Western China-watchers should stop calling their Chinese interlocutors “barbarian handlers”. The joke is condescending—and, today, remarkably ungrateful.
When I was at Baidu running international communications, an intern of mine named Charlie got a desktop name plate featuring the company logo and cheeky text reading "Kaiser Kuo: Minister for the Suppression of Barbarian Lies." It was funny, but I was the instigator of the joke (Charlie heard me call myself that once). I'm broadly in agreement that a westerner calling someone else a "barbarian handler," even with the self-deprecation implied, is no longer appropriate.
It strikes me that the use of the term barbarian is more of an insult aimed at the foreigner and is thought to be self-deprecating - this ties to the Treaty of Tientsin mentioned here. But I can see the critique of knowingness (and relatedly smugness) having merit here. I do agree that the use of the term “handling” is problematic though because it suggests managing in a way that does not imply good faith interactions. Overall, it seems like something of an “inside joke” and its appropriateness is a valid question to raise. Where it ranks on the scale of offensive things said about Chinese officials I’m not sure (seems lower down but appreciate that’s not for me to say) but, for me, retiring its usage seems fair. Appreciate this usage being pointed out too and making me think more critically about the usage of this kind of language
While I can't comment on the degree of offense that the term has for Chinese who are fluent in the languages and cultures of the non-Chinese world, in my 30 years in China and multiple academic degrees re China I've never heard or read the term used as a condescending reference to the "handler" themselves.
That it is still used in multiple theaters (business and politics) suggests that it has value beyond just condescension. May I suggest that China has a role in this continued use too? The mandate to "tell better Chinese stories" (or Chinese stories better) as well as nat'l security laws that incorporate all ethnic Chinese in state causes indicate that there is purposeful, at least form the top down, agenda driven communications being promoted specifically by those who communicate best with the West.
Finally, to suggest that if Western China-Watchers would get more open and candid communications from Chinese if they would simply change their own attitudes first is laughable. Pekingolgy is a storied and respected source of analysis, of which I have long read and subscribed. I have come expect better and hope that this is but a blip in the continued quality writing on China.
Let's agree to not use the term but also not feign unwanted offense at the use by those who likely don't deserve the attention this post has given them.
Mr. Wang is right that the phrase demeans, but I think he's diagnosing the wrong disease. He treats "barbarian handler" as an inherited Orientalist reflex, a Western habit of dressing up condescension as ancient Chinese wisdom. Having taught in China when it first cracked open in 1979, and having watched both countries from the inside for decades since, I'd put it more bluntly: the West isn't projecting barbarism onto China by using that word. It's describing itself. When an American diplomat calls his Chinese counterpart a "barbarian handler," he isn't accusing the Chinese official of managing savages. He's confessing, however unwittingly, what kind of animal needs managing, and it's his own delegation.
Look at what actually gets celebrated as authentically American, at home and abroad, and the word barbarian stops being a slur and starts being a job description. The country's founding act was the extermination of the people who were here first, and it turned that campaign into a national mythology of rugged virtue rather than an occasion for shame. Everything downstream has the same shape: a culture that puts cage fighting on prime time, that treats face tattoos and shaved heads and outsized beards as markers of authenticity rather than menace, that lets its elected leaders trade in open contempt and vicious epithets as a mark of strength, that produces mass shootings with the numbing regularity of weather, that runs financial systems which loot the public with impunity and calls it innovation, that exports chaos abroad under the banner of order. This is not a subculture. It is the mainstream self-image, worn with pride rather than embarrassment. A people who conduct themselves this way and then reach for "barbarian" to describe the people managing them have simply gotten the noun backwards.
So when Fang Xinghai or David Daokui Li or Jin Liqun sits across the table from Western financiers and diplomats, fluent, composed, translating one system into terms the other can absorb, the condescension in "handler" isn't really about their skill. It's a defense mechanism, a way of letting the visiting barbarian imagine he is the sophisticated one, the connoisseur of nuance, rather than the party who actually needs handling. The Chinese interlocutor isn't managing an ancient Confucian category invented to insult foreigners; he is managing, with visible patience, the literal thing the word describes: a culture of piracy, plunder, and performative violence that has simply never had to call itself by its own name. Strip away the false etymology and the "joke" tells the truth for once: it just gets the roles reversed.
