europe and the US have been linked to popular revolts against economic globalisation, the hostility towards liberal values on Chinese social media is associated with anti-imperialist sentiments and the popular resentment against the normative hierarchy of the liberal order. However, this popular geopolitical discourse consolidates both external and internal hegemonies in the very process of challenging the Euro-American hegemony. On the one hand, it perpetuates Eurocentric notions of race, nation, and modernisation, limiting the possibilities of development to ‘a particular vision of Western modernity’ (Barabantseva, 2012) modelled on aggressive capitalism and racialised nativism. On the other hand, it also reinforces the ‘internal hegemony by suppressing differences within the nation’ (Dirlik, 1996: 114), both in terms of alternative political imaginations and expressions of heterogeneous ethno-cultural identities.

51Although some of the more extreme right aspects of the online discourse, such as those on racism, social Darwinism and market fundamentalism, diverge from the official ideology and policies, it generally upholds the legitimacy of the authoritarian regime and shares a prudent optimism on China’s rise with the ruling party. As these pro-globalisation urban elites are against the underpinning values of the liberal world order but not its rules, especially those regarding economic cooperation and governance, they are likely to concur with IR scholars who predict that China as a rising power is pursuing an ‘open economic order’ and a more ‘equal’ or pluralist political order without seeking to challenge the liberal order as rule-based frameworks of global governance (Wu, 2018; Breslin, 2018).

52However, the logics of anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies have more implications for China’s domestic politics than for the multilateral institutions and processes of global governance. They have enabled both internet users and the party-state to mobilise the popular hostility against Western hegemony and perceptions of geopolitical rivalry for the purpose of invalidating dissenting perspectives on the country’s political regime, economic system, and social inequalities. As conservative netizens apply their condemnation of the ‘white left’ to criticising, for example, feminist movements within China, the Chinese government has been deploying the rhetoric of ‘the instigation of foreign powers’ to frame domestic activisms as instances of Western interference. If this strategy of internalising the international and externalising the domestic can be considered as a form of non-Western agency, it is one that perpetuates and politicises the dichotomy of China versus the West, which itself is part of the hegemonic conception of world order continuously performed into being by foreign policy discourses and IR scholarship. Coming to terms with the perils of anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies may start with acknowledging the paradoxes, hierarchies, and inconsistencies of the liberal project on national and international levels. It invites us to view ‘Western’ populism and ‘Eastern’ authoritarianism not as neatly separated but as built on co-constitutive knowledges and epistemologies produced in interconnected histories and presents.