Abstract
There is a structural similarity between classism and racism in their logics and social functions: both of them essentialize people’s social belongings and accordingly consign them identities, and this type of given identity becomes the basis of politics of differentiation, the fundamental instrument played by both communists and racists in manipulating the population and maintaining their regimes. As Arendt argued, as ideology, both of them had “tremendous power of persuasion.”
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- 1.
Xi Zhongxun (1903–2002), Xi’s father, was ranked as one of the top CCP leaders. Many in China believe that he was politically more open-minded and intellectually more enlightened than his son.
- 2.
As a matter of fact, the Soviet Union had used yellow in its most important flags and emblems, since yellow sharpens red, making it seem brighter. It was very likely that originally, in the 1930s, the CCP simply adopted the color from the Soviet Union for its own political symbolism, just as they named their regional revolutionary governments in China, “Soviet governments.” However, as circumstances changed, yellow was also perceived as the color of the race among other things (mainly light and prosperity) on the national flag and other political symbols. An online search for the question regarding the predominant adoption of the yellow color as a political symbol will find no answer referring to Soviet influence and many would associate it with the color or the Chinese as a race. In 2008, when Beijing hosted the Olympics, red and yellow adorned propaganda posters, billboards, and advertisements.
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Cheng, Y. (2019). The “Red DNA”: How Discourses of Class and Race Integrate. In: Discourses of Race and Rising China. Mapping Global Racisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05357-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05357-4_6
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