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Faculty Introduction for “Inequality and Rural Discrimination: Causes of the Rural-Urban Literacy Gap for Children in China”

Read “Inequality and Rural Discrimination: Causes of the Rural-Urban Literacy Gap for Children in China”.

In Writing as Inquiry I (Spring 2020), Chen Kuntian was interested in exploring what causes the unequal literacy abilities children of migrant workers exhibit in large Chinese cities. In “Inequality and Rural Discrimination: Causes of the Rural-Urban Literacy Gap for Children in China,” Chen brings to our attention a few important issues: the struggle of migrant laborers’ children for literacy, and the bias against migrant workers who are often seen as irresponsible parents. Chen however does not accept these negative attitudes and popular accusations. Instead of blaming the migrant parents, Chen argues that we should pay more attention to the multi-faceted nature of inequality these migrant Chinese parents and their families face if a real change is to happen. “Inequality and Rural Discrimination” indeed explores an important issue that needs attention. Chen uses reliable sources to advance a clear argument. His work is informative and educational. I congratulate Chen Kuntian on this achievement.

—Adam Yaghi, Lecturer in the Writing Program

Chinese Young Adults’ Sense of Self in Social Media: Through the Lens of Beauty Apps

Image credit: Self-Portrait during Quarantine, by Tang Shumei 唐舒眉

by Zou Jia

Read the Faculty Introduction.

Since photo-editing apps have emerged in China, Chinese young people are spending lots of time and effort editing their selfies using all kinds of beauty apps, before posting them online. In “China’s Selfie Obsession,” Jiayang Fan points out one disturbing phenomenon caused by these beauty apps: they are making young people’s selfies look more and more homogeneous: all with big eyes, double eyelids, pointed chins and pale white skin, flawless yet losing authenticity (Fan). This phenomenon is disturbing, because scholars agree that selfies are “a valuable means of self-presentation and self-expression” in social media cultures nowadays (Lobinger and Brantner 1849). Homogeneous selfies mean that young people are not expressing their real selves through this valuable means of self-presentation. As Fan argues, “the freedom to perfect your selfie does not necessarily yield a liberated sense of self” (Fan). In other words, Chinese young people’s self-representation through inauthentic selfies distorts their sense of selves. They create the illusion that they have expressed their individualism by achieving their ideal self-image, which is in fact not their true self, as they are conforming to the social aesthetic standard. I agree with Fan’s opinion that the inauthentic selfies posted by Chinese young adults are associated with lower self-esteem. However, a selfie with authentic self-representation does not necessarily mean higher self-esteem, because of the subconscious existence of self-objectification. By considering the recent trend, several years after Fan’s article was published, where more and more Chinese young people are appreciating less-edited selfies on social media, I argue that these selfies may not be authentic self-representations. Instead, unedited selfies that are posted without seeking outside confirmation are less affected by self-objectification and truly have a stronger sense of self.

The concept of “sense of self” is not yet strictly or scientifically defined by scholars. However, as a branch of self-concept, “sense of self” involves ideas like self-esteem (Skoglund). Self-esteem refers to a person’s overall sense of personal value or worth. It can be considered as a measure of how much a person “values, approves of, appreciates, prizes, or likes him or herself” (Adler & Stewart). Another concept, which can also be regarded as one branch of “sense of self,” is self-objectification. Self-objectification is defined as “the adoption of a third-person perspective on the self as opposed to a first-person perspective” such that people who post selfies “come to place greater value on how they look to others rather than on how they feel or what they can do” (Calogero 575). It refers to an individual’s internalization of an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their own self (Zheng 325). In other words, self-objectification happens when people look at and evaluate themselves as objects based on appearance. “Sense of self” is a complicated concept that of course includes more than these two components, but this essay will focus mainly on these two aspects.

