Taichung, Taiwan – For one user on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, the problem was Americans.

“British people make me anxious too, but I hate Americans,” read a user’s comment.

For another, he was Japanese.

“I really hope the Japanese die,” the user repeated 25 times in a post.

It’s easy to get homophobic and unpatriotic comments on Chinese social media platforms, even after some of the country’s biggest tech companies vowed last year to crack down on hate speech following a series of knife attacks on Japanese and American citizens in the country.

Since the summer, there have been at least four stabbings of foreign nationals in China, including an incident in September in which a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy was killed in Shenzhen.

This attack, which occurred on the anniversary of a false flag event that had been organized by Japanese military personnel to justify the invasion of Manchuria, prompted the Japanese government to demand an explanation from its Chinese counterpart as well as assurances that it would do more to protect Japanese citizens.

After the incident, some Japanese companies offered to repatriate their employees and their families.

Months ago, a knife attack on four American college coaches in Jilin put US-China relations under a strain, with US Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns accused the Chinese authorities of not having access to information about the incident, including the attacker’s motive.

Beijing, while expressing remorse for the attacks and condolences to the families of the victims, has insisted that the series of stabbings was isolated.

“Similar situations can happen in any country,” Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a regular media briefing after the attack in Shenzhen.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo did not respond to requests for comment, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said that Chinese law “clearly prohibits the use of the Internet to spread extremism, ethnic hatred, discrimination, violence, and other information.”

“The Chinese government has always opposed any form of discrimination and hate speech, and called on all sectors of society to maintain the order and security of cyberspace,” the Al Jazeera spokesperson said.

While anti-foreigner violence in China is rare, an apparent rise in attacks in 2024 and the spread of hate speech online has prompted concern within the country, said Wang Zichen, a former Chinese media journalist and founder of the newsletter.

“It started in household discussions about this kind of speech and how to curb it,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

Despite Chinese tech companies’ pledges to crack down on hate speech against foreigners, this content is far from the content of Andrew Devine, a doctoral student at Tulane University in the US who specializes in authoritarian politics in China.

“Especially since [tech] “Companies have incentives not to control hate speech.”

While the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms to distribute content have been shared with the Chinese government, they have not been disclosed to the public, making it difficult to know the exact mechanism by which hate speech proliferates online.

Elena Yi-Cheng, an independent research analyst who focuses on advertising and social media in China, said the algorithms used by Chinese social media platforms are likely no different from those used by platforms outside the country.

“They want to increase engagement among users on their platforms, and they want users to stay on their platform as long as possible,” he told Al Jazeera.

In search of users’ attention, it may be profitable for Chinese influencers and Vloggers to seek controversy with unpatriotic content.

In China today, a perceived lack of patriotism can attract public outrage.

Last year, Chinese company Nongfu Spring removed its bottles from stores en masse after social media users claimed the company’s logo depicted Mount Fuji in Japan.

The condemnation spread online to the company’s owner, Zhong Shanshan, who had his loyalty to China questioned, a charge amplified by the fact that his son holds American citizenship.

In 2023, a rock and eggs are thrown at two Japanese schools in Qingdao and Suzhou after Tokyo decides to release treated radioactive wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

Wang said the spread of negative comments about foreigners on Chinese social media was partly a result of growing hostility between China and some other countries.

“China’s relations with some countries have deteriorated significantly in recent years,” Wang said.

China and Japan have clashed over a number of historical and territorial disputes, including the status of the Deyuyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

The United States and China have also seen relations decline in recent years amid disputes over topics ranging from trade and the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic to Beijing’s claims over self-ruled Taiwan.

But hate speech toward foreigners predates some of these recent clashes, according to the HO.

“Japan and Japanese have been particular targets of this,” she said.

Some Chinese bloggers and social media users have traced the roots of negative sentiment toward Japanese people to what they call “hate teaching” about Japan, including its abuses in China’s imperial era.

Wang said Japan’s actions during World War II have deeply affected China’s national psyche.

“Japan launched invasions in World War II where up to tens of millions of Chinese people died, and that is still on a lot of Chinese people’s minds today,” he said.

“For some people, there is a feeling that the Japanese have not done enough to atone for this.”

However, some Chinese citizens argue that atrocities in Japan should not be used to justify hateful sentiment toward the Japanese today.

“I think we need to change the way we deal with our past if we want to see less depressing rhetoric,” Tina Wu, a 29-year-old social media manager in Shanghai, told AL Jazerera.

Although hate speech is not only a problem online in China, Chinese social media platforms, unlike those in the United States, operate in a highly controlled environment where crackdowns on sensitive topics are a near-constant occurrence.

China has the world’s least free internet environment alongside Myanmar, according to a report on 72 countries by US non-profit Freedom House.

In 2020, more than 35,000 words related to Chinese President Xi Jinping alone were censored, according to Digital China.

While some hateful comments are subject to censorship, content that echoes the Chinese government’s official position is less likely to be removed, Devine said.

He said he doesn’t think Chinese tech companies’ promise to call out foreigners on xenophobia will do much to change the spread of such content.

“At the same time, technology companies want to avoid the additional cost of purchasing them,” he said.

Regardless of incentives, social media platforms with more than 1 billion active users cannot account for every instance of hate, Wang said.

“There is so much information and so much more is being added that there is no way to eliminate or eradicate it,” he said.

“Even China’s moderation capabilities have their limits.”

Wang said he is optimistic that China’s friendly exchanges with some countries recently and the country’s growing power and influence will lead to less anti-foreign sentiment.

“China should have the confidence to walk into the future with a greater sense of security and confidence rather than remaining haunted by memories of the past,” he said.

Shanghai’s Wu also said she hopes to see a re-evaluation of some of China’s dominant narratives, especially regarding foreigners.

“It’s a big part of the Chinese story right now that we’re constantly victims of foreign aggression,” she said.

“As long as that remains a strong message, I fear there may be more attacks on foreigners in China.”