While there is an outpouring of sympathy for Ukraine and its people following the Russian invasion of their country, in China, the craze for Ukrainian wives has doubled.
According to a popular social media joke, Chinese guys on the internet are saying they would love to offer refuge to Ukrainians caught up in the conflict, but only if they were young, attractive, and female.
This can be seen on various Chinese social media platforms and to Ukrainians, according to media outlets in the West, this is of bad taste.
Some of the ‘jokes’ says priority would be given to “Ukrainian women between the age of 18 and 25.”
Ukrainians are outraged by jokes about “sheltering homeless Ukrainian girls” that have gone viral. This, however, underpins Chinese men’s long-standing ‘love’ for Ukrainian beauties.
In 2019, words such as “Ukraine is full of lovely ladies who can’t get married, and they badly need single Chinese guys to rescue them” were popular on the Chinese internet.
Chinese media sites have also released stories detailing how much money Chinese males must pay in order to marry Ukrainian women.
Those under attack in Ukraine complain that they are facing the bombs and some famine in the war over Ukraine, but in all this time, the Chinese men were only thinking of something else, that is Ukrainian beauty.
“Sheltering homeless Ukrainian girls,” a Weibo user posted on Feb 24, as soon as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
This is only one example of a statement of this nature. However, a flood of sexist comments about Ukrainian women on Chinese social media has prompted a backlash against China.
The backlash is also against Chinese nationals in Ukraine.
Some male users expressed a desire to “take in destitute young Ukrainian ladies,” while others expressed a desire to “welcome Ukrainian beauty to China.”
Chinese people trapped in Ukraine face a difficult situation as a result of the remarks and pro-Russian attitude on the Chinese internet.
“Fei Dian,” a Chinese student in Ukraine, alleged in a video released by Chinese internet media that the sexist tweets had been translated into Ukrainian and that someone had poured water on Chinese citizens in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, shortly after the messages began to circulate in the nation.
Soon after the comments sparked outrage, Chinese social media networks began to remove the offending postings and videos.
Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, reportedly banned over 6,000 videos, while the microblogging website Weibo purged over 540 comments from a variety of accounts.