To figure out the relationship between a person’s sense of self and the authenticity in their selfies posted on social media, the concept of “expressive authenticity” needs to be employed, following the work of Marcus Banks. A photograph achieves expressive authenticity when the representation of the person is consistent with their own nature (Banks 168). In other words, we regard a selfie as having expressive authenticity when it is an honest expression of the user’s true appearance, personality, and beliefs. “Authenticity” in my essay mainly refers to expressive authenticity based on Banks’ theory, which means that the photograph is not only less-edited technically, but is also closely related to the true self of the depicted person. The following image is an illustrative example of a photograph that demonstrates expressive authenticity:

**Fig. 1** Screenshot of a selfie posted on Zhihu

The selfie above, taken from Zhihu, which is the largest question-and-answer platform in China, is a highly rated answer under the question “What do you think of people who post selfies without any Meitu processes?”. This user posted a caption along with her selfies that said, “Most people regard beauty as features like white, flawless, big eyes, slim, etc. But beauty should be diverse and tolerant and I like myself with flaws, with my freckles, pimples, and black circles.” Her selfie has the property of expressive authenticity as she looks natural rather than staged, authentic to what she looks like in real life. The girl stresses that she didn’t edit the selfie at all while admitting and embracing the existence of the “imperfections” on her face.

On the other hand, inauthentic selfies basically include the features appearing in Fan’s article as wang hong lian (“internet celebrity face”), as shown in Fig. 2: double eyelids, big round eyes, white skin, and small mouths, as a result of having the selfies heavily perfected using Meitu apps (Fan). Such selfies do not have expressive authenticity, because the selfie cannot really represent the person depicted, as not only his or her appearance, but also the state of life shown, is faked into an ideal yet dishonest and unnatural image.

**Fig. 2** Example of *Wang hong lian* (“internet celebrity face”)

A lower level of self-esteem will result from young Chinese posting more inauthentic selfies, as they use photo-editing apps as tools to achieve their dreamy self-images, losing confidence in their true selves. Rachel Grieve et al.’s study “Inauthentic Self-Presentation on Facebook as a Function of Vulnerable Narcissism and Lower Self-Esteem” reveals the congruence between self-representation on Facebook and the participants’ true selves. According to the researchers, “for individuals with average and low levels of self-esteem, there is more incongruence between the true self and the Facebook self (as a function of increased vulnerable narcissism)” (144). Though Grieve et al.’s research was on Facebook, we can still see similar phenomena happening in Chinese social media: those who spend more time and energy editing a selfie to a “perfect” one before posting it online, such as the internet celebrities described in Fan’s article, tend to care more about the likes and followers they receive. When they edit their selfies, they tend to focus more on the “unsatisfying” parts of their appearance, denying their own unique features. Their actions imply the negative self-perception that they do not think people would accept who they really are, signifying their low self-esteem. Young people can be trapped in this vicious cycle, just like the internet celebrities in Fan’s article, who stare at their phones all the time to see whether their new posts have gone viral (Fan). As Grieve et al. claim in their research, “greater discrepancies between the [true and Facebook] selves may be indicative of an individual attempting to mask feelings of inadequacy” (148). Because these young people have comparatively lower self-esteem, they care much about what other people think about their selfies and want to exhibit a perfect image of themselves; however, as they over edit their selfies, they deny their own images, conforming to the social aesthetic standards, instead of accepting or even admiring their uniqueness, leading to an even lower self-esteem.

Much different from the homogeneous and inauthentic beauty described in Fan’s article, Chinese young people have started appreciating natural and authentic selfies more and more in recent years. One example of this trend is the heated “Selfies without Editing Contest” on Weibo starting from 25 April 2020, with 100 million “reads” and 20 thousand “discussions” so far (Fig. 3). In addition, a new BeautyCam app named Qingyan Xiangji, released in 2018, which focuses on natural filters and especially avoids wanghong editing styles, has gone viral, and now occupies a large share of the beauty camera app market in China (@CharisApril). In the study “In the Eye of the Beholder: Subjective Views on the Authenticity of Selfies,” researchers Katharina Lobinger and Cornelia Brantner examined how people’s evaluation of the selfies posted on social media is affected by the photographs’ expressive authenticity. They found that some participants regard selfies as “inauthentic” because of the apparent staging or visibility of the photo editing process. Their research also suggests that teenagers admire photos showing people in “natural, everyday situations” instead of “artistic and visually scripted or composed pictures” (1856). It can be seen that expressive authenticity has become an admirable quality in this new trend.

