Shina (word)

Its use in Japanese originally had a neutral connotation, but the word came to be perceived as derogatory by Chinese people during the course of the First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars.

As a result, it fell into disuse after World War II and is now viewed as offensive, with the standard Japanese name for China being replaced by Chūgoku (中国).

Before the Chinese Republican era, the term Shina was one of the names proposed as a "generalized, basically neutral Western-influenced equivalent for 'China'".

Derogatory nuances were expressed by adding extra adjectives, e.g. Japanese: 暴虐なる支那兵, romanized: bōgyaku-naru Shina-hei, lit.

'cruel Shina soldiers' or using derogatory terms like chankoro (チャンコロ), originating from a corruption of the Taiwanese Hokkien pronunciation of Chinese: 清國奴; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chhing-kok-lô͘; lit.

Shina kyōwakoku was the literal translation of the English "Republic of China" while Chūka minkoku was the Japanese pronunciation of the official Chinese characters of Zhōnghuá mínguó.

Shinachiku (支那竹 or simply シナチク), a ramen topping made from dried bamboo, also derives from the term Shina, but in recent years the word menma (メンマ) has replaced this as a more politically correct name.

Some terms that translate to words containing the "Sino-" prefix in English retain Shina within them, for example シナ・チベット語族 (Sino-Tibetan languages) and シナントロプス・ペキネンシス (Sinanthropus pekinensis, also known as Peking Man).

Many Japanese are not fully aware of Chinese feelings towards the term, and generally find Shina merely old-fashioned and associated with the early and mid-20th century, rather than derogatory and racist.

[5] Sinologist Joshua A. Fogel mentioned that, "Surveying the present scene indicates much less sensitivity on the part of Chinese to the term Shina and growing ignorance of it in Japan".

[4] He elaborated further: Many terms have been offered as names for countries and ethnic groups that have simply not withstood the pressures of time and circumstance and have, accordingly, changed.

Wakabayashi disagreed: "The term Jap also has non-pejorative etymological origins, since it derives from Zippangu (ジパング) in Marco Polo's Travels ...

[10][11][12][13] Ray Wong, founder of the localist group Hong Kong Indigenous, said that he uses Cheena to refer to mainland China because the Chinese Communist Party is his "personal enemy".

[18] Hong Kong journalist Audrey Li noted the xenophobic undertone of the widespread right-wing nativism movement, in which the immigrant population and tourists are used as scapegoats for social inequality and institutional failure.

[22][23] Some critics of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement argue that the prevalence of ethnic hatred and xenophobia amongst its supporters is mostly ignored by the media, which often frames the situation as simply a fight between democracy and authoritarianism.