Rethinking the “Yellow Peril”: Charles Pearson’s Views and Related Debates

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, texts and discourses around the world abounded with fear and contempt for Chinese immigrants, specifically contract workers. This outpouring is remembered as talk of a “Yellow Peril.” Charles Pearson introduced the theme (though not its best-known phrase) to the English-speaking world in 1893, with the publication of a bleak manifesto he’d written about the West’s future as he saw it. The present article examines Pearson’s views and the intellectual debates regarding them. A century ago, the international supply of Chinese workers contributed little to China’s prosperity. Today, as a center of consumer goods supply, China contributes to the prosperity of the Western capitalist world while continuing its own rapid economic growth. For this reason, today’s apprehension about China is based on the fear of the emergence of a communist regime as a superpower. In this respect, the current fear of China differs from the “Yellow Peril” discourse of the past. Nevertheless, the discourse may have influenced today’s concerns and apprehensions about China.