**Fig. 3** “Selfies without Editing Contest” on Weibo

However, a selfie with expressive authenticity is not equal to authentic self-representation in the selfie, even if the person has high self-esteem, because of the influence of self-objectification. According to Dong Zheng et al.’s study on Chinese adolescents on social networking services (SNSs), their selfie-posting behaviors on Qzone were positively associated with self-objectification. This relationship is specifically moderated by imaginary audience ideation, which refers to the assumption in one’s mind that others are “looking at and thinking about oneself all the time” (326). Therefore, when young people post selfies on social media, they are preoccupied by the idea that a group of imaginary audience would be gazing at their images and evaluating them based on their appearance. For instance, winners from the “Selfies without Editing Contest” on Weibo, who received more likes and comments than others, all fit into Chinese beauty norms, with fair skin, big eyes, and slim bodies. They also promoted their selfies to seek complimentary comments, and enjoyed increased likes and followers on their platforms as a result of being rated high in the contest. No matter how “authentic” the selfies posted by people with high self-esteem are, they are still under the process of self-objectification, subconsciously seeking for positive feedback from the “subjects,” namely, other people who are viewing and judging them.

The selfie on Zhihu in Fig. 1, belonging to the girl whose image demonstrates expressive authenticity, further emphasizes this point. Her entire post actually emphasizes the technical tips to take a beautiful selfie that will gain likes and followers on social media, using just a smartphone camera and without photo-editing apps. When people emphasize on social media that their selfies are “not edited,” they are actually seeking a sense of satisfaction from others’ compliments. In other words, they post selfies with expressive authenticity that are not staged or edited; but they post them only as evidence of “I look beautiful even without any Meitu process”. It is true that these young people may have higher self-esteem, as they have the confidence and courage to post unedited authentic selfies that highly represent their true self. However, they are still stressing to their imaginary audience that they did not edit their selfies, reflecting how much they care about getting compliments from others, to confirm their beliefs that they are beautiful. Self-objectification is thus almost always playing a subtle role when Chinese young people post authentic-like selfies, even for those who have high levels of self-esteem.

Compared with those who post authentic selfies with captions that emphasize how their selfies are “non-edited” or “filters-free,” young people who post authentic selfies without highlighting this fact are less affected by self-objectification. According to the study “Clarifying the Relationships Between the Self, Selfie, and Self-Objectification: The Effects of Engaging in Photo Modification and Receiving Positive Feedback on Women’s Photographic Self-Presentations Online” led by Megan Vendemia, engaging in the selfie modification process does not affect the state of self-objectification significantly; however, receiving comments on one’s appearance would increase the level of self-objectification (37). Though the study mainly focused on women, some findings can still be applied to young social media lovers as a whole: it is not the photo-editing process, but receiving favorable feedback that heightens self-objectification for people who share selfies on social media, enticing them to focus on their appearance as “a valued commodity” (40). Young adults who post unedited selfies without any sign of looking for outside compliments, in contrast, are more likely to be accepting of what they look like, including those parts of their bodies that are regarded as “imperfect” when examined by social media norms. As they do not depend on receiving favorable comments on their appearance to gain their sense of self-worth, such behavior can be considered as lower self-objectification. Interestingly, there is no measure for determining the reason why they are not stressing the fact that their selfies are unedited — while they might not care about outside confirmation, they may also believe that their natural appearance is good enough for receiving favorable feedback, and therefore are still seeking external confirmation consciously. Therefore, even when a photo demonstrates expressive authenticity, it does not necessarily demonstrate authentic self-representation.

Young social media users may always be looking for favorable feedback like complimentary comments, likes, and the number of followers, when they present themselves through selfies on social media platforms. In other words, self-objectification always seems to be playing a part in self-presentation on social media, whether through heavily edited or unedited selfies, and unedited selfies posted without drawing people’s attention to their expressive authenticity. On a superficial level, low self-esteem is associated with more inauthentic self-representations. In this case, expressive authenticity is not achieved, since the person’s true self is either distorted or hidden by the photo-editing process. However, higher self-esteem does not necessarily lead to authentic self-representation, because of the subconscious existence of self-objectification, which entices young adults to stress the non-edited aspect of their selfies, in order to gain likes on social media. In turn, these likes allow young adults to gain a sense of self-value. Therefore, despite the decreasing popularity of wanghong-style selfies in China, in favor of less-edited selfies, Chinese young social media users need to recognize that their self-worth is embedded neither in heavily edited selfies nor the texts posted along with the selfies. To gain a better sense of self-worth, they need to hold the belief that their natural appearance can be appreciated no matter what, as long as they believe that they are representing their authentic selves.

