Graphic pejoratives in written Chinese
Some historical Chinese characters for non-Han peoples were graphically pejorative ethnic slurs, where the racial insult derived not from the Chinese word but from the character used to write it. For instance, written Chinese first transcribed the name Yáo "the Yao people (in southwest China and Vietnam)" with the character for yáo 猺 "jackal".
Source: Wikipedia — Graphic pejoratives in written Chinese (CC BY-SA 4.0)