Source: Gettyimages
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Recently The Washington Post published an op-ed titled “Anti-China is not anti-Asian,” in which the author, Tenzin Dorjee, firmly denies and criticizes any association between the escalating anti-China rhetoric and the recent cases of anti-Asian violence.
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Dorjee’s claims, however, are deeply problematic. Anti-China rhetoric is inseparable from anti-Asian violence, and we must reflect on the meanings of “anti-China rhetoric” to fully recognize its discriminating nature and curb its consequences as manifested in the bursting anti-Asian violence today.
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First, while Dorjee uses the term “anti-China” in his title, he uses only phrases such as “the rhetoric targeting Beijing” or “criticism of the Chinese government” in the op-ed. He argues that “the overwhelming volume of the rhetoric targeting Beijing has been prompted not by abstract geopolitical competition but by tangible grievances, including China’s genocide in Xinjiang, intensifying repression in Tibet, dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong and sweeping crackdown on Chinese civil society.”
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Here Dorjee is equating “anti-China rhetoric” with “criticisms against the policies of Chinese government,” which should be two distinct concepts despite each of their ambiguities. In general, the former connotes unjustified speech directed against China as a nation based on fear, prejudice or hatred (including the soaring perception of China as a competitor or even an enemy among Americans), whereas the latter suggests reasonable criticisms against the policies of Chinese government itself based upon valid evidence. This tendency to confuse the two concepts obscures the injustice and bias of anti-China rhetoric and conspires in the political stereotype that portrays the entirety of China as a threatening villain.
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Source: Washington Post Instagram account. A Washington Post picture features China on a re-designed map completely marked in the ominous red, just as how the entirety of Japan was made into an evil black dragon in Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight.”
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Moreover, we also need these two concepts to be distinct in order to point out their problematic entanglements with each other. In his article, Dorjee argues without proof that these criticisms against the policies of Chinese government are completely separate from the political rhetoric arising from the “abstract” geopolitical competition between the two superpowers. First of all, the geopolitical competition is not “abstract,” as he claims, but rather manifested concretely in the lives of all Chinese and American citizens, if not influencing most people’s lives in the world, due to the related economic and political policies. For example, in May 2020 the Trump administration announced its plan to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese international students who had previously studied at institutions afflicted with China’s military. The 2019 Tom Cotton-sponsored Secure Campus Act even attempted to ban any Chinese national from coming to the United States for graduate or postgraduate studies in STEM. Just as it is wrong to overlook the actions of Chinese government in certain areas such as Tibet, it is extremely naive and disrespectful to simply dismiss the geopolitical competition between the United States and China, which could negatively impact so many lives, as “abstract.”
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It also seems that in this article Dorjee either is or pretends to be naive about the nature of anti-China rhetoric and its potential consequences. To believe that the anti-China rhetoric has nothing to do with geopolitical competition between China and the United States is akin to the belief that, for instance, the Japan-bashing in the 1980s has nothing to do with the United States’ fear of Japan’s economic rise. At that time, U.S. politicians and media blamed the domestic economic downturn on Japanese policies, condemning the latter as “predatory” and even describing the economic situation as an “economic Pearl Harbour.” Even Japanese people themselves were stereotyped as cunning and sneaky, with then-senator John Danforth calling the Japanese “leeches” that hold the United States as “hostage.” It has always been a common strategy for the U.S. administration to put forth discriminating political rhetoric under the disguise of moral condemnation.
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In the case of China, Utah Rep. Chris Steward last year called China “a threat to the future of our children.” Sery Kim, a Republican candidate for a 2021 Texas election, said publicly, “I don’t want them (Chinese immigrants) here at all. They steal our intellectual property. They give us coronavirus. They don’t hold themselves accountable.” Even after public condemnation, she insisted that she was speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party and said she “will not back down from speaking the truth.” We must remember that, in reality, “anti-China rhetoric” and “criticisms against the Chinese government” are by no means exclusive from each other.
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True, the policies and practices of the CCP should be discussed, challenged and criticized openly on the global stage. But there should always be a clear distinction between the state and the Chinese people. Anti-China discourse — especially the use of the word “China,” an abstract product of imagined community, as the object of blame — shoves all Chinese people and their culture into a single mass of threatening enemies. In the eyes of many, this nebulous concept of enemy might include the Chinese diaspora community, and even all Asian-Americans for those who see Asians as a single entity, which then translates into violence committed against the Asian community as a whole.
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Source: Vice Instagram account. A Chinese doctor is risking her life to help develop the coronavirus vaccine. Yet the Vice post chooses to imply that she is a brainwashed follower of the Communist Party, using this ambiguous picture from unknown sources.
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Source: New York Times. A sensational title with a stereotypical image of China as a cold, gloomy, militarized place on Western media.
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Dorjee goes as far as claiming that “if China had contained covid-19 within its borders, … no amount of congressional criticism against Beijing would have made us afraid to ride the subway at night.” He not only neglects the political rhetoric that can lurk behind most congressional criticism against Beijing — which leads to anti-China rhetoric in media and popular culture — but also refuses to see the connection between anti-China rhetoric and anti-Asian violence.