Works Cited

Banks, Marcus. “True to Life: Authenticity and the Photographic Image”. Debating Authenticity. Concepts of Modernity in Anthropological Perspective, Edited by T. Fillitz & A. J. Saries, Berghahn Books, 2012, pp.160–171.

Calogero, Rachel M. “Objectification Theory, Self-Objectification, and Body Image.” Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance, Edited by Thomas F Cash, vol. 2, San Diego: Academic Press, 2012, pp. 574–580.

Fan, Jiayang. “China’s Selfie Obsession.” The New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/chinas-selfie-obsession. Last accessed 9 April 2021.

Grieve, Rachel, et al. “Inauthentic Self-Presentation on Facebook as a Function of Vulnerable Narcissism and Lower Self-Esteem.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 102, 2020, pp. 144–150.

Lobinger, Katharina and Brantner, Cornelia. “In the Eye of the Beholder: Subjective Views on the Authenticity of Selfies.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 9, 2015, pp. 1848–1860.

Skoglund, Elizabeth R. “Self-Esteem, Self-Love.” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, edited by Walter A. Elwell, Baker Publishing Group, 3rd edition, 2017.

Vendemia, Megan A. “Clarifying the Relationships Between the Self, Selfie, and Self-Objectification: The Effects of Engaging in Photo Modification and Receiving Positive Feedback on Women’s Photographic Self-Presentations Online.” The Ohio State University OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, 2019.

Zheng, Dong, et al. “Selfie Posting on Social Networking Sites and Female Adolescents’ Self-Objectification: The Moderating Role of Imaginary Audience Ideation.” Sex Roles, vol. 80, no. 5/6, 2019, pp. 325–331.

@CharisApril. “轻颜相机产品分析报告 –‘颜值时代‘下的‘她经济.’ Product Analysis Report of Qingyan Xiangji — ‘Her’ Economy in the ‘Beauty Era’.” 简书, 16 March, 2019, www.jianshu.com/p/758fa8a72c9a. Last accessed 9 April 2021.

@小枫儿童成长学. “Example of Wanghonglian”. Kandiankuaibao, 9 December 2019, https://kuaibao.qq.com/s/20191209A0OF0700?refer=spider

Faculty Introduction for “Chinese Young Adults’ Sense of Self in Social Media: Through the Lens of Beauty Apps”

Faculty Introductions, Vol. 5 No. 1

Read “Chinese Young Adults’ Sense of Self in Social Media: Through the Lens of Beauty Apps”.

Zou Jia wrote “Chinese Young Adults’ Sense of Self in Social Media: Through the Lens of Beauty Apps” for my Spring 2020 Writing as Inquiry class. For this assignment, students were required to respond to course texts, conduct research, and develop their own original argument in response to sources. Zou Jia’s essay models the development of a complex thesis statement through weighing and synthesizing differing perspectives. Zou Jia evaluates the effect of selfie-editing apps on young people’s self-esteem and argues that as much as unedited selfies seem to capture one’s “authenticity,” they still promote self-objectification. By weighing the arguments of Fan Jiayang’s “China’s Selfie Obsession” and sources she found through research, Zou Jia makes a convincing case that social media as a platform intensifies young people’s hunger for validation. Zou Jia skillfully incorporates and weaves quotations from secondary sources to support her claims. She carefully defines key terms, such as “authenticity” and “self-esteem.” She includes social media posts as apt visual examples for her claims. Overall, Zou Jia’s essay is an ambitious, methodical response to the way social media has affected our psyche today.

—Alice Chuang, Lecturer in the Writing Program

Anti-Chinese Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: the Trump Administration’s Racialization of the Medical Crisis

Student Essays, Vol. 5 No. 1

Image credit: Untitled #3 by Atto. Z

by Guo Zhiqing

Read the Faculty Introduction.

