“There Is No Unconditional Love” : Decoding anti-refugee sentiments on Chinese social media

Abstract: This paper attempts to decode anti-refugee sentiments on Chinese social media. It is based on the selection, organization, and thematization of typical anti-refugee narratives extracted from social media in order to better understand the reasons behind such sentiments. Attitudes towards refugees on Chinese social media are overwhelmingly negative. The negative reaction was multi-layered: (1) a narcissistic presentation of China’s self-image; (2) Islamophobic sentiments; (3) resentment towards the West.