Economies are slowing, markets are roiling, and firms are crying, but are we, humans, regressing in this crisis - trading our openness, tolerance and understanding for something much darker? In times of economic downturns, racism spikes; this time is no exception. Since the coronavirus outbreak became even remotely global, people were quick to point fingers at those of Chinese appearance, creating gaps that lead to further discrimination and marginalisation of the South-East Asian community.
To provide some context, this blog post commences with an explanation of racism in uncertain times, and perceptions of China through history. These are not intended to be comprehensive, and instead aim to provoke the reader with some interesting arguments and ideas, and are by no means the definitive answer. The focus of this blog is the different perspectives of discrimination amid the coronavirus and to examine a few ways in which this manifests itself in everyday life.
Why does racism surge in times of trouble?
“When there’s a pandemic or any kind of health crisis, our existing ideas about race naturally shape how we process and frame the situation.”
People rely on heuristics and ‘rules of thumb’ to make easier decisions. Sometimes, this benefits us as it saves time and cost; other times, it comes at the sacrifice of making hasty judgements. Many heuristics, such as our ingrained perceptions of others, is far from optimal and fall into the latter category. Natalia Molina, professor of history and American studies at the University of Southern California, notes that society has “always used race as an organizing principle to define problems in the economy, problems in the culture, problems in the political domain”. Having mentally organised our perceptions into categories, it is easier and more convenient for us to understand the relationships between races using this framework.
In times of trouble, people become more insecure and uncertain of the future in both the short-term and long-term. For instance, in the context of the ongoing pandemic, Fetzer, Hensel and Roth (2020) note that perceptions of mortality and contagion raise economic anxiety. These uncertainties further compromise our ability to think rationally and increase our dependence on such mental shortcuts. Consequently, this may lead us to enhance our construction of perceptions of others and hence the very concept of ‘race’ as a personal construct itself may be accented as well (Howarth and Hook, 2005). A poll by Ipsos MORI showed that, among the 8,001 adults sampled in several developed economies, between 11% and 37% responded that they would avoid contact with people of Chinese origin or appearance (February 2020).
Miri Song, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, notes that racism is an “excuse” during incidents with regional or global implications - which tend to be associated with causing economic downturns or general turbulence in people’s lives. This propagates with greater impact in multi-ethnic societies such as the UK and USA. Song further notes that, because of the psychological convenience of turning to racism, people who do harbour this mindset take little interest in the specifics below your skin colour, and come to the immediate and flawed judgement equating appearance to person. The forces of insecurity and discomfort prevalent during a downturn further motivate people to find different ways of venting out their dissatisfaction - such as placing blame on easy targets. This blame often aggravates stereotypes, as will be explored later in this post with regards to the outbreak.
Sinophobia and sinophilia: attitudes to China through the lens of popular literature
“We have consistently demonstrated a willingness to channel our fascination with Asia into stereotypical images, positive and negative -- both, as we will see, sides of the same coin.”
A poll by the Pew Research Centre shows that countries are divided on their opinions of China. Those, such as Russia, express mostly favourable views, while others, such as Japan, express overwhelmingly disapproval. Whether this is due to politics is a whole other topic for debate, but what it is possibly symptomatic of is a long history of sinophobia, and sinophilia.
An interesting way in which we can examine attitudes to China and Chinese people over time is by looking at popular literature and written work, be it fictional, in media, or academic. Some of these attitudes will be relevant to discrimination faced today amidst the epidemic.
Written evidence by Jesuits from the 16th and 17th centuries paint an exaggerated, positive image of Chinese people, praising them as scholarly philosophers and theologians saturated with the world’s wisdom and knowledge; this was in part because the missionaries interacted exclusively with a scholarly circle of Chinese people and were generally unexposed to the rest of Chinese society.
The Chinese image took a turn for the worse in the 19th century. As opium began to circulate in the UK-China trade cycle in the 19th century, it was not easy to see these buyers of opium as esteemed scholars. The Edinburgh Review in 1805 described the “imperfection of their language, their cowardice, uncleanliness and inhumanity” vividly. The outcome of the Opium Wars was a further humiliation, and China became the incompetent victim in the public eye. Representing the western curiosity and contempt of China is the figure of ‘John Chinaman’, and the mass construction of the ‘heathen Chinee’ (taken from the poem ‘Plain Language from Truthful James’ by Bret Harte).