Early in 2015, just after the world had succeeded in containing a deadly Ebola outbreak, Bill Gates advocated for global collaboration for future pandemics in his TED Talk, titled “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready” (Gates). While people doubted his pessimism at that time, Gates’ concern has proven to be reasonable today. Contrary to Gates’ appeal for collaboration six years ago, we still have not found a way to contain a pandemic through global solidarity and cooperation — the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), since its first outbreak in China in January 2020, has overwhelmingly spread worldwide, along with rising racism and discrimination. By April 9 2021, the number of confirmed cases around the globe has reached 133.5 million, which is about 4665 times the number of Ebola cases (“WHO Coronavirus”). In the United States, the number has reached 30.6 million with 553,801 deaths (”WHO Coronavirus”). Back in 2020, during the pandemic’s progressive outbreak in the US, the former Trump administration reversed their previously amicable attitude towards China’s efforts in containing the pandemic. Instead, they demanded that China pay the full price for the global pandemic, and accused China of manipulating the virus. In this research paper, I analyze these accusations, identify the political rationales behind the accusations, and recognize their impacts on the US under the COVID-19 pandemic. Opposed to the Trump administration’s denunciation against China and racialization of the pandemic, I argue that their accusations are insufficient, and serve as a political strategy that shifts the American public’s attention away from the Trump administration’s failure to contain the disease, to xenophobia against China. This strategy led to the deterioration of the pandemic in the US, and increased serious anti-Asian racism domestically. By analyzing the Covid-19 crisis in the US, this research paper aims to give a warning against the racialization of pandemics in the future.

At the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic spread in March 2020, the Trump administration demanded China to take full responsibility for the global COVID-19 pandemic because of the Chinese government’s inability to contain the initial outbreak. US officials have frequently attributed the pandemic to China’s delay in announcing the disease’s severity. As Mark Esper, former US Secretary of Defense, said on Fox News:

If the Chinese government had been more transparent early on, we’re talking late fall, December at least, we would all — all of us, all the nations of the world — would have been able to get our arms around this and contain it in China where it began and prevent its propagation around the world.
(Nelson)

Esper directly indicated that China had concealed the epidemic from other countries, until it was too late to stop a global outbreak. It is true that the Wuhan government in China underestimated the contagion of the virus at the initial stage, and did not make an emergency announcement until January 20 2020. With a mass Spring Festival event taking place in Wuhan on January 19 2020, the Wuhan government ultimately failed to contain the domestic breakout within the province, eventually leading to a national epidemic outbreak (Huang).

However, even with the miscommunication between the Wuhan government and the central Chinese government, the central government had been transparently reporting to the World Health Organization (WHO) since January 3 2020, as soon as the central government became suspicious about the disease’s potential threat (Huaxia). Also, authoritative public health experts from nine different countries have recognized the “rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data” by Chinese scientists to be of great help in the world’s preventive efforts against the virus (Calisher et al.). Moreover, other countries still had enough time to prevent the spread, despite the Wuhan government’s delay in response. Taking the US for example, there were only 11 confirmed cases when the country closed its borders to China on February 2 2020, but this number reached 400,000 by April 8 2020 (“Foreign Ministry Press Conference”). The statistics prove that the Wuhan government’s delay is not the main contributor to the US outbreak. It is thus unjustified for the Trump administration to demand that China take full responsibility for the pandemic’s global spread. If the accusations are unjustified, why did the former Trump administration still make them?

The answer may be identified through the officials’ attitudes towards China during the pandemic: more than overstating China’s responsibility, officials in the former Trump administration have also deliberately racialized the pandemic since March 2020. Contrary to the WHO’s declaration that epidemic names should never be associated with a specific group of people, Trump and other officials in his administration had deliberately called COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” since March 16 2020 (“WHO Issues Best”, Rogers). In the following two weeks, Trump repeatedly used the term “Chinese virus” more than 20 times (Viala-Gaudefroy and Lindaman, Yeung et al.). A picture taken and tweeted by a Washington Post photographer shows that Trump marked the word “Corona” to be replaced with “Chinese” on his briefing notes (Bostford). When accused of his deliberate use of a racist term to name the virus, Trump still defended himself by saying “it’s not racist at all. [The virus] comes from China. I want to be accurate” (Viala-Gaudefroy and Lindaman). Such statements clearly violate WHO’s warning in naming a pandemic, and the subsequent aggravated tension due to the naming issue worsened China-US relations. Even worse, Trump and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo escalated the tension by groundlessly stigmatizing China for allegedly manipulating the coronavirus. Despite credible scientific evidence that the virus “is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus,” Trump and Pompeo constantly asserted that there was “enormous evidence” of the virus as a Chinese bioweapon (Andersen et al., Borger). However, they never provided their alleged evidence nor responded to the scientific rectification (Borger). Although US officials could have called for a serious investigation to better understand the pandemic, they chose instead to publicly accuse China for virus manipulation without having any tenable proof. This stigmatization of China’s reputation, and the racist use of “Chinese virus,” reflects the Trump administration’s deliberate attempts at racializing the pandemic.

