In 1873, the Russian politician Bakunin (pictured below) first mentioned the "Yellow Peril" in his article "State System and Anarchy", believing that antichrist forces would inevitably emerge from Asia, and because the Huns and Mongols had conquered Europe in history, Bakunin declared that China was "a great danger from the East".
In the decades that followed, on the one hand, China was poor and weak, allowing the West to bully it, and on the other hand, Europe trumpeted the "yellow peril theory" and called on the white race to unite against the yellow race.
Historically, the traditional Chinese nation has never threatened Europe; from a modern point of view, China has become poor and weak, its national strength has fallen into a trough, and it is even less threatening to Europe........ If so, why does Europe still promote the "yellow peril"?
During the Foreign Affairs Movement, the "Yellow Peril Theory" first appeared in Tsarist Russia
It is not surprising that the "Yellow Peril" first appeared in Tsarist Russia, because in Tsarist Russia's view, "a strong neighbor is not necessarily a good neighbor."
At that time, Tsarist Russia's Eastern Strategy had two goals: on the one hand, to prevent the Qing Dynasty from threatening the Far East, and on the other hand, it also wanted to continue to encroach on the territory of the Qing Dynasty. On the international front, Britain supported the Qing Dynasty's foreign affairs movement and enhanced its national strength to resist the strategy of Tsarist Russia going south, which made Tsarist Russia more anxious. Under these circumstances, the tsarist Russia's propaganda of the "Yellow Peril Theory" was essentially aimed at gaining the support of European public opinion in order to cut off the "support" of Europe and the United States for the Qing Dynasty, thus achieving the purpose of weakening the Qing Dynasty's strength and facilitating its aggression.
After the emergence of the "Yellow Peril Theory", it did not have a great impact in Europe at first, but it had a huge impact in the Americas, Southeast Asia, Australia and other places. In the sound of the "yellow peril", the United States, Canada, Australia, Southeast Asia and other places have set off wave after wave of Chinese exclusion. However, as the "yellow peril theory" becomes more and more intense, the status of the Chinese people becomes lower and lower, and the image of the Chinese becomes uglier and uglier, so that the United States has a terrible argument that insults and kills the Chinese "no reason is needed." (Below, portrait of "a tiger wearing a Qing Dynasty hat devours a white man")
After the Sino-Japanese War, Japan became the protagonist of the "Yellow Peril Theory"
After the Sino-Japanese War, Japan defeated the Qing Dynasty, affected the interests of Tsarist Russia, and completely exposed the weakness of the Qing Dynasty, so the protagonist of the "Yellow Peril Theory" became the Japanese.
First of all, Tsarist Russia wants to have a part of "yellow Russia" - occupying the northeast, but the rise of Japan and Japan's occupation of the Liaodong Peninsula will inevitably become an obstacle to Tsarist strategic goals.
Secondly, after the rise of Germany, Wilhelm II has always pursued the principle of "building a greater Germany and fighting for territory under the sun", and the weakness exposed by the Qing Dynasty made Germany want to have a territory in China. If Germany wants to achieve this goal, it needs the support of Tsarist Russia and other countries.
Therefore, Germany and Russia had common interests and wanted to break britain's monopoly on China, so they used the banner of "yellow peril theory" to achieve the goal of containing Japan and dividing China. German Foreign Minister Bibestein told Russian diplomats that if the Yellow Japanese and Chinese were to merge, that is, if Japan led the huge population of China to reform and expand, then the "Yellow Peril" of the Mongols sweeping the West would be repeated, "this interest is common to all yellow people, and contrary to the interests of the European powers." After that, Russia, Germany, and France did not hesitate to use the threat of force to force Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China; Li Hongzhang was very welcome when he visited Germany and Russia, and Yamagata Youpeng was snubbed when he visited Germany, which was both a suppression of Japan by Germany and Russia, and also a division of the internal relations of the so-called "yellow race".
It is worth mentioning that during the intervention of the Three Kingdoms and the Restoration of the Liao, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the painting of an oil painting, which was given as a state gift to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and the name of this oil painting was "Yellow Peril" - the most well-known "art propaganda" in European history (below).
During the Boxer Rebellion, China became the focus of the "Yellow Peril Theory."
After the Sino-Japanese War, Russia and Germany seemed to intervene and win benefits for China, but in fact they deceived China. Germany and Tsarist Russia colluded and cooperated with each other, Germany occupied the Jiaodong Peninsula, Tsarist Russia occupied the Large Army Port of the Pacific Sea Brigade, the great powers set off a wave of partitioning China, provoked the resistance of the Chinese people, and the Boxer Rebellion came into being.
