4mo ago

What's up with the term "baizuo"?

I know that it's Chinese and it translates roughly as "white/Western left." Looking it up on the Chinese wiki, Google translate gives me... well, this:

It is used to describe people who support policies such as the abolition of the death penalty , [ 3 ] animal protection , environmental protection , body equality , skin equality , LGBT , feminism , vegetarianism , marijuana decriminalization , euthanasia , abortion and immigration , that is, people with cultural leftist ideas in the European and American world.

This paints baizuo as something akin to American conservative terms like "woke" or "SJW." On the other hand, I've seen baizuo on Hexbear a few times, but in those contexts it seemed to mean something closer to "succdem" or "Western chauvinist" rather than the definition above. Obviously, a term used to insult feminists, LGBT people, and environmentalists would be incredibly out of place on this site, hence why I'm asking about it rather than taking a machine-translated Wiki article at face value.

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Honestly didn't know the etymology coming from an unhinged weirdo, but I've generally used it (irl mind you, I'm in China) as a handwaive when family asks about why X in the west is bad/inefficient/non-existent and "right wingers" isn't the cause.
Like what's with the aversion to nuclear power? Combination of 白左 and also the fossil fuel lobby.
Or if a policy that does (ostensibly) benefit poor people but is means tested to death, and they ask why it's set up like that. 白左
But I don't really often hear it in China. My family is just weirdly politically engaged due to being former Party members and revolutionaries. The average guy in the street is absolutely not going to use the phrase ever.
Yeah sure weirdos on XHS will also use it to refer to any aspect of the Western "left" they see online that they disagree with, but it's wholly inconsistent. Could be addressing Ultras. Or trots. Or liberals. Or redditors. Or nazbols. Or socdems. Or demsocs. I feel like XHS comment sections are like 2 steps away from calling Shanghai 白左.
- Like what's with the aversion to nuclear power? Combination of 白左 and also the fossil fuel lobby.
  The aversion to nuclear power here in europe is mostly the cultural scars that chernobyl had on Europe along with various different instances of massive polluting by major companies and nobody believing any for-profit company could be trustworthy enough to manage it safely.
  It can't be understated how significant Chernobyl was on european mindsets about nuclear power. That shit legitimately did nearly destroy europe and people's attitudes to nuclear power were very heavily affected by it. Those attitudes then passed on.
  
  Absolutely true. There were so many stories about chernobyl and zaporozhye during the russian war as well, about how the russians were bombing the nuclear power plant, the workers there facing difficulty, assessing by some world nuclear assessment organisation or whatever being impeded, the soil around chernobyl being disturbed and russian soldiers dying because they are careless with radioactive stuff etc. on and on and on and on
- I feel like XHS comment sections are like 2 steps away from calling Shanghai 白左.
  Isn't this the general sentiment there already? I thought they already thought of Shanghai as honorary westerners, or trying way too hard to be westerners.

I always thought it was a rightoid gotcha to own the leftists with their own logic of "China is trad and hates you".

Baizuo was either came up by or came up by a fan of some reactionary netizen who's famous for some unhinged ideology called Auntology. You can read a summary of Auntology for yourself. It's just unhinged reactionary shit. A weird part of it is that he actually wants to balkanize China. I think a lot of those balkanized China maps floating around were made by his shitty fandom. So the weird thing about him is he isn't a Chinese ultranationalist (he doesn't think China should exist) or a Han chauvinist (he apparently thinks Han isn't a real ethnicity) but some Chinese reactionary who wants to balkanize China.
The bai in baizuo is also from baichi, which means idiot. So, baizuo doesn't just mean white left but also idiotic left. A more fitting translation of baizuo would be white leftoid or white leftrd.
That term was always sus.
- There’s an online obsession with musk on parts of China? Damm that’s sad
  
  Trump is a comrade who will help take down the US empire.
  Comrade? No. Take down the US empire? Maybe lmao
  
  Not Chinese (nationality) but there are gay, trans, internationalist people who love geopolitics, maps, etc!!! Dozens of us!!! (Actually far more than dozens, it's more common than you'd think)
  
  have you seen that AI video of Musk vs the court eunuchs with millions of views?
  I know exactly what you're talking about lmao
  
  leftist circles on Chinese internet. And when I say Chinese leftists, a large portion of them are the nationalistic, anti-LGBT people who really hate American and Western imperialism
  So, like, nazbol except they're most of the Chinese left? Is that what you're saying?
- It's right wing term used by a rightoid minority as far as I can tell
- What the fuck, why is it being used as an insult on Hexbear
  
  USAmericans insisting that they are "not like other leftists"
- The bai in baizuo is also from baichi, which means idiot. So, baizuo doesn't just mean white left but also idiotic left. A more fitting translation of baizuo would be white leftoid or white leftrd.
  That’s not how Chinese language works. Just because 白 (bái) can be part of a word that means “idiot” doesn’t mean that it is infused with the meaning of idiocy. That’s like saying “the bai in baizuo is also from mingbai, which means clear/reasonable so baizuo doesn’t just mean white left but also reasonable left”. Which is obviously absurd lol. In most contexts, 白 means “white” and nothing else, although there are obviously many cultural associations with the colour white that are layered on top of that.
  