This racialization of the pandemic may be a political strategy to shift the public’s attention away from the Trump administration’s incapability in managing the medical crisis to blaming China, especially considering the administration’s previously amicable attitude towards China at the start of the pandemic. At the beginning, Trump highly praised China’s efforts in combating the virus. On January 24 2020, Trump tweeted, “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency,” and particularly thanked Chinese President Xi on behalf of all Americans (Peters). As some cases were soon found in the US, the Trump administration blocked entry from China to the US on February 2 2020 and assured the US public that the travel ban guaranteed the US enough time to prevent the pandemic’s spread (Dáte). Throughout February, Trump repeatedly praised China’s efforts in fighting the pandemic (McDermott and Kaczynski).

However, Trump’s attitude towards China sharply shifted when the number of coronavirus cases in the US surged in March 2020. On March 19, when 4043 new cases were reported in America, Trump changed his previous gentle tone for China and used the improper term “Chinese virus” to label the coronavirus for the first time. Since then, Trump started his unceasing denunciation of China’s inability as a strategy to shift the public’s attention. Based on a scientific study on British media’s coverage of SARS in 2003, the political strategy of xenophobia gave the British public a sense of domestic safety and prevented public panic (Washer). In other words, the British tended to hold more confidence in their government’s ability to contain the medical crisis when the association between the Chinese and the SARS epidemic was emphasized (Washer). Specifically, the British felt a sense of safety, when implicitly distinguished from the Chinese, who were in danger from SARS (Washer). Likewise, when Trump adopted the term “Chinese virus,” he possibly sought to shift public attention from his government’s ineffective prevention of the pandemic, to sharply blaming it all on China. In some way, the xenophobia strategy may help alleviate the pressure from the US public, similar to the strategy used by the British media. However, in the US, this xenophobia became directed at its own people — Asian Americans who look almost the same as Chinese. In this case, this strategy deteriorated the situation in the US rather than mitigating the crisis, both in the medical and racial aspects.

Firstly, the Trump administration’s overemphasis on isolation from China diverted their attention from preventing the pandemic spread from other countries. Trump repeatedly mentioned that the virus is a threat from China, and highlighted that his early resolution of exerting a travel ban on China was “far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do” (Rogers et al.). Trump was very optimistic about the travel ban, as he said, “and I think, in the end, that’s going to be — that will have saved a tremendous number of lives” (Rogers et al.). However, according to a credible evaluation of international travel restrictions published on Nature Medicine, the scholars point out that “rapidly implemented and almost total restriction of international travel” was needed to effectively prevent domestic pandemic outbreak (Otsuki and Nishiura). This study emphasizes the significance of implementing timely travel restrictions on all countries in the face of a severe pandemic. However, the Trump administration only focused on a travel ban on China. Not until March 11 2020 did they implement travel bans on Europe, though the infection numbers there had been increasing exponentially since February (“A Timeline”). A travel ban on China could only partially delay the contagion, and the US’s lack of attention to travel restrictions on other foreign countries largely contributed to the drastic increase in its domestic COVID-19 cases. Also, the government officials’ reassurance of domestic safety because of the travel restriction on China misled the American public, driving the country to neglect potential pandemic spread from other countries. Therefore, the US missed the best time to avoid infection imports from different countries in the world.

