No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
“Hope for the Nation”: An Analysis of Online Media Discourses on Figures of Mixed Chinese and Black/African Heritage (Zhongfeihunxue) in Chinese Sports
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2026
Abstract
Over the past decade, an increasing number of athletes of mixed Chinese and Black/African heritage have become public figures, often labeled as the “hope for the nation” by online Chinese media. By collating and analyzing online media discourses on the best-known figures among them, this paper attempts to theorize the Chinese term, “zhongfeihunxue (literally ‘China-Africa mixed blood’).” It demonstrates that underneath the seemingly positive affect of hope, the racial niche carved out for these mixed athletes by such discourses is underpinned by a complex form of Chinese racial nationalism characterized by heightened expectations, reinforced stereotypes, and intersectional anxieties.
Résumé
Au cours de la dernière décennie, un nombre croissant d’athlètes d’ascendance mixte chinoise et noire/africaine ont émergé en tant que figures publiques, fréquemment désignés par les médias chinois en ligne comme des « espoirs de la nation ». En réunissant et en examinant les discours des médias en ligne sur les personnalités les plus en vue, cet article s’efforce de théoriser le terme chinois « zhongfeihunxue » (traduit littéralement par « sang mixte chinois-africain »). Il illustre que, malgré l’apparente bienveillance de l’espoir, la niche raciale établie pour ces athlètes métis par ces discours se caractérise par une forme complexe de nationalisme racial chinois, marquée par des attentes amplifiées, des stéréotypes consolidés et des angoisses intersectionnelles.
Resumo
Na última década, houve cada vez mais atletas de ascendência mista chinesa e negra/africana a tornarem-se figuras públicas, frequentemente rotuladas como a «esperança da nação» pelos órgãos de comunicação chineses online. Ao reunir e analisar os discursos desses órgãos de comunicação online sobre as personalidades mais conhecidas de entre todas, o presente artigo procura teorizar o termo chinês «zhongfeihunxue» (literalmente, «sangue misto sino-africano»). Fica demonstrado que, por detrás do efeito aparentemente positivo de esperança depositada nos atletas mestiços, esses discursos estabelecem uma subcategoria racial que se caracteriza por uma forma complexa de nacionalismo racial chinês, associando-lhes expectativas elevadas, estereótipos reforçados e ansiedades interseccionais.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of African Studies Association
References
Bao, Hongwei, and Mutibwa, Daniel H., eds. 2025. Entanglements and Ambivalences: Africa and China Encounters in Media and Culture. Routledge.10.4324/9781003581949CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batchelor, Kathryn, and Zhang, Xiaoling, eds. 2017. China-Africa Relations: Building Images Through Cultural Cooperation, Media Representation and Communication. Routledge.10.4324/9781315229096CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bow, Leslie. 2022. Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy. Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yifan. 2023. “Popularizing Racial Discourse: The Visual and Verbal Representation of Africans in Chinese Social Media.” Asian Ethnicity 24 (3): 369–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castillo, Roberto. 2020. “‘Race’ and ‘Racism’ in Contemporary Africa-China Relations Research: Approaches, Controversies and Reflections.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 21 (3): 310–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Yinghong. 2019. Discourses of Race and Rising China. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cranmer, Gregory A., Bowman, Nicholas D., and Goldman, Zachary W.. 2017. “A Preliminary Study of Racialized Brawn and Brain Framing Effects.” Communication Research Reports 34 (1): 78–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chu, Marcus, P. 2021. Sporting Events in China as Economic Development, National Image, and Political Ambition. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, Cathryn. 2017. “Mixed Blood and Race: Representing Hunxue in Contemporary China.” In Mixed Race in Asia: Past, Present and Future, edited by Rocha, Zarine L. and Fozdar, Farida. Routledge.Google Scholar
