White men wanted – Job ad shows Chinese love-hate for foreigners

Opinion: Chinese’s love-hate relationship with foreigners

As a foreigner in China, I’ve noticed that the country has a love-hate relationship with foreigners.

On the one hand, the Chinese are fascinated by foreigners. English signs on shops and restaurants are fashionable and prestigious. American-style suburbs are all the rage. Western sports stars and Hollywood celebrities have massive fan followings here.

After decades of development, the increasingly rich Chinese are now eagerly traveling to foreign countries, studying English, watching Hollywood movies, eating Western food and listening to Western music.

At the same time, Chinese may turn hostile to foreigners as well. Occasionally, conflicts arise when a foreigner disrespects China or its people.

In 2008, Chinese netizens at home and abroad launched a campaign to boycott French goods in response to French citizens disrupting the Beijing Olympic Games torch relay in Paris, and because of the French government’s unfriendly attitude.

I suppose the anger is understandable. China has plenty of legitimate grievances against foreigners, from the Opium Wars to the foreign-controlled treaty ports of the 19th century to the Japanese invasion to the American bombing of a Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

Regarding the hiring of white people by Chinese companies to impress clients and officials, the reason has something to do with the age-old Chinese concept of face.

Face, to some people in China, is sometimes more important than life. Because Western countries are developed, people may think Westerners, especially white people, are better off, so they think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and very important connections overseas.

So to have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections – real or not – to businesses abroad.

– Jeff Bass, visiting US scholar in Beijing