The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult

Hong Kong Free Press ^ | 5/20/2017 | Chenchen Zhang

[simpson96]

If you look at any thread about Trump, Islam or immigration on a Chinese social media platform these days, it’s impossible to avoid encountering the term baizuo, or literally, the ‘white left’. It first emerged about two years ago, and yet has quickly become one of the most popular derogatory descriptions for Chinese netizens to discredit their opponents in online debates.

So what does ‘white left’ mean in the Chinese context, and what’s behind the rise of its (negative) popularity? It might not be an easy task to define the term, for as a social media buzzword and very often an instrument for ad hominem attack, it could mean different things for different people. A thread on “why well-educated elites in the west are seen as naïve “white left” in China” on Zhihu, a question-and-answer website said to have a high percentage of active users who are professionals and intellectuals, might serve as a starting point.

The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users, which include some of the most representative perceptions of the ‘white left’. Although the emphasis varies, baizuo is used generally to describe those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.

[Impala64ssa]

Confucius say woman who fly airplane upside-down bound to have crack up. One time we went to a Chinese restaurant inside a fortune cookie, 7 day honeymoon makes whole week. Apparently there's a few smartasses in Chinatown. ☺

[Riley]

Dead-on.

[bert]

Chicaps are ascendent

How ya goin to keep them down on the collective after they get Daisey Maes?

[Boomer]

Some newly minted freshman author straight out of college using 40 times too many words to express a simple thought. Lost me in the jungle of words because one should never have to battle the dictionary to read a simple idea.

Anyone have a clue as to what she is trying to say in 10 words or less?

[DiogenesLamp]

‘Baizuo’... good for the Chinos. Didn’t know that we have allies in that quarter.

The Chinese are often realists and pragmatists, and the Baizuo are anything but.

The Baizuo are Massachusetts Puritan witch hunters always looking for their latest moral cause to shove down everyone else's throats.

[ClearCase_guy]

baizuo

• those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment”
• “have no sense of real problems in the real world”
• they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”
• “obsessed with political correctness”
• they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”
• they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”
• they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners”

The Chinese have identified Social Justice Warriors and are heaping scorn upon them.

[fishtank]

Báizuǒ - A Cuck By Any Other Name - The Chinese Disdain for the Guilty White Left

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAuJzyWDU9w

[fishtank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAuJzyWDU9w

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Everyone should add “baizuo” to their vocabulary — it could be “word of the year”. Thanks to CopperTop for the pronunciation (post 10).

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Pelham]

Well said plus an apt comparison.

[Organic Panic]

White left. That will certainly put a chink in your opponents armor.

[Petrosius]

From a domestic perspective, the proliferation of anti-baizuo sentiment is clearly in line with the dominance of a kind of brutal, demoralized pragmatism in post-socialist China. Many of the attacks on the welfare state and the idea that states have obligations towards international refugees appeal to the same social Darwinist logic of ‘survival of the fittest’. It is assumed that individuals should take responsibility for their own misery, whether it is war or poverty, and should not be helped by others. The rationale goes hand in hand with the view that inequality is inevitable in a market-economy-cum-Hobbesian-society.

Perhaps it is because the Chinese have had first hand experience with the Socialist Nanny State and know that they almost starved. The North Koreans have yet to liberate themselves from the "Communist Paradise."

[Dr.Deth]

Bites wha?

[Hugin]

The spoiled, arrogant twits on the left are baffled as to why people elsewhere see them as spoiled, arrogant twits. These foreigners are clearly too stupid to understand the left wants them to live in unheated hovels without air conditioning for the good of the planet. The left is only trying to save them from the horrible capitalist lifestyle the left enjoys here.

[Impy]

In many ways straight up commies are better than Western liberals.

The Soviets had no use for fags, for example.

[Impy]

Ping to #36

[stephenjohnbanker]

There is no longer such a thing as a Western liberal. Only leftists. Oh there might be 100 out of 320 million.

[NFHale]

“...straight up commies are better than Western liberals...”

At least they’re honest about who they are.

But at the end of the day, they’re still assh*les and only good for range practice.

“Hey, comrade.... can YOU run 3200 feet per second?”

[stephenjohnbanker]

LOL!