German Scholar Article: The Western vicious speculation of the "Yellow Peril Theory" stems from a decline in strength

On November 22, the German "Frankfurter Allgeme zeitung" published an article entitled "Yellow Peril 2.0", written by Sebastian Konrad, a professor of history at the Freie Universität Berlin, and the full text is excerpted as follows:

In March 2020, then-US President Donald Trump referred to the COVID-19 outbreak as the "Chinese virus," which was neither new nor unique. Trump uses a pictorial language and a chain of associations dating back to the 19th century. He is by no means the only one who does. In many countries, anti-China stereotypes have sprung up and entered the field of public opinion without filtering.

Fear of China has a long history

But now, there's more fear of China circulating, and COVID-19 is just one of them. Most obviously, there are fears that china's economy could crush Europe, threaten the survival of German companies, or simply buy them up. The Belt and Road Initiative is likely to lead to new political dependencies. Keywords such as 5G, Huawei, and TikTok show concerns about digital penetration.

None of these fears and worries come out of thin air. The analysis of these situations is all in the well-known press, and it is not repeated here, but should focus on a subject that is usually overlooked: because we have observed that the Western discussion of China has never been more than just about the confrontation caused by China's politics and economy; Germany, Europe, and the "West" itself has always been on the agenda. Discussing China has always been conducive to knowing oneself at the same time. This dimension in the discussion about China is explored below.

They have long been the collective memory of Western society. Whoever accepts these ideas will be based on the soil of cultural accumulation and will be affected by them for a long time.

In addition, Western discussions about China have been one of the important areas of gaining experience from globalization through alternative means in the past. Identifying one's role in an increasingly interconnected world has also been a subtext in discussion. Therefore, to understand China's current image, it must also be included in the debate about the world role of Germany and Europe.

The first point to make is that many of the anti-China stereotypes that can still be encountered today look very familiar. Because the corresponding threat theory climax did not begin with the 2008 world financial crisis, but more than a hundred years ago. The term "Yellow Peril" was already on the rise at that time.

The "Yellow Peril" narrative is a rehearsal of almost all fears today. It all revolves around German or "Western" fears of political-military, economic, demographic, and bacterial threats. The rhetoric of that time was more aggressive and racist than it is today. Still, the similarity is instructive. Therefore, it is worth a brief understanding of the above 4 aspects.

Talk about China highlighting itself

When discussing the economic competition that originated in China, the formulation is much more rational. As early as the 1890s, Germany discussed east Asian industrialization and the opportunities and problems it brought to Europe. Prominent economists such as Gustav Schmoler and Adolf Wagner have painted a specter of an economic "yellow peril" and warned that China could become stronger and become a new competitor in the world market. Nor was this a discussion confined to Germany, but an international one. In the mid-1890s, a number of industrialized countries (in addition to Germany, britain, France, and the United States) sent their own delegations to East Asia for field visits. The initial feedback, however, was reassuring: there was no real economic threat there; the huge sales market was very attractive.

Although professionals react calmly, the "yellow peril" is considered a demographic threat in the eyes of mainstream society and the mass media. Finally, there is the fear of Chinese flow.

The second argument is that it is easy to understand only if the discussion of The image of China is discussed as an alternative discussion. Because it is often not about East Asia first and foremost, but about the positioning of its own society in a larger context. As a result, "China" has also become a backdrop for achieving its own world status. This means that talking about China has never had anything to do with the Qing Dynasty or modern China, but has always been a kind of self-examination. Talking about China always means reflecting on its own role in the geopolitical order, and it means putting together one's own experience with globalization. China is certainly not the only possible globalization code, but in Western discussions about foreign countries, China has always had a special place. This demonstrates the belief that globalization can be understood as a clash of cultures. China represents a completely different culture, representing an extremely heterosexual. It has also become a public intellectual and life coach in a sense, advocating a special form of management that it calls "extreme transparency."

Thus, much of the way China emerges in public discourse reveals much of our own positioning in the geopolitical architecture and its role in the globalization process. For example, in the 1890s, the optimistic view of the members of the German Industrialists Association about China proved the relative strength of the German export industry in the Wilhelm era. At the time, Germany and the United States were on the verge of overtaking Britain as the most powerful economies.

On the other hand, Agricultural and Industrial Workers in Germany suffered heavy losses. Thus, the Social-Democrat Auguste Bebel warned in an important speech to the Reichstag in 1898 that opening the door to the German labour market for "low-demand, hard-working, modest and tolerant Chinese labour" would "set off a storm of anger among the entire German working class.". On the contrary, today's law prohibiting Chinese investors from buying German companies is a testament to the declining confidence of Germans in retaining their status as "export world champions."

Source: Reference News Network