Examining the Portrayal of Hua Wei as a “Oriental Other” in American Mass Media: A Phenomenon of Techno-Orientalism

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-384-9_91How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Techno-Orientalism; Chinese technological development; Mass media; US-China relationship

Abstract

In 2018, Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested in Canada due to an outstanding U.S. extradition request. Consequently, Huawei garnered substantial media coverage and became entangled in the battle of the U.S.-China trade war (Zhang, 2022, p.1). However, during the pandemic in 2020, a number of Western politicians, led by Trump, claimed that China deliberately engineered the COVID-19 virus. In the same year, the United States government enforced a ban on WeChat and TikTok, both of which are owned by Chinese businesses Tencent and ByteDance, respectively. The U.S. government claimed that these two Internet programs presented a threat to the security of national information. Siu and Chun (2020, p. 425–426) argue that this occurrence can be explained by a notion called “Techno-Orientalism,” which has become popular in Western countries since the 1980s. Techno-orientalism refers to the convergence of race, class, and gender, making it a significant social matter that requires examination by social scientists, humanists, and cultural scholars.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiaotong Wu
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/03
TI  - Examining the Portrayal of Hua Wei as a “Oriental Other” in American Mass Media: A Phenomenon of Techno-Orientalism
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 3rd International Conference on Educational Science and Social Culture (ESSC 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 807
EP  - 814
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-384-9_91
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-384-9_91
ID  - Wu2025
ER  -