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.
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