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There might be, as Dorjee argues, “no research-based evidence that American lawmakers’ legitimate criticism of Beijing (Again, what is legitimate? Who decides the boundary between what is legitimate and what is instrumental?) has a causal effect on violence against Asians” — but we have much to learn from history.
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We have much to learn from the internment of approximately 112,000 Japanese individuals in the United States during World War II for the crimes committed by the Japanese Empire.
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We have much to learn from the Cold War McCarthyism in the 1950s, when Chinese Americans and Chinese organizations were attacked because, by being ethnically Chinese, they were presumed to be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.
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We have much to learn from the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, whose head was cracked open with baseball bat by two white men who mistook Chin to be Japanese. And of course, the two white autoworkers, who bore strong anti-Japan sentiments during the U.S.-Japan economic rivalry, received no jail time for the gruesome murder. A witness recalled one of the murderers shouting at Chin, “It’s because of you motherf—s that we’re out of work.”
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We have much to learn from the rise in violence against Asian Muslims and Sikhs after 9/11.
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And we have even more to learn from our present reality. From the 3,795 self-reports of racially motivated attacks against Asians (which is likely an undercount) because people might think that “it’s because of you motherf—ers that we’re all sick.” And from Sinophobic foreign policies that use Chinese international students as scapegoats, from the recent trend of selling “I’m not Chinese” T-shirts online because some Asians are scared of being recognized as Chinese — “the public enemies” they think would be more likely to suffer from violence, whereas in reality these shirts never work.
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The current escalation in anti-Asian violence is not exceptional and is not the sole product of COVID-19, like Dorjee has claimed. Rather, as UC Berkeley professor Lok Siu has argued, attacking Asians in times of crisis is an “American tradition.” The anti-China rhetoric that generalizes the nature of China and condemns China as a whole is a dangerous catalyst to this everlasting cycle.
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Anti-China is anti-Chinese — don’t tell me that they’re different theoretically because it isn’t so in reality, where so many confuse the policies of the state with its people and can’t even tell Asians from different nations apart from one another. We must recognize the pervasive impact of anti-China rhetoric. We must stop anti-China rhetoric to stop Asian American and Pacific Islander hate. We must all unite, regardless of where we come from, to defend ourselves against those attacking us for who we are.
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Source: Amazon. Similar shirts have been popular in Redbubble and other sites. Asians unite! Instead of escaping from unjustified violence, be angry against injustice and work together for sociopolitical transformations!
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And lastly, stopping anti-China rhetoric does not mean stopping criticisms against the Chinese government. In fact, I want to advocate for more in-depth, reliable, on-site research into the reality of Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong that is supported by concrete evidence instead of imbued with sensational claims or political rhetoric — because I, as a Chinese citizen, crave the truth as well. But I know the truth doesn’t lie in sensational claims made by Western politicians and news media (see the various screenshots attached above and below). Western media’s reporting bias toward mainland China should not be dismissed, and Chinese media and public voices should not be automatically muted simply because China is governed by a communist party. It is only when Western politicians and media purge political rhetoric out of their accusations and reports that we will see the truth of what is happening under the Chinese government, as well as any government in the world.
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Source: NYT Twitter account. NYT reports the lockdown in China as inhumane while describing the same policy in Italy as a laudable effort in the containing coronavirus outbreak. And they were published on the same day!
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Source: Washington Post Instagram account. Even this Washington Post caption about ending AAPI hate reinforces the blame on China for spreading the coronavirus, while a new study has found evidence as early as April 2020 that New York coronavirus outbreak originated in Europe. It is not so different from Trump’s rhetoric of the “Chinese virus” or the “kung flu.”
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Source: the comment section on a Washington Post article. A very common question to any Chinese citizen who tries to participate in political discussions. Many people have asked me questions like this online as soon as they realize I’m a Chinese citizen. And no, I am not paid by the PRC’s propaganda ministry — it pains me that I have to keep clarifying this in order to speak.
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In times of crisis, we have to reflect even more on what we see and hear, as well as be reflective about what we say and write and do. We have to be specific in criticizing instead of generalizing hatred. We have to resist any violently homogenizing structure in social and political discourses. We have to recognize the individual agency and differences of everyone, regardless of their citizenships, as well as think deeply about the collective categories and labels we belong to in others’ eyes and how they impact all of our lives. I believe that we Asians in America should come together — not just Asian Americans, but also those who stay or live here without citizenship. Without such a community, we cannot defend ourselves against racism and violence.
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As a Chinese citizen who has studied in the United States for eight years, I want to be somewhere that wouldn’t see me as a threat to be eliminated, somewhere that bears love toward differences and not violence. The last line of Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Ode, Salute to the French Negro Poets,” chants—“and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, nor are.” And for us Asians, who live in the gray zones of Western society, we must unite to change the world we love so that it can love us back for who we are.
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Note: This commentary was set to be published on a certain publication, which became concerned about my questioning of big American publications and the possibility that it might get sued by them. I think that tells us something about how difficult it is to break the status quo of the western mediascape as well.