Inspired by the morbid tradition of foot-binding and concubinage, women were subject to stereotypical treatment as well. In works of literature, they are described as meek and passive, and often helplessly subject to a western tyrant’s mistreatment. In addition, women were often portrayed to be uneducated, foolish, and subject to the ridicule of her western friend in fictional settings.
What subsequently followed in western history appear a complex amalgamation of the two perspectives: a victim of exploitation by the west deserving sympathy; a sinister, threatening, violent avatar descended from the 19th-century heathen Chinee; or a clever and pompous man aspiring to be a second-rate Westerner. These stock figures leave their legacy even into the late 20th century; a Newsweek report from 1979 describes Deng Xiaoping as “a compelling and exotic little man in his charcoal Mao suit, white socks and enigmatic smile.”
Since China’s opening to trade in the 1980s, several factors draw attention - marvel and envy - from others. A once-secretive land now opened to the world, the wonder and awe expressed by many recall the pure nostalgia from the days of Marco Polo. Yet contrastingly, Chinese immigrants in the west are perceived as a threat to the labour force, a foreign ‘other’ there to deprive the locals of their jobs.
Today, its one-party socialist economic system is the target of much debate and strong opinions among academics and politicians; and its status as an ‘emerging superpower’ signals itself as a considerable contender for the title of world hegemon, currently occupied by the US. The showdown between two contrasting economies has necessarily drawn speculation and dissatisfaction among those who were negatively affected by China’s rise, such as employment and trade concerns; this sentiment has been further capitalised on by influential public figures, and because a country is necessarily an over-arching representation of its citizens, any negative portrayals of China will to some degree affect how its people are perceived in the public domain.
Scholarly yet foolish, barbaric yet meek. To sum up, perceptions of China and Chinese people have necessarily fluctuated between ‘overly positive’ and ‘overly negative’ throughout the last few centuries. Focusing on the latter, the next section aims to argue for the relevance of these attitudes and beliefs in the context of the ongoing epidemic.
Prejudice against Chinese people: stereotypes and differences in norms
“It doesn’t matter how much I’ve accomplished or how hard I’ve worked,” he said. “None of that shields me or anyone else. I’m still just a target because I’m east Asian.”
STEREOTYPES
The outbreak of coronavirus has been associated with China and (ethnically) Chinese people, and the situation has evolved such that it has become symptomatic of a long history of demonising Chinese people from the Western lens as explored above. For instance, the Australia-based tabloid Herald Sun labelled Covid-19 as a “Chinese Virus” causing “Pandamonium” as its headline story. Similarly, Donald Trump has made use of the same term in his Tweet, leading it to trend, where a few dominant Twitter users insist on its justification by emphasising existing stereotypes of Chinese behaviour and by bringing in politics. Even the University of California Berkeley has released a statement normalising racism, reassuring students that it is natural to experience “fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about those feelings”. This statement was quickly revoked.
Online issues like that divide our diverse body of people embodying different cultures. Yet the situation is far from exclusively online. Recently, in west London, a man from Thailand was taunted and physically assaulted, leaving him with a broken nose and a lost pair of headphones which the perpetrators stole, though no doubt damage has been done beyond the physical, tangible surface. The victim described that this event had reduced him to a mere “target”. Rather unusual was that the perpetrators did not immediately leave the crime scene, instead continue to harass the victim, who felt that the incident was no longer a robbery but a “bullying” and “a bit of messing around”. What could have made them so bold to remain, where the victim was able to take photos of them and pass to police? Perhaps this motivation can be traced to people’s underlying beliefs about those of Chinese appearance.
