Understanding the Anti-Korean Wave in China - Its Cause and Spread

Dingxin Chen

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Korean 40 Final Paper

Understanding the Anti-Korean Wave in China:

Its Cause and Spread

Introduction

For a fairly long period of time in history, China and South Korea has maintained strong ties, not only in terms of politics and economy, but also in culture and tradition. Especially since China’s “Open Door” policy in economic exchange in the early 1980s, China has had the chance to be exposed to more foreign culture and products, including Korean’s cultural products such as films and music. Ten years later in the 1990s, with the massive rise of Korean pop culture, a “Korean Wave” which is often referred to as “韩流” (Hallyu) almost swept Chinese society with all sorts of Korean dramas all over the TV channels and K-pop rhythms all over the streets. This unstoppable pop culture tsunami originated from the close neighbor instantly captured significant amounts of young fans and followers in China and has caused massive attentions in the public society. While the Korean wave was generally rather welcomed by Chinese society when first introduced, there has seen a rise in antipathies towards Korea, Korean people and Korean culture in the 2000s and an “anti-Korean wave” has thus grown among Chinese population since then. According to an online survey in 2007, Korea for the first time beat Japan, the traditional archenemy of China, and became the “most hated” country among Chinese netizen. This anti-Korean sentiment, rather than being something that suddenly erupted due to a specific event, is a graduate evolution among the Chinese society. Although this general dislike towards Korean people and culture is caused by many different factors, it essentially results from the conflict between Chinese’s newly-restored national esteem and Korean’s aggressive approach towards their national pride; and the recent development of internet and social media has enabled the fast and large-scale spread of such negative sentiment among Chinese society.

The Rise of Korean Wave in China

The beginning of Korean Wave in China can be traced back to the year 1992 when China and South Korea officially established diplomatic relationship. According to Huang You-Fu, a Chinese expert in Korean affairs, “China wanted to develop its industry. But the Western developed countries were too far away and too advanced in terms of technology for China to accept. Korea was close and had intermediate technology that China could benchmark and adopt in a relatively short period of time. So, China turned to Korea. Korea was also eager to expand its overseas market.” (Lee) In conclusion, it was a time when both countries needed each other for their own development. This then opened the gate for communication and cultural exchange between China and South Korea. Coincidentally enough, early 1990 was also the time when Korean’s pop culture started to blossom into its prime with an explosion of countless great quality dramas and pop idols. Thanks to the perfect timing, the Korean pop-culture products entered into the Chinese society like a bomb. By the 1990s when China hadn’t been introduced to too many outside culture and lots of people were still listening to old-fashioned songs, the brand new ideology and style of Korean popular culture was indeed an eye-opening attraction for them. Korean dramas and music soon gained countless fans among Chinese public and the Korean Wave was thus born. For the next ten years, Koreans has been delivering continual hits that became sensational in the Chinese market, just to name a few, Full House, My Lovely Sam Soon and Dae Jang Geum which pushed the Korean Wave into a peak among Chinese audience. By 2004 and 2005, K-pop was still generally well-accepted by the Chinese mainstream society. However, some minor negative sentiments did start to accumulate as some improper behaviors by crazy K-pop fans were occasionally spotted in news, but there was really nothing too extreme. Also, Chinese’s “Sino-centric” perception of Korea as an affiliate of China was reinforced when they found out how similar Korean’s culture and traditions was surprisingly similar to China.