US embassy cable - 05BEIJING5704

C O N F I D E N T I A L BEIJING 005704 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/05/2025 
TAGS: PREL, SOCI, CH 
SUBJECT: REACTION TO DISSIDENT LIU XIAOBO'S ONLINE ARTICLE 
CRITICIZING RACISM TOWARD SECRETARY RICE ON CHINESE 
WEBSITES 
 
Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Daniel Morris. Reasons 1 
.4 (b/d) 
 
1. (C) Post has been monitoring Chinese websites and 
checking with contacts to track the reaction in China 
to an online article by dissident Liu Xiaobo 
criticizing racist comments toward Secretary Rice 
expressed by some netizens on Chinese websites at the 
time of the Secretary's March visit. Liu, a 1989-era 
activist who lives in Beijing but who is banned from 
publishing domestically, published his article on 
March 21 on the overseas online magazine Democratic 
China. He estimates that on popular website Sina.com 
some 70 out of 600 postings on the visit included 
racist comments, while only 5 took an anti-racist 
position. Liu's online article attracted the 
attention of Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, 
which mentioned Liu in an April 1 feature story 
stating that "reaction to US Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice's Beijing visit suggests judgments 
based on race and sex are an entrenched part of 
mainland life." Note: Western media representatives 
are on a China-focused listserve on which the Liu 
article is available but so far have not, with the 
exception of the South China Morning Post, written any 
articles on it of which we are aware. End Note. 
 
2. (C) The Dean of Tsinghua University's Department 
of Sociology Li Qiang told Poloff on April 5 that he 
had not read Liu's article and doubted that it would 
be widely disseminated because Liu is a politically 
sensitive figure in China. He expressed the view, 
however, that Liu's thesis about widespread racism in 
China is correct. Comparing U.S. society to Chinese 
society, Li observed that China has never gone through 
a Civil Rights Movement and most Chinese have never 
pondered their own views toward other races. He noted 
that the Internet is a magnet for extremist views on 
race and cited the recent abundance of ethnic slurs 
against Japanese on the Internet as a manifestation of 
the type of hatred that can be found on cyber chat 
rooms. On highly charged issues such as Taiwan and 
Japan, nationalistic and chauvinistic Chinese will 
seek out like-minded people on the Internet and 
express themselves. Li noted that web monitors 
generally delete these hostile messages before there 
is wide distribution because there is concern about 
such discussion causing turmoil. 
 
3. (C) Comment: The racist comments on which Liu 
reported do not reflect official Chinese Government 
views and the Chinese we have spoken to who have read 
the article have expressed deep embarrassment about 
its contents. There are, however, a significant 
number of individuals in China who use chatrooms and 
websites to express racist and anti-foreign, including 
anti-American, views. Part of the blame for this lies 
in the way in which Chinese citizens are educated to 
think about themselves and their country. The 
educational system, while emphasizing the historical 
harm that foreign racism has done to the Chinese 
people, tends not to highlight the idea that Chinese 
people might need to examine their own attitudes 
toward race. 
 
 
RANDT 
 
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