In this paper I examine the impact of geopolitical tensions on attitudes towards foreigners in China. In recent years, there have been frequent reports on the rise in anti-Americanism and xenophobia in the country in the wake of increasing US-China tensions. Despite this, we have limited understanding of the causes of Chinese attitudes towards foreigners, nor how those factors are affected by international relations. Through a conjoint experiment I show that Chinese people view foreigners – and Americans in particular – less favourably than fellow Chinese nationals, but that race plays a minimal role in their evaluations. Following prompts about US-China tensions, however, respondents’ evaluations of Westerners, and in particular those with white or black ethnicity, became significantly more negative. Together, these findings demonstrate the role of geopolitics in stimulating racial prejudice.