Secondly, xenophobia against China has intensified ubiquitous Anti-Asian hostility, causing Asian Americans to doubly suffer from racial attacks and from a higher risk of infection under racial pressure. The rising anti-Chinese sentiment also exerts a huge shock on Asian immigrants in the US. After Trump adopted the phrase “Chinese virus” on March 16 2020, negative comments against Asians increased 167% in one week (Ao). Stop AAPI Hate, a social organization that has been speaking up for the rights of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities since March 20 2020, received 1135 racial attack reports in the following two weeks (O’Hara). Moreover, according to a social investigation of 2047 Asian Americans, racial discrimination has serious impact on Asian Americans’ mental health, leading to mental disorders and enlarging health disparities among different races in the US (Gee et al.). Scientific studies prove that such mental problems from discrimination worsen immune systems and expose individuals to a higher risk of health disorders (Ao). The rising anti-Chinese sentiment and discrimination against Asian Americans due to the Trump administration’s political strategy thus not only worsened US-China relations, but boosted racism domestically. The increase in racist attacks against Asian Americans, and the higher risk of infections they face due to mental pressure, does no good to contain the indiscriminate virus. Instead, the racialization of the pandemic only triggers more fear and anger, leading to social instability.

In conclusion, it is crucial to study the social and political conditions that originate from a pandemic, but it is improper for American politicians in the former Trump administration to frame the conversation in groundless accusations and racism against China. The anti-China strategy with political rhetoric could not truly help the Trump administration redirect the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic to the Chinese government. Rather, this strategy downplayed efforts towards controlling the spread and led to domestic discrimination against Asian-Americans. As Bill Gates said in the TED Talk “How we must respond to the coronavirus pandemic,” “although it’s very sober when we’re dealing with this epidemic — you know I’m very positive that this should draw us together. We will get out of this and then we will get ready for the next epidemic” (Clifford). In this globalization era, different countries and people of different races cannot be isolated from each other, because the virus is indiscriminate and cannot be stopped by physical borders. The COVID-19 pandemic may fade away, but its impact on deepening xenophobia and racial discrimination will be hard to offset. The racialization of the pandemic has made the fight for justice more difficult, as captured by the recent rise in deaths of Americans of Asian descent, due to overt violent attacks (Markos and Lunis). Although we see rising efforts in combating racism, such as social organizations like “Stop AAPI Hate”, and a recent executive action against AAPI racism signed by the US president Joe Biden in January (Zaru), these efforts are not enough. We need more voices to speak up for racial equality and more actions to stop racist acts. Pandemics should never be about race, and the racialization of a pandemic will only worsen the crisis; this is not just a lesson for America, but for all countries around the world. As opposed to accusations, isolation, and discrimination, we must recognize the importance of inclusiveness, solidarity, and global cooperation, especially in the face of pandemics like COVID-19.

Works Cited

Andersen, Kristian G. et al. “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” Nature Medicine, 17 March 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9.

Ao, Bethany. “Asian Americans Already Face a Mental Health Crisis. Coronavirus Racism Could Make It Worse.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 22 April 2020. https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-racism-asian-americans-mental-health-20200422.html.

“A timeline of the Trump administration’s coronavirus actions.” Al Jazeera, 24 April 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/timeline-trump-administration-coronavirus-actions-200414131306831.html.

Borger, Julian. “Mike Pompeo: ‘enormous evidence’ coronavirus came from Chinese lab.” The Guardian, 3 May 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-laboratory.

Botsford, Jabin. “Close up of President @RealDonaldTrump Notes Is Seen Where He Crossed out ‘Corona’ and Replaced It with ‘Chinese’ Virus as He Speaks with His Coronavirus Task Force Today at the White House. #Trump #Trumpnotes Pic.twitter.com/kVw9yrPPeJ.” Twitter, 20 Mar. 2020, twitter.com/jabinbotsford/status/1240701140141879298.

Calisher, Charles et al. “Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19.” The Lancet, 19 February 2020, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext.

Clifford, Catherine. “Bill Gates: How the coronavirus pandemic can help the world solve climate change.” CNBC, 31 March 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/31/bill-gates-how-covid-19-pandemic-can-help-world-solve-climate-change.html.

Dáte, S.V. “Trump Hopes You Forget How He Praised China And The WHO Before Blaming Them.” HuffPost, 19 May 2020, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-china-reversal-coronavirus-blame_n_5ec44c7bc5b61e42ad3d8876.

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