MCLC: British Sinophobia

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Anne Henochowicz <anne at chinadigitaltimes.net>
Subject: British Sinophobia
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Listen soon--the program will only be available for three more days.

Best, Anne

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Source: BBC <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ffskf>

Overwhelming China 

Philip Dodd explores China's continued haunting of British intellectual
and cultural life.

He traces current anxieties about global economic takeover back through
the political sinophobia of the Cold War period to earlier, pulp fantasies
of Yellow Peril, Limehouse Chinatown and the 'discovery' of the enemy
Within.

The British media report daily on China's economic clout, its ability to
buy up land and businesses here (from yacht makers to the Lloyds
Building), its willingness to mount cyber attacks on our commercial
enterprises, and the rise of viruses such as bird flu coming from China.
If Britain feels besieged by China, perhaps this should come as no
surprise. What is more surprising is that the current panic attack about
China is just the latest episode of a century long concern.

This programme looks back at earlier moments when Britain's sinophobia was
rampant. In the '50s and 60s, there were worries about China's political
clout from the Korean War to the insurgent counter culture of the 60s that
some believed was Maoist influenced. This was the time when Sean Connery's
James Bond was facing the 'Chinese' Dr No, dressed up in Mao gear. The
programme also goes back further, to the turn of the 20th century, when
the Yellow Peril was at its height, with the fear that the 'yellow race'
would overwhelm us physically by sheer numbers - the time of Fu Manchu.

In 1904, the arch anti-imperialist JA Hobson wrote that he feared China
would economically undercut prices and undermine our living standards. If
China is haunting our dreams now, it has been so for a very long time.

Producer: Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4.