Baizuo

Baizuo (Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, Mandarin pronunciation: [pǎɪ.tswò]; literally "white left") is a derogatory Chinese neologism used to refer to Western liberals and leftists and to their values, especially in relation to refugee issues and social problems. The term originated in the 2010s, probably initially to mock American and Western communists who traveled to China to support the communist revolution and has since come into widespread use due to Chinese netizens' criticism of Western liberal to leftist ideologies and of European governments, particularly Angela Merkel and the German government, for their alleged over-tolerance during the refugee crisis, and to netizens' praise of Trump's populist policies. The term has begun to be widely used in English as well, most notably by American conservatives.

"Western leftism" redirects here. For the history of left politics in the west and elsewhere, see Left-wing politics.

Etymology

The word is made up of two Chinese characters, 白 (bái, "white") and 左 (zuǒ, "left").[1] Although the word is most commonly used in its literal sense, it is sometimes used to mean idiotic (白痴) liberals.[2] It is believed that the word came from China's netizens.[2] An article from the Southern Metropolis Daily goes further, referring to the term as originating from a 2010 article, "The Fake Morality of the Western 'White Left' and the Chinese 'Patriotic Scientists'",[lower-alpha 1] made by Li Shuo, a Renren Network user, in which he satirized and blamed foreign left-wing youth who came to China to help the Chinese revolution before 1949 and held a sympathetic attitude toward the communist revolution.[3][lower-alpha 2] However, Chenchen Zhang believes the term only dates back to about 2015 when, with the refugee crisis in Europe and the rise of right-wing populism in the United States, the term became popular as Chinese netizens criticized the leftist and liberal views in the West. Zhang summarizes the commonality of more than 400 relevant responses on Zhihu, which accuses Western leftists and liberals of having no concept of the real world, of being hypocritical, of caring only about topics such as immigration, minorities, and LGBT, of lacking of sense of real problems in the real world, of tolerating the "regressive values" of Islam for the sake of multiculturalism, and of supporting the welfare state at the expense of tolerating lazy people.[4]

It is related to another term, shèngmǔ (simplified Chinese: 圣母; traditional Chinese: 聖母; pinyin: shèngmǔ; literally "Holy Mother"), a reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being overly driven by emotion.[5]

Usage

2015 European migrant crisis

Another typical case of the 'baizuo' doing something detrimental to the whole society just so that they can uphold political correctness and feel good about themselves.[5]

A Weibo post commenting on the 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany

The term comes up often under topics related to the 2015 immigration crisis in Europe and is often used to accuse European politicians of being overly tolerant in their treatment of refugees.[6] While some praised the decision of Austria and Germany to open their borders to refugees to welcome those stranded in Hungary after Alan Kurdi's death, just as many accused it of leading to chaos, with the subsequent New Year's Eve sexual assault considered a solid piece of evidence that Chinese netizens blamed on the "white left" ideology of Europe and compared it to the parable of The Farmer and the Viper.[5] In mid-2016, an Amnesty International questionnaire showed that 94 percent of Chinese were willing to accept refugees, yet already in mid-2015, a Weibo blogger observed that it was "politically correct" to mock Merkel or other "leftist" politicians on Weibo because of their moderate platforms for refugees.[7] Amnesty International's paper elicited a fierce reaction, and an ensuing Global Times poll showed that 90.3 percent of Internet users did not want to accept refugees, leading Global Times to call the Amnesty International's survey "peculiar" and an attempt to "incite antagonism against the government among the public".[8]

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.[9]

A Zhihu post, December 19, 2017

World Refugee Day on June 20, 2017, experienced another similar event when Yao Chen, China's first UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, held a charity event in Beijing at which the film Welcome to Refugeestan was screened, and later that day, the UN Human Rights Office celebrated the event by making a post on Weibo, and official Chinese medias posted in support. However, a large number of netizens voiced their opposition and believed that the initiative was a way to pressure China to accept refugees, and some rumors claimed that the construction of refugee camps had already begun in some areas of China.[10] On June 22, the Guangdong Communist Youth League created a similar questionnaire asking netizens if they were willing to support the Chinese government's acceptance of Middle Eastern refugees and this time, only about 0.5 percent said they did.[11] On June 23, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a meeting with the Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, stressed that refugees are not migrants and that they will all eventually return to their home countries. On June 26, Yao apologized and expressed her agreement with Wang's view.[12]

Several nationalist narratives—some of them identical to the right-wing populism of the West—have been observed alongside the term in the web, such as the belief that the introduction of immigrants will lead to the replacement of majority ethnic groups, anti-elitism, opposition to mainstream media sentiment, identitarianism, national rejuvenation, nativism, social darwinism and pragmatism,[13] with the term being used as a key rhetorical device to chain these ideas together.[9] Chinese netizens have adopted the narrative that intervention from the United States and the West instigated the Syrian civil war and caused the refugee crisis, and therefore accuse Western countries of hypocrisy on the refugee issue.[14]

Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign

Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency in 2015. His right-wing electoral strategy has appealed not only to Chinese nationalists but also to many Chinese liberals.[15] For nationalists, Trump's populist, anti-immigrant campaign has appealed to them, though that appeal is also noted as more of an opposition to American liberalism or even liberal democracy itself.[16] Over time, the term has come to be used to describe people who uphold similar policies, such as Barack Obama, rather than focusing on the color of their skin.[17] And for Chinese liberals, or at least some of them, Trump's toughness and conservatism toward China have appealed to them, and they want to use similar conservative ideas to promote a liberal democratic system in China, while both liberals who support Trump and those who criticize him invoke cases like the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward as an overall critique of the left and believe that the American left will similarly lead to these happening in the United States–the former believe that the removal of Confederate memorials is an act similar to the destruction of the Four Olds, Black Lives Matter to the Red Guards, and MeToo to the big character poster or struggle session, which leads them to conclude that the "white left" is destroying the United States, while the latter compares Trump's populism to Maoism.[18]

Similar to the case during the 2015 European migrant crisis, the support for American right-wing populism has also been seen as a result of Chinese pragmatism.[19] For nationalists, the use of the term is accompanied by expressions of China's rise and sense of competition.[1] For liberal intellectuals, the criticism of the white left and the praise of Trump also represent their non-nationalist sentiment and pro-market sentiment.[20]

Usage by American conservatives

In fact, they have a name for our self-hating professional class. They call them baizuo. The rough translation from Mandarin is 'white liberal,' and it is definitely not a compliment.[21]

Tucker Carlson, March 20, 2020

Since the popularity of the term in China, conservatives in the United States, especially nationalist conservatives, have also begun to use the term. Prominent conservatives Tucker Carlson and Rod Dreher have both used the term to criticize American leftist and liberal ideas. In March 2020, Carlson introduced the term on his radio show, while Dreher used "baizuocracy" to describe white leftist government. The use of the term has been described as embodying a shift in the attitudes among a section of the American right that now expresses admiration for China and believes that it will prevail over the liberal-leaning United States.[22] There are claims that American conservatives misuse the term and ignore the debate about Chinese nationalism and "geopolitical Darwinism".[21]

Laissez-faire in usage

Despite its possible racist elements, the use of this term does not appear to be censored by the Chinese government, possibly because it contributes to the development of a sense of cyber-nationalism on the Chinese internet.[23]

See also
Look up 白左 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes
  1. simplified Chinese: 西方“白左”和中国“爱国科学家”的伪道德; traditional Chinese: 西方“白左”和中國“愛國科學家”的偽道德; pinyin: Xīfāng báizuǒ hé zhōngguó àiguó kēxuéjiā de wěidàodé
  2. According to Li Shuo's original article, he refers to Erwin Engst and Joan Hinton.
    • Li 2010: "古人云“来而不往非礼也”，天朝不但在物流上被美帝非礼，一船船的货真价实的商品运到美国去，换来的却是堆积如山的冥币（见《人民币？人冥币！》），人流上也被美帝非礼，一飞机一飞机货真价实的的知识分子运到美国去，换回来的是零星的“爱国科学家”以及更为罕见的“白左”，前者以钱学森、钱伟长、萧光琰为代表，后者以阳早、寒春夫妇为代表。" [As the old saying goes, "It is impolite not to reciprocate," but not only is the Celestial Empire being treated impolitely by the American Empire in terms of logistics – a boatload of genuine goods shipped to the United States, in exchange for a mountain of hell money (see "People's Currency? People's Hellish Currency!) – but also being treated impolitely in terms of people – a plane of genuine intellectuals were shipped to the United States in exchange for a smattering of "patriotic scientists" and the even rarer "white left", the former is represented by Qian Xuesen, Qian Weichang and Xiao Guangdian, and the latter by Erwin Engst and Joan Hinton.]

References

Citations
  1. Huang 2021.
  2. Wang 2019, p. 69.
  3. Xu 2020.
  4. Zhang 2017.
  5. Gan 2020, p. 25.
  6. Gan 2020, p. 25; Zhang 2020, p. 96; Lin 2021, pp. 95–96.
  7. Shen 2020, p. 26; Zhang 2017.
  8. Zhang 2017; Gan 2020, p. 21.
  9. Zhang 2020, p. 100.
  10. Shen 2020, pp. 26–27; Gan 2020, p. 26.
  11. Shen 2020, p. 28.
  12. Wang 2020, p. 130.
  13. Gan 2020, p. 25; Zhang 2020, pp. 101–104.
  14. Shen 2020, p. 29; Zhang 2020, p. 101.
  15. Lin 2021, pp. 85–86; Zhang 2020, p. 96.
  16. Lin 2021, p. 86; Zhang 2020, p. 96; Carlson 2018.
  17. Chen 2022, p. 176.
  18. Hendriks-Kim 2023; Lin 2021, pp. 88, 95–96; Gao 2023, pp. 27, 39–40.
  19. Zhang 2017; Lin 2021, p. 86.
  20. Lin 2021, p. 90.
  21. Wong 2022.
  22. Wong 2022; Weigel 2021.
  23. Zhang 2020, p. 108; Chen 2022, pp. 175–176.

Sources

Further reading
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