Stereotypes of Asians as submissive and non-aggressive make them easy targets for hate and for bullying. The University of York’s anonymous confessions page, Yorfess, saw comments reinforcing such stereotypes. One described Asian students as “cliquey and unwilling to integrate” and therefore that the risk of the virus spreading is low; others assert that Chinese students deserve the virus for being “dirty and disgusting” and for their “weird food habits”. Because of this, students feel threatened, yet those who publicly plead for an end to xenophobic sentiments may end up receiving further retaliation and personal attacks. This is a vicious spiral and, until the overarching situation improves, this may not alleviate. Further, a possible legacy of the coronavirus is that it could continue to be used as a device for ridicule and discrimination of ethnically-Chinese people.
FACE MASKS
An Asian-looking person, in a face mask, solemnly wandering around some urban dystopia, has now too often been the header photo of countless coronavirus news stories. A Vox article claims that media is unethically abusing this trope, and may lead to both misrepresentation of factual information and encouragement of xenophobia. For instance, the New York Post confirmed the first coronavirus case in Manhattan - a Manhattan woman - yet used a picture of an Asian man being the lone wearer of a face mask among a group of people in Queens. The use of this picture was a blunt violation of editorial accuracy, according to Kainaz Amaria (Vox), and the incorrect association of the man with the news story could add to the xenophobia already faced by Asians.
Wearing a mask in the West and the East could mean different things, and this difference induces people to come to hasty, misunderstood judgements about others. The use of face masks is encouraged in China even if the wearer is not sick, in order to protect them from getting sick; on the other hand, in the west, wearing a face mask signals that the wearer is sick. This difference is arguably due to a lack of concrete evidence connecting ‘two schools of thought’ behind the science of wearing masks. Different countries argue for the usefulness of face masks but reach different conclusions; this is further complicated by the unknown science surrounding the coronavirus.
The Chinese State Council notes that even people at ‘low risk’ of infection should wear a disposable mask for medical use; these include people who live in densely-populated areas, for example. A key argument is that the mask is a barrier to the respiratory droplets through which the novel coronavirus spreads. On the contrary, according to the NHS, face masks, while fundamental to places like hospitals, deliver little widespread benefit for the public. Consequently, not only should they not be used by the general public to ensure sufficient supplies are available for key workers such as staff working in hospitals, but also that respiratory droplets may be small enough to still pass through the ‘barrier’. Public opinions as such subsequently influence habitual norms specific to each country. However, one should also remember that mask-wearing is also a part of a country’s cultural habits, including for non-medical reasons, such as for style and to keep warm during colder seasons.
Ethnically-Chinese minorities face significant stigmatism over wearing a mask in public in western countries. This includes during commutes to work, and at work. In the former, they are often targets of humiliation and abuse; in the latter, they are often suspected of being sick by their colleagues, though in this case it is not necessarily out of malicious intent. An ethnically-Chinese student working as a research assistant in New York describes mask-wearing as a “civic duty”, but her western colleagues do not perceive it in the same way.
It is okay to be cautious, as the above student’s colleagues have been in the work environment. In the public domain, however, people are much less considerate, and this poses a risk for the targets’ wellbeing. Given that some of this difference in attitudes towards mask-wearing originate from cultural norms, we should respect these and instead focus on reconciling the divided opinions on health research, to come to a mutual agreement on what is best for everyone beyond a cultural perspective. That being said, this is difficult given the infeasibility and unethical nature of theoretical experiments: one cannot randomly allocate ‘mask’ or ‘no mask’ to individuals among a group, and expose them all to the virus.
2020: A World in Distress
The start of the new year, new decade has been a turbulent one. It’s not just people who are feeling the wrath of the pandemic, but also economic and financial markets, where volatility has almost reached 2008 levels. While the latter is out of our individual control, we can do our part in this dire situation by maintaining our respect for others.
There were periods of time where racism directed towards Chinese people have slightly alleviated as a result of the virus spreading worldwide; people have gradually stopped poking fun at China and became much more alert at the situation in their domestic neighbourhood. However, this has proven to be a highly fragile equilibrium. Waves and surges of racist sentiment are frequent and visible both online and offline. It has not truly receded.
Crises bring out the worst in people. Nonetheless, especially as the whole world is struggling in this fight, we should embrace tolerance, understanding, and openness to others. The world already seems divided enough - let us not contribute to this chasm any further.
Stay safe, and stay kind to others. Let us overcome this ‘pathogen of prejudice’.
A piece by Brooklyn Han
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