Whiteness and Orientalism in China
Problematic Privilege in the Chinese Context
Orientalism risks pervading Western business-men and -practices in China, creating a subtle racism that elevates Western mentalities above Chinese perspectives.
What some bloggers are calling "white fame" and some friends call "tall white man syndrome" is notorious, and quite nefarious, to Western activity in China. While the benefits they entail for Westerners are clear, the harm is much more subtle. Along with high-profile jobs, Westerns are led to believe that the hegemonic model of Western style business activity is inevitably preferable to Chinese forms of management, production and promotions.
Because whiteness, and the English language in particular, links certain Westerners to Western capital, they are in a position that is at once enviable, and dangerous. They are the conduits for multinationals that want a representative in China who can be the face, and often the right-hand, of their day-to-day operations. This means that China on the one hand provides high-profile jobs to Westerners that wouldn’t be able to get the same position in the West. But their position also places them into a group of individuals in similar socio-economic contexts that act as emissaries for the practice of workers’ and human rights violations, that mark Chinese factories.
As a result of their middle-management position, Westerners in China risk playing the role of quintessential Orientalist, most tellingly because Chinese who wish to profit from their connection to the West almost inevitably defer to them. The result is that they assume, somewhat naturally, that they deserve their position of privilege and power, and a subtle racism risks pervading their conception of the East. As a Western blogger living in China has written: “it can become progressively harder not to stereotype a Chinese stranger who stops me on the street as someone who will stereotype me, becoming a negative feedback loop of stereotyping and distrust.”
Most importantly, being defered to can almost necessarily lead to a belief in the superiority of one's own ideas and culture. This is a danger that is heavily linked to the practices of British, French and other colonizers. Because of their economic (and military) superiority, colonizers have almost inevitably believed in the superiority of their upbringing, and their perspectives.
There is a deep-seeded racism that is invariably linked to the age-old colonial mindset that Edward Said documented in his seminal work, Orientalism. It permeates practices like sex-tourism in Asian countries, placing the “Other” as an exotic creature ready to be taken. In many instances, the Western businessman views China as an exotic “Other” in this sense, plentiful and sensual, ready to be ravaged by the powerful (neo-)colonizer. The ability to take advantage of China, and believed to be deified for it, leads to a powerful Orientalism.