Clayton, Cathryn. 2020. “Measuring Mixedness in China: A Study in Four Parts.” In The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification, edited by Rocha, Zarine L. and Aspinall, Peter J.. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Daniel, G. Reginald, Kina, Laura, Dariotis, Wei Ming, and Fojas, Camilla. 2014. “Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies.” Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies 1 (1): 6–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubinsky, Itamar. 2024. “China’s Stadium Diplomacy in Africa.” Journal of Global Sport Management 9 (4): 761–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazier, Robeson Taj, and Zhang, Lin. 2014. “Ethnic Identity and Racial Contestation in Cyberspace: Deconstructing the Chineseness of Lou Jing.” China Information 28 (2): 237–58.10.1177/0920203X14532224CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Enze, and Zhao, Lingbo. 2024. “Naturalized Athletes and Racialized National Identity in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 33 (145): 52–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Kun. 2020. “‘Anti-Blackness’ in Chinese Racial-Nationalism: Sex/Gender, Reproduction, and Metaphors of Pathology.” Translated by Roy Chan and Shui-yin Sharon Yam. [positionspolitics, June 29, 2020] https://positionspolitics.org/kun-huang-anti-blackness-in-chinese-racial-nationalism-sex-gender-reproduction-and-metaphors-of-pathology/. Accessed December 20, 2025.Google Scholar
Huang, Mingwei. 2024. “The Globality of Anti-Blackness.” Made in China Journal 9 (1): 150–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, Johanna. 2011. HIV/AIDS, Health and the Media in China: Imagined Immunity Through Racialized Disease. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huynh, T. Tu, and Park, Yoon Jung. 2017. “Reflections on the Role of Race in China-Africa Relations.” In New Directions in Africa-China Studies, edited by Alden, Chris and Large, Daniel. Routledge.Google Scholar
Jiang, Xinxin. 2024. “Performing Eurasianness, Chineseness, and Cosmopolitanism as Racialized Digital Labor: Sharenting Mixed-blood Children on Douyin.” Information, Communication & Society 27 (3): 449–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanshan, Lan. 2016. “The Shifting Meanings of Race in China: A Case Study of the African Diaspora Communities in Guangzhou.” City & Society 28 (3): 298–318.Google Scholar
Leung, Wing-Fai. 2015. “Who Could Be an Oriental Angel? Lou Jing, Mixed Heritage and the Discourses of Chinese Ethnicity.” Asian Ethnicity 16 (3): 294–313.Google Scholar
Li, Anshan. 2016. “Ignorance of Race Not Equivalent to Racism.” http://english.cssn.cn/opinion/201606/t20160606_3059409.shtml. Accessed February 23, 2026.Google Scholar
Li, Shubo. 2017. Mediatized China-Africa Relations: How Media Discourses Negotiate the Shifting of Global Order. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Yujun. 2018. “The ‘Sino-barbarian Dichotomy’ amid the Political Chess of China’s Dynasties: In the Examples of the Song, Liao, and Jin Dynasties.” Chinese Studies in History 58 (1): 29–50.Google Scholar
Mathews, Gordon, Linessa Dan, Lin, and Yang, Yang. 2017. The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global Marketplace. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morning, Ann. 2014. “Multiraciality and Census Classification in Global Perspective.” In Global Mixed Race, edited by King-O’Riain, Rebecca C., Small, Stephen, Mahtani, Minelle, Song, Miri, and Spickard, Paul. NYU Press.Google Scholar
Olander, Eric. 2020. “After Years of Enduring Painful Racist Attacks, Zhong Feifei is Now Having a Moment.” The China Global South Project. https://chinaglobalsouth.com/2020/08/19/after-years-of-enduring-painful-racist-attacks-zhong-feifei-is-now-having-a-moment/. Accessed December 20, 2025.Google Scholar
Qiu, Yu. 2021. “Cleavage: Guangzhou, Covid-19 and China–Africa Friendship Politics.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 33 (2): 184–93.10.1080/13696815.2020.1824774CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Zarine L. 2015. ‘Mixed Race’ Identities in Asia and the Pacific: Experiences from Singapore and New Zealand. Routledge.10.4324/9781315678306CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Zarine L., and Aspinall, Peter J.. 2020. The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Zarine L., and Fozdar, Farida. 2017. Mixed Race in Asia: Past, Present and Future. Palgrave Macmillan.10.4324/9781315270579CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosbrook-Thompson, James. 2020. “The Construction and Understanding of Mixed-Race Identities at a Superdiverse Youth Football Club: Hybridity, Confusion and Contra-Fusion.” The Sociological Review 69 (2): 365–81.10.1177/0038026120915159CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheridan, Derek. 2024. “Asymmetries: Heiren Discourses, and the Geopolitics of Studying Race in Africa-China Relations.” Made in China Journal 9 (1): 156–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, Flair Donglai. 2021a. “A ‘Yellow Miracle’: How a Sprinter Became a Racial Icon.” Sixth Tone. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008247. Accessed December 20, 2025.Google Scholar
