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

Image credit: Untitled #3 by Atto. Z

ZHIQING GUO

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.

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