What was so bothersome about Donald Trump's use of the term 'China Virus' back in March at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, was not really the term itself. Naming diseases after their origin is not a new colloquial practice, and by all the available evidence the Chinese government and their failure to act in a timely manner harbor a large responsibility for the initial outbreak. The problem with Trump's deployment of the term 'China Virus' is that, left uncontextualized, to the average American sounds like blanket statement castigating an entire population.
It's no wonder then, at the same time this rhetoric was most audible, that reports of anti-Asian behavior in the United States began to increase at an alarming rate. These reports ranged from derogatory racist language to outright assault, all under the premise that by being of Chinese or Asian decent, that these victims were inherently guilty of bringing the virus stateside. Of course this is a ludicrous notion, but sometimes harbored racial tendencies need little in the way of lit fuse to explode.
Trump's mistake was not that he blamed China, but that he failed to explain his rhetoric. From the first time he uttered the phrase he should have gone above and beyond to clarify to the American public that Chinese and other Asian Americans, as well as regular citizens living in China, possessed no responsibility, and that any attack on one of them would be met with swift justice. By failing to do so he put millions of hard working Americans at risk of discrimination and violence.
Although it seems the memory of this rhetorical failure has largely subsided thanks to our current 24-hour news cycle driven world, as the U.S. and China rivalry continues to intensify the potential misconception of the competition will provide the unfortunate opportunity for American people to once again vilify a group that shoulders no blame.
It's clear that the U.S. and other democratic nations have taken a stand against the misdeeds of the Chinese government. These misdeeds in question include human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, unfair and illegal trade practices, and unprovoked aggression in the South and East China Seas. And while the Chinese government may deserve every ounce of backlash that it is currently facing, its citizens do not.
It's important that if U.S.-China relations continue to sour, that as a people and government we as Americans remember that thousands of miles away the Chinese people are facing the same daily problems we are. The single mother in Xi'an is working three jobs to pay for her son's education, just like the one in Louisville. The recent college graduate in Beijing is struggling to find a job just like the one in Wichita. The owner of the small retro bar in Chengdu is struggling to keep his business open just like the owner of the hipster coffee shop in downtown Detroit, and the man with sweat pouring down his back in a Hubei rice field has the same dreams as the Iowa farmer who woke up a 4:30 to make sure animals were properly fed.
While our governments may stand for drastically different world views, as a people we have more in common than we like to admit. We are passionately entrepreneurial, we are extremely competitive, and at times we are castigated by our neighboring countries as being too loud and boastful. However one crucial difference is we as Americans have the constitutionally enshrined right to express our ideas as we see fit, not how our government does, and that bestows us a greater responsibility. One that we have not always lived up to, but one that we must in the future.
At times it may be tempting to blame the 'Chinese' for the problems that the rivalry between our two countries will surely cause to develop. But it's important to remember it isn't with the people that we have our qualms, it's with their government that fails to allow them the same rights we are lucky enough to possess. And unlike Trump, I want to make this perfectly clear.
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