The Chinese (American) Virus

With the constant entourage of coronavirus news and its consequential inconveniences, it can be easy to find a scapegoat, skin it, then throw it under the bus and call it a day. As a dual Taiwanese and American citizen, I find myself trying to blame China for the current pandemic. I have been raised to be skeptical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), being all too aware of the government’s secrecy and infringements on human rights. Yet even as I retain my Taiwanese nationality, I am also ethnically Han Chinese. So when I see blatant anti-Chinese sentiment in America, the lack of nuance in laying blame frightens me; we can hold a government accountable, but we cannot extend the blame to an entire population. 

The fact is that the CCP has done wrong. When Chinese doctor Li Wenliang first sounded the alarm about the novel coronavirus, Chinese authorities silenced him, as they were too concerned with maintaining the country’s reputation and economy. As the virus spread, the CCP continued to report inaccurate infection numbers, leading the world to believe that the new virus was no worse than the flu. The CCP eventually changed its method of counting coronavirus cases as Western media began to cast doubt on their statistics. Yet even now, the number of new coronavirus cases in China only includes those who  test positive and show symptoms, diverging from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) advice to also count those who test positive but are asymptomatic, painting a bleak picture of the CCP’s unwillingness to sacrifice their reputation for honesty.

From a Taiwanese perspective, the CCP’s continued interference in allowing the nation to participate in the WHO and the United Nations has proved potentially dangerous. In January of 2020, when the WHO held an international conference to provide information on the novel coronavirus, the CCP barred Taiwan from attending. As one of the closest nations to China, Taiwan was predicted to follow a similar fate to Wuhan’s uncontrolled outbreak. Taiwan’s lack of representation at the conference meant that information on the virus was not delivered to Taiwanese authorities formally. Fortunately, Taiwan has been able to keep the COVID-19 growth-curve flat, and will even be providing 100,000 face masks per week to the US. 

Regardless of Taiwan’s success story so far, the CCP’s hold on the WHO is concerning. When the outbreak began gaining attention outside of China, the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the CCP for their handling of the outbreak, even as they silenced doctors and suppressed numbers. The CCP’s influence in the WHO comes from China’s political influence, funding of the organization, and the fact that director general Ghebreyesus gained his position because China backed his nomination in 2017. Despite this, the WHO is regarded as a reliable source of information on the coronavirus. The world of international politics should not affect the WHO’s response to a pandemic that threatens and disrupts the lives of millions.

The CCP should be held accountable for coronavirus to some extent. However, calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” is decisively not the way to go, especially when you’re the president of the United States. While the CCP did not handle the outbreak well, the responses we’ve seen in the US and Italy have shown that the outbreak would have been equally destructive, if not more, if it had started anywhere else in the world. President Trump has no right to criticize China’s response to the virus when he can’t handle the same virus, even with months of warnings and opportunities to prepare. The consequences of calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” extend beyond laying blame on any one government, and is rooted  deeply in American xenophobia.

Trump claims that his use of the term “Chinese virus” is based on the fact that the virus originated in China, and is a response to the Chinese rumor that American soldiers had brought the virus to China. Regardless, his reaction is childish and reckless . There are millions of people of East Asian and Chinese descent who are citizens of America, compared to about 100,000 Americans in China. The scope of xenophobia faced by Asian Americans is far wider than any anti-American backlash in China. From violence on the streets of Philadelphia to the toxic wastelands that are internet comment sections, American citizens are perpetuating the term to blame the entire Chinese population at large. The American tendency to lump the essence of a nation to just one factor has been harmful to all Asian Americans. Americans find it difficult to  differentiate between the CCP and the Chinese people (nor anyone of East Asian descent, apparently). Instead of properly calling out the CCP to account for their mistakes, Trump has only unveiled and reignited centuries of Yellow Peril. 

It is difficult to call Americans’ fear and anger towards Asian Americans racism. While I’ve been mocked for my ethnic features, I’ve never felt comfortable calling it racism because the events happened only occasionally, and I never encountered bodily harm. When compared to other minorities in America, Asian Americans seem to face the least discrimination, especially when looking at socioeconomic status, hate crimes, and criminal convictions. We’ve been cast as the “model minority,” and in return for our continued efforts to blend in and assimilate, we receive economic and social benefits. But even as the “model minority,” we don’t really fit in. The hardline white Americans will always blame us for taking their jobs, a consequence of America’s favoritism towards allowing highly qualified immigrants in. The other minorities don’t like to be silenced with reminders that this minority—Asian Americans!—succeeded, and they are rightful in their annoyance. That leaves Asian Americans in a weird limbo, where we empathize with the discriminatory treatment that minorities face, but we assimilate and quiet our complaints to keep our status and our wealth. 

The coronavirus outbreak and President Trump’s “Chinese virus,” while harmful, is only a reminder that our assimilation will never be enough. For the first time since before the model minority myth became mainstream in the 1960s, Asian Americans understand the plight of every single other minority in America: the violence, hate, and our own fear when a stranger sees us and moves. It is my hope that Asian Americans will gain empathy from this pandemic to join other minorities in fighting for equality, understanding that we risk destroying the model minority which simultaneously rhapsodizes us and ties us down. 

Anybody would be right to say that the CCP did not handle the outbreak correctly, but we cannot blame the entire outbreak on the Chinese government, much less all of China. President Trump, in his efforts to dump the responsibility of America’s own outbreak on anybody but himself, has blamed China. Americans, drawing off of Trump’s accusations and unable to distinguish the Chinese government from East Asian people, have focused their fear on Asian Americans. For all the calls to unity that we hear during this pandemic, Trump’s “Chinese virus” and Americans’ pointed looks seem awfully ironic. As we self-isolate for the next few weeks, let’s take the time to reconsider how America’s minorities—including Asian Americans—fit into our nation. Our solution won’t come from a reckless blame game, but from empathy for our neighbors and cooperation among nations.

by JOCELYN HSIEH