The CPC, unable today to understand let alone proceed from Marxism, has turned to a narrative of an alleged 5000 years of continuous Chinese civilization (a farce, of course: www.idcommunism.com/2023/10/who-understands-civilization-xis-cpc-or-working-people.html ). There IS an implicit superiority attitude in that. And it is used to browbeat ethnic Chinese around the world to support the PRC. Ordinary countries like France do not demand that French-Americans do something for the Macron government, for example when Trump tries to bully Macron.
People around the world see this global hubris, and that is part of what underlies "barbarian handler."
I agree with Kaiser re appropriateness and I think this a variable dial based on their own ethnicity - so more appropriate coming from Kaiser than from me being ethnically Irish as well as my nationality. There is also a dollop of self depreciation and a that small stone in the shoe aspect for the China watchers; however you try you will never ever 'belong', not even Kaiser.
Contrast this with Alistair Cooke, the late writer and long time film critic, whose TV series and radio series gave him duality of identity. He was British ( a second generation Irishman from Salford of all places), yet his role as commentator for US TV, host of Armchair Theatre cemented his place as an American and his work for the BBC was as British as an Austin Mini.
So I don't think raising awareness of it will halt it, given that the describer still feels like a barbarian or a gweilo. As the power dynamic between China and the outside changes I can see the descriptor being seen as even less appropriate on the Chinese side and unfortunately more priggish on the watcher side adding yet another point of mutual friction with no win-win.
The current direction of travel is likely to attract more pugnacious observers. But that's a comment for another post.
Huge fan of your work, much prefer the parts of this piece that are written in your voice rather than AI’s. Your writing is more concise, pointed, and sourced. It respects the reader’s time more.
I’d kindly request as a follower of your work that AI be kept to a minimum in your pieces, your taste and voice are a huge part of the value of these pieces.
This piece seems to suggest that while anyone in the west fluent in Chinese (culture) is appreciated as an "expert", anyone comparable on the other side is labeled a barbarian handler. I've never once encountered this term in my 16 years in China, working in private Business where I've encountered many such people on the Chinese side. Maybe this is a thing in the politicial realm... And maybe for a reason? (None of this is to excuse orientalism, so yes, retire it but don't overblow it either please).
When I was at Baidu running international communications, an intern of mine named Charlie got a desktop name plate featuring the company logo and cheeky text reading "Kaiser Kuo: Minister for the Suppression of Barbarian Lies." It was funny, but I was the instigator of the joke (Charlie heard me call myself that once). I'm broadly in agreement that a westerner calling someone else a "barbarian handler," even with the self-deprecation implied, is no longer appropriate.
It strikes me that the use of the term barbarian is more of an insult aimed at the foreigner and is thought to be self-deprecating - this ties to the Treaty of Tientsin mentioned here. But I can see the critique of knowingness (and relatedly smugness) having merit here. I do agree that the use of the term “handling” is problematic though because it suggests managing in a way that does not imply good faith interactions. Overall, it seems like something of an “inside joke” and its appropriateness is a valid question to raise. Where it ranks on the scale of offensive things said about Chinese officials I’m not sure (seems lower down but appreciate that’s not for me to say) but, for me, retiring its usage seems fair. Appreciate this usage being pointed out too and making me think more critically about the usage of this kind of language
While I can't comment on the degree of offense that the term has for Chinese who are fluent in the languages and cultures of the non-Chinese world, in my 30 years in China and multiple academic degrees re China I've never heard or read the term used as a condescending reference to the "handler" themselves.
That it is still used in multiple theaters (business and politics) suggests that it has value beyond just condescension. May I suggest that China has a role in this continued use too? The mandate to "tell better Chinese stories" (or Chinese stories better) as well as nat'l security laws that incorporate all ethnic Chinese in state causes indicate that there is purposeful, at least form the top down, agenda driven communications being promoted specifically by those who communicate best with the West.
Finally, to suggest that if Western China-Watchers would get more open and candid communications from Chinese if they would simply change their own attitudes first is laughable. Pekingolgy is a storied and respected source of analysis, of which I have long read and subscribed. I have come expect better and hope that this is but a blip in the continued quality writing on China.
Let's agree to not use the term but also not feign unwanted offense at the use by those who likely don't deserve the attention this post has given them.
