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baizuo

Baizuo (pronounced 'bye-tswaw') is a Chinese epithet meaning naive western educated person who advocated for peace and equality only to satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority. A baizuo only cares about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment; while being obsessed with political correctness to the extent that they import backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism.

The Chinese see the baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.
My school is over-budget so they're cutting STEM classes because the Gender-studies and African-studies departments put fliers up all over the school claiming it would be racist/sexist to cut their classes. Fucking baizuo.

9 comments

old comment by Zinnia

I'm not familiar with the term, but if it specifically implies "westerner", then Chinese people are right to be wary. Europeans, and later Americans, sometimes messed with the cultures of conquered peoples, trying to mold it to some philosophical ideal about how society should work which was then-currently in vogue, but never gained much traction within their own countries (often for a good reason). They usually made a terrible mess of things in the process. That being said, no western nation has presently conquered China and none intends to, so merely being wary is all that's warranted, not full-blown paranoia.

I doubt this concept applies to a major political faction or cultural group which is part of the existing culture trying to change it from within, even metaphorically.

old comment by HS

Ah, one of my favourite topics. Finally, this gets some spotlight there.

So, if anyone is interested, here's a pretty nice breakdown of the term, probably the best I've seen. TL;DR, it's pretty much a chinese version of calling someone a "SJW". Lots of hating on "fake/white leftists" for caring about racism, sexism, problems of LGBTIQ community, instead of talking about "real issues" (because, of course, in their minds those aren't such real issues, despite being quite real to people who suffer them). As such, they also support politicians like Trump and Orbán. Interestingly enough, almost all topics they talk about are western problems. As mentioned in the article, there are basically no immigrants in China, LGBTIQ people are far from supported in China, feminist discourse is tightly regulated, etc. The topics which anti-baizuo people care about are virtually unknown in China, while being huge in the West. According to the article's author, this might be an effort to paint Western civilization as falling apart, as a weak "other", while painting Chinese civilization as superior to it and unblighted by it's problems. It might also be stirred by government for this end, though I doubt it.

Of course, there are domestic topics anti-baizuo people comment on, particularly those involving muslim minorities in China, and muslim and black immigrants/temporary residents. Particularly in regards to members of muslim minorities receiving preferential treatment in universities etc. You can probably imagine what they say about them. And as for what they think about black people, let's just say it would be hard to find an anti-baizuo person who disagrees with Mr. Pan Qinglin.

As for who it seems to apply to, it varies. Some people think it is a specifically anti-white insult which, by definition, only applies to white people (and that there is something intristically wrong with being white and holding such opinions (as in, being tolerant of minorities)), but those seem to be in a minority, and most people seem to believe it applies to any person of any race who espouses such views. Regardless, it's idiotic either way, and anti-baizuo sentiment is pretty much just a Chinese repackaging of Western "Alt-right shitlordry".

old comment by Zinnia

@HS: (After reading the article for clarification because I found your post moderately confusing) Okay, that's not what I was expecting. Interesting, though.

I also note that the context of it's usage is vastly different here. Basically, within China, the broad range of beliefs generally lumped together as "baizuo" appear to be very much minority views - whether they're actually a tiny minority or whether people in general don't feel safe openly holding them is not always clear. But on the other hand, the popularity of "baizuo" beliefs range from "borderline" to "overwhelming majority" in most "Western" countries. Using a derogatory term which comes from a differnt culture and is intended to be used against a minority position within that culture, but using it against a majority position within your own culture (even if the two positions are exactly the same) is really strange. It definitely doesn't have the same sort of impact or implications as you probably intended.

old comment by HS

Agreed. That's pretty much what the article was saying as well. Given how marginal those types of beliefs seem to be in China, and how little thought is given to western progressive/"baizuo" issues (immigrants, minorities, LGBTIQ people) over there, it is notable that the term seems to have caught on so much. As noted in the article, this popularity can be explained in the fact that it is not a term used to criticize China's issues, it is a term specifically created to criticize the West and westerners. It's used to describe "problems", far away, not at home. Basically, it can be used to create an "other" to contrast China with. That's why a few people think it might be in fact covertly pushed into usage by CPC, though I highly doubt that personally.

Also, this type of discourse is far from unique to China. As a person from a CEE country, I can confirm that, while we don't have special terms for it, the conversation about progressive topics is quite similar to China's here. This similarity is actually the reason this topic interests me. Whenever there's talk about minorities, immigrants, feminism etc., here, it's pretty much always in terms of how it's affecting the West. Those topics aren't used as conversation pieces about domestic problems, they are used to define a foreign "other" to contrast our societies with (e. g. just look at Orbán and his escapades). Quite interesting, really.