The Cultural Revolution in China in the 60s and 70s saw hundreds of thousands die in purges often led by youth militias known as the Red Guards. It got to the point where families, neighbours and friends turned on each other.
In recent years the Cultural Revolution seems to have returned to China in a digital version. Online patriotism has morphed into anti-foreigner rhetoric as well as accusations against Chinese figures. University professor, Zhang Sheng calls these online nationalist “little pinks”
Posts relating to Japan’s wartime atrocities have been a prominent theme on the Chinese internet, supported by Beijing’s assertion that Tokyo has never fully apologised.
Some are asking if this growing online xenophobia and especially anti-Japanese sentiment is behind some recent violent incidents.
- Four US university tutors were stabbed in a park in Jilin
- In June, a Japanese mother and her son were attacked at a bus stop outside a Japanese school, and a Chinese woman died trying to protect them
- In September, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was stabbed to death walking to a Japanese school in Shenzhen in southern China.
The Japanese foreign minister blamed the attack on “ malicious and anti-Japanese” social media posts, but Beijing has censored discussion of these attacks, calling them “isolated incidents”.
It is true to say, however, that this ‘digital nationalism’ has gone virtually unchecked by the Chinese government who have exacerbated the situation by launching a campaign encouraging the public to report suspicious activity by foreigners.