The Boxer Rebellion swept through Northern China, shocking Lenin, not only by means of ignorance and superstition, but also by powerful mass appeal, so China immediately became the focus of the "Yellow Peril Theory", when the new fashion in the West was to interpret and discuss China from a negative perspective. The General Taxation Department of the Qing Dynasty and the Englishman Hurd (pictured below) pointed out: "It can be asserted that in the future, people will need to deal with the problem of the yellow race, perhaps the problem of the 'yellow peril', just as the sun will rise tomorrow. ”
On the contrary, in the Boxer Rebellion, Japan followed closely behind the British, for example, when it sent troops to suppress the Boxers, Russia did not hesitate to send troops, but Japan did not hesitate to send troops after receiving the British nod. In the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, the Japanese army had a division and regiment strength, which became the main force of the Eight-Power Alliance, and suffered the heaviest casualties. According to Western historical data, Japan had the best military discipline among the Eight-Power Alliance, and the withdrawal of troops after the fact was the fastest, showing the image of a "responsible big country". That is to say, Japan, the protagonist of the previous "Yellow Peril Theory", won applause in the Boxer Rebellion, while China became the focus of the "Yellow Peril Theory".
Regarding the Boxer Rebellion, it is basically a negative evaluation today, but at that time, China was frequently teased and deceived by the West, divided up and invaded, and broke out under the condition of intolerable situation, in fact, it was also exploring the road to salvation, but the road was crooked and went to the evil road. Therefore, not only should the Boxer Rebellion not be ridiculed today, but there should be some respect for it.
In the Russo-Japanese War, Japan successfully circumvented the "Yellow Peril Theory"
After the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Dynasty implemented the strategy of "uniting with Russia to resist Japan", but Germany and Russia successively deceived the Qing government, so in addition to the disappointment and resentment of the great powers led by Germany and Russia, the relations between Qing and Japan began to heat up rapidly, such as Zhang Zhidong in Hubei, who was very much in favor of the Japanese envoys. The Middle East is a country of the same species, the same language, and the same religion, and I am deeply willing to contact China." In the next ten years, qing-Japan relations were close, and some people even plotted to "merge" between Qing and Japan.
But by the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the close relationship between Qing and Japan had become an important obstacle to Japan's european support. Before the war, Japan received intelligence that Tsarist Russia would gain European support by agitating for the "Yellow Peril Theory", that is, Tsarist Russia would package the Russo-Japanese war as a "race war between the White race and the Yellow Race", so as to gain European support and prevent British support for Japan. (Pictured below, Russian propaganda cartoon)
Obviously, in Europe at that time, if the "yellow peril theory" was allowed to ferment, then the support of Europe, Britain, and other countries for Japan was likely to be greatly reduced, so that Japan would lose the war. To this end, Japan tried to downplay the racial color of the war:
First of all, the public relations and public opinion war, Japan wrote a large number of "press releases" in Europe to defend Japan, that is, the war was only to curb the expansion of Tsarist Russia to the south and to maintain peace and development in the Far East. Even, in order to gain the support of news giants, Japan fully supports the "public opinion war" and does not hesitate to buy the page at great expense, so that the European and American media groups can make a lot of money.
The second is the neutrality of the Qing government, once the Qing-Japan alliance joins hands to reject Russia, then it will be solid that "the yellow race joins forces against Tsarist Russia", which will provoke the backlash of the Western white race and turn the Russo-Japanese war into a "yellow and white" war. In fact, "United Japan rejected Russia" was the voice of the Qing court at that time, but under Japan's public relations, the Qing government eventually remained neutral. Of course, in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan used racial righteousness as a tool to fool many Chinese resist Russia, and the heroes wu Peifu and Ma Yukun provided logistics and ammunition for the Japanese army, and even many Chinese directly participated in the attack on the Russian army.
In the Russo-Japanese War, although the Japanese army won a crushing victory, it was of great significance and inspired the hearts of the Chinese: the yellow race could defeat the white race, and the Asians could defeat the Europeans. As a result, the title of "yellow race" that was originally full of discrimination and derogatory meanings was slowly accepted by Chinese under such circumstances.
After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan's rise became a fact, and in order to protect its own interests, Britain and France formed a broad alliance with Japan, excluding the United States and Germany. Therefore, in the view of the weakened Interests of The United States and Russia, the "Yellow Peril" headed by Japan still existed, and later invited by Germany, the three countries of China and Germany considered establishing an alliance, and both Germany and the United States believed that "a developed China will not only not increase the scourge of the Yellow Peril, but will become a fortress against Japan's expansionist power on the Far East continent." Soon after, however, the United States "betrayed" the alliance and signed a separate agreement with Japan, with each side taking what it needed.
It can be said that the so-called "yellow peril theory" is first of all a slander and discrimination created out of nothing, followed by a tool and propaganda slogan for obtaining benefits, and it is not the noble sentiment of Tsarist Russia and Germany to fight for the interests of the White race. The German scholar Heinz Golwitzer once pointed out: "The 'Yellow Peril' was a slogan of the imperialist period." More importantly, when Europe propagated the "yellow peril theory", it did not care to make the "white peril" more and more intense in China.
After World War II, the "Yellow Peril Theory" has rarely been mentioned, but with the rise of China, this old and decadent idea is still spreading in Europe and the United States, and the "China Threat Theory", "Chinese Mouth Theory", etc. are to a certain extent the continuation of the "Yellow Peril Theory", and the image of Fu Manchu (pictured above, appeared in 1973) was even more spawned by this idea.