ABSTRACT
The chapter offers a genealogy of the narratives of international romance and love in China from the 1980s to the 2010s. It reveals how historical, social and political forces have altered public perceptions of Chinese–foreigner intimacy and individual Chinese citizens’ understandings of themselves and ‘foreigners’. It shows the perplexing roles played by gender, race and class in defining and shaping the construction of love and intimacy between Chinese and non-Chinese people. Through this prism, the chapter exposes the interplay between China’s continued legacy of anti-foreign/anti-capitalism sentiments and its newly found cosmopolitanism, which simultaneously enlightens and limits the country’s imagination of international love in the new millennium.