Shi, Flair Donglai. 2021b. “Out of the Yellow/Black Peril Discourse: Humanizing China–Africa Relations in Mukuka Chipanta’s A Casualty of Power.” Comparative Literature Studies 58 (3): 623–46.10.5325/complitstudies.58.3.0623CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shih, Shu-mei. 2013. “Race and Revolution: Blackness in China’s Long Twentieth Century.” PMLA 128 (1): 156–62.Google Scholar
Sier, Willy, and Barabantseva, Elena. 2026. “Descendants of the Dragon: Racialized Mixed Chineseness in Immigrant China.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 49 (1): 77–95.10.1080/01419870.2024.2397548CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Su, Ping, Lin, Yuejian, and Zhou, Mingying. 2022. “Identity Negotiation and Segregated Integration of African-Chinese Mixed-race Children in Guangzhou, China.” Journal of Contemporary China 31 (134): 186–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teng, Emma Jinhua. 2012. “On Not Looking Chinese: Does ‘Mixed Race’ Decenter the Han from Chineseness?” In Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation, and Identity of China’s Majority, edited by Mullaney, Thomas, Leibold, James, Gros, Stephane, and Vanden Bussche, Eric. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Teng, Emma Jinhua. 2013. Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842–1943. University of California Press.10.1525/california/9780520276260.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Umejei, Emeka. 2020. Chinese Media in Africa: Perception, Performance, and Paradox. Lexington Books.10.5040/9781666987737CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidacs, Bea. 2006. “Through the Prism of Sports: Why Should Africanists Study Sports?” Africa Spectrum 41 (3): 331–49.Google Scholar
Wang, Wei, Hoang, Andrew Pau, and Jordan, Lucy Porter. 2023. “The Intimate Affliction of Vicarious Racialization: Afro-Chinese Couples in South China.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 24 (3): 397–412.10.1080/14649373.2023.2209425CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Washington, Myra. S. 2017. Blasian Invasion: Racial Mixing in the Celebrity Industrial Complex. University of Mississippi Press.10.14325/mississippi/9781496814227.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, Wei. 2021. “Queering the Rise of China: Gay Parenthood, Transnational ARTs, and Dislocated Reproductive Rights.” Feminist Studies 47 (2): 312–40.Google Scholar
Wiggins, David K. 1989. “Great Speed but Little Stamina: The Historical Debate over Black Athletic Superiority.” Journal of Sport History (16): 158–85.Google Scholar
Guoqi, Xu. 2008. Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895–2008. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Xu, Jieshun. 2012. “Understanding the Snowball Theory of the Han Nationality.” In Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation, and Identity of China’s Majority, edited by Mullaney, Thomas, Leibold, James, Gros, Stephane, and Vanden Bussche, Eric. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Binxin. 2024. “Africans in China, Western/White Supremacy and the Ambivalence of Chinese Racial Identity.” China Quarterly 260: 932–47.10.1017/S0305741024000286CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Xiaoling, Wasserman, Herman, and Mano, Winston, eds. 2016. China’s Media and Soft Power in Africa: Promotion and Perceptions. Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137539670CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, Zhiqiu Benson. 2024. “Patriarchal Racism: The Convergence of Anti-Blackness and Gender Tension on Chinese Social Media.” Information, Communication & Society 27 (2): 223–39.10.1080/1369118X.2023.2193252CrossRefGoogle Scholar
A correction has been issued for this article:
Linked content
Please note a has been issued for this article.