  The connection between baizuo and baichi was established by those reactionaries. Like, you can say that baizuo is just an abbreviated form of baichi zuopai (idiotic left). "bai = white and zuo = left, so baizuo = white left" is something you would say if you just ran each character individually through Google Translate. Nobody calls the Black Panthers "heizuo" even though the two characters translated separately is "Black left."
  My broader point is that the term, due to its reactionary origins, isn't as innocently translated as "white left."
- auntology? ain't that what mark fisher was always on about?
- Auntology as a handle is really funny though, if it's a pun on hauntology

I've actually never seen baizuo used in the context that wiki is suggesting, at least not on hexbear or reddit. When liberals use it they've always intended it as a semi-racist "Why do you support china if you're white?" insult which betrays their nationalism, when hexbears use it it's always been about chauvinism.
- Facts. It never is used to call someone a hypocrite, it's always used as a new way to call any white person that doesn't immediately fall in line a race traitor.

A lot of those issues are in fact only mostly hegemonic in the western left, and even that is a recent thing that I do think it's probably related to how we can't really get anything done with economic issues.
In the rest of the world where life is generally worse it doesn't shock me that other things are prioritized, and in some countries where these issues are used as cudgels by imperial core countries (to condition aid or policy) opposing them passes as an anti-imperialist, or at least pro-sovereignty, cause.
It's also true that someone who supports all these culturally left positions doesn't necessarily support other historically leftists causes like anti-imperialism and anti-militarism (anti-nato), so I guess some chinese people invented a term for that kind of leftist, which, from the outside I guess if you count the "left" very broadly from center-left socdems to progressive liberals it would seem like that's all the "white left" is.

Just an aside the Chinese Language Wiki is blocked in mainland China and mainly maintained by taiwanese and hong konger users so take that into account
- Was not aware of that! Not surprising to hear, though. Thanks for the info.

Global South need some way of making fun of people from far right countries larping as socialists.
These people can't build working class power (and social levelling would threaten their privilege) so they just aim to be moralists on the internet to make themselves feel good.
Western leftism isn't leftism, it's the thing that killed it.
- Western leftism isn't leftism, it's the thing that killed it.
  Oh, would you shut up? Did you forget the Marxism that came with Marxism-Leninism? (Admittedly, Marx and Engels would've had some western brainworms to deal with; I understand if yer referring to modern-day leftists who align with western foreign policy)
  Oh and speaking of
  Global South need some way of making fun of people from far right countries larping as socialists.
  Apparently, it comes from one of those damned Chinese reactionaries that China should've cracked down more upon
  Communication researcher Fang Kecheng believes that the term first appeared in an article published by a Renren user, right-wing libertarian and market fundamentalist named "Li Shuo" titled "The Pseudo-morality of Western White Leftists and Chinese Patriotic Scientists", criticizing Western leftists who sympathize with Communist China (citing Chomsky and Yang Zaohanchun ), mainly referring to the left wing in economic and political thought [ 5 ] [ 7 ] [ a ] .
  
  After evolution and conceptual transformation, the term "left" now only refers to the left and right on social issues, and has nothing to do with the left and right in economic thought. During the 2016 US presidential election , "white leftists" began to be widely used by Chinese netizens [ 8 ] .
  This is like the evolution of the Terry Davis term, used to refer to feds, starting with 'glow' (Ctrl + 4)
  
  "Western Marxism" can be distinguished as a discreet ideology because it's literally Marxism with only Western thought. Marx was carried forward by so many non-Western thinkers into a more revolutionary and more complete theory, but Western Marxism avoids all those yucky extremists so it can be taught in Western Universities.
  It's where you get so-called Marxist who support every failed revolution but who denounce actually existing socialism.
- Yes, but that's clearly not the only use of the term.

Basically a slur for white people made by the people that claim they love white people to punish any white people that don’t immediately fall in line.
- I mean, honestly, would probably be good for us to get a taste of our own medicine for a change.
  
  For sure, but I always find it funny that the biggest source of slurs for white people come from mfs who claim they want to "help" us.

As I take it it is tankie but for China instead of the USSR. So I feel like I see ultras use it the most.

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