“I Feel Targeted because I'm Chinese”: Dynamics of Ethno-nationalism, Geopolitical Grievance and Collective Mobilization at Border Crossings

One of the chief features of the global political landscape is the national border. Because they putatively separate distinct, sovereign territories, borders are powerful mediators of belongingness, national hierarchies and political emotions, particularly feelings about global status and collective dignity. Most studies of border crossing usually take the perspective of a powerful technocratic state, treating the travelers as docile, passive bodies that are sorted, stereotyped and classified without any substantive recourse. Using content analysis of over 200 social media posts on Little Red Book from mainland Chinese involving international border crossings, we show how Chinese travelers resist border examinations and perceived injustices through deployment of counternarratives and geopolitical discourses built around national victimhood. Ethno-racially, Chinese perceive their mistreatments principally in reference to the ostensible higher deference granted to White [Europeans] by border agents and a shared sense of injury based on border processes seemingly reserved only for those with Chinese passports. Additionally, we show that social media discussion of border indignities allows for channeling collective anger, leading to organized grassroots actions against offending actors in cases involving South Korea and Indonesia. Through these mobilizations, Chinese both adopt the long humiliation narrative in Chinese history and use it as a springboard to counter discrimination and recover their national esteem. Thus, Chinese travelers use digital technologies to carry out their own informal policing of the border—replete with its own system of classifications, stereotypes, and national performances.