Mr. Wang is right that the phrase demeans, but I think he's diagnosing the wrong disease. He treats "barbarian handler" as an inherited Orientalist reflex, a Western habit of dressing up condescension as ancient Chinese wisdom. Having taught in China when it first cracked open in 1979, and having watched both countries from the inside for decades since, I'd put it more bluntly: the West isn't projecting barbarism onto China by using that word. It's describing itself. When an American diplomat calls his Chinese counterpart a "barbarian handler," he isn't accusing the Chinese official of managing savages. He's confessing, however unwittingly, what kind of animal needs managing, and it's his own delegation.
Look at what actually gets celebrated as authentically American, at home and abroad, and the word barbarian stops being a slur and starts being a job description. The country's founding act was the extermination of the people who were here first, and it turned that campaign into a national mythology of rugged virtue rather than an occasion for shame. Everything downstream has the same shape: a culture that puts cage fighting on prime time, that treats face tattoos and shaved heads and outsized beards as markers of authenticity rather than menace, that lets its elected leaders trade in open contempt and vicious epithets as a mark of strength, that produces mass shootings with the numbing regularity of weather, that runs financial systems which loot the public with impunity and calls it innovation, that exports chaos abroad under the banner of order. This is not a subculture. It is the mainstream self-image, worn with pride rather than embarrassment. A people who conduct themselves this way and then reach for "barbarian" to describe the people managing them have simply gotten the noun backwards.
So when Fang Xinghai or David Daokui Li or Jin Liqun sits across the table from Western financiers and diplomats, fluent, composed, translating one system into terms the other can absorb, the condescension in "handler" isn't really about their skill. It's a defense mechanism, a way of letting the visiting barbarian imagine he is the sophisticated one, the connoisseur of nuance, rather than the party who actually needs handling. The Chinese interlocutor isn't managing an ancient Confucian category invented to insult foreigners; he is managing, with visible patience, the literal thing the word describes: a culture of piracy, plunder, and performative violence that has simply never had to call itself by its own name. Strip away the false etymology and the "joke" tells the truth for once: it just gets the roles reversed.
The CPC, unable today to understand let alone proceed from Marxism, has turned to a narrative of an alleged 5000 years of continuous Chinese civilization (a farce, of course: www.idcommunism.com/2023/10/who-understands-civilization-xis-cpc-or-working-people.html ). There IS an implicit superiority attitude in that. And it is used to browbeat ethnic Chinese around the world to support the PRC. Ordinary countries like France do not demand that French-Americans do something for the Macron government, for example when Trump tries to bully Macron.
People around the world see this global hubris, and that is part of what underlies "barbarian handler."
Blasphemous! Now let’s stop saying 番茄，番石榴，蕃薯，番椒，and 番木瓜！
I agree with Kaiser re appropriateness and I think this a variable dial based on their own ethnicity - so more appropriate coming from Kaiser than from me being ethnically Irish as well as my nationality. There is also a dollop of self depreciation and a that small stone in the shoe aspect for the China watchers; however you try you will never ever 'belong', not even Kaiser.
Contrast this with Alistair Cooke, the late writer and long time film critic, whose TV series and radio series gave him duality of identity. He was British ( a second generation Irishman from Salford of all places), yet his role as commentator for US TV, host of Armchair Theatre cemented his place as an American and his work for the BBC was as British as an Austin Mini.
So I don't think raising awareness of it will halt it, given that the describer still feels like a barbarian or a gweilo. As the power dynamic between China and the outside changes I can see the descriptor being seen as even less appropriate on the Chinese side and unfortunately more priggish on the watcher side adding yet another point of mutual friction with no win-win.
The current direction of travel is likely to attract more pugnacious observers. But that's a comment for another post.
Huge fan of your work, much prefer the parts of this piece that are written in your voice rather than AI’s. Your writing is more concise, pointed, and sourced. It respects the reader’s time more.
I’d kindly request as a follower of your work that AI be kept to a minimum in your pieces, your taste and voice are a huge part of the value of these pieces.
I have never heard nor used such a term in my 33 years of regular visits to China and contact with Chinese officials and experts.
This piece seems to suggest that while anyone in the west fluent in Chinese (culture) is appreciated as an "expert", anyone comparable on the other side is labeled a barbarian handler. I've never once encountered this term in my 16 years in China, working in private Business where I've encountered many such people on the Chinese side. Maybe this is a thing in the politicial realm... And maybe for a reason? (None of this is to excuse orientalism, so yes, retire it but don't overblow it either please).
While an overall very interesting read, that last sentence made me chuckle.