Trump’s ‘Chinese’ Virus
Recently, there has been some controversy over Trump calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” instead of using its accepted scientific name, COVID-19. Some have called him racist and insensitive to the Asian-American community for this geographic terminology while others have defended its use.
“It’s not racist it all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.”
In response to his opponents, Trump defended himself saying that it did come from China and that he was just being accurate. He stated in a white house press meeting, “It’s not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.”
As an individual who is half-Chinese, I have to agree with Trump that the term is not racist by definition. China is a nationality, not a race, and countless other diseases were named from their origin: West Nile Virus, Zika, Lyme, etc. In fact, diseases were consistently named by their origin. It was only recently in 2015 that the World Health Organization (WHO) altered their naming guidelines to remove geographic locations in disease nomenclature.
Also, to be fair, the Chinese government does have to take a lot of blame for the origin of the pandemic. Their lack of regulation on the wet markets led to the virus’ rapid growth through terrible, dirty conditions and various wild animals.
Not to mention, they silenced scientists and doctors who were trying to call attention to coronavirus and its potential impact during the initial stages of this pandemic. In December, Dr. Li Wenliang tried to alert the media of COVID-19’s danger in Wuhan, but the Chinese police silenced him, telling him to “stop making false statements.” He later died from the very same disease he tried to warn the Chinese government about.
To make matters worse, the Chinese media is spinning a false narrative that the virus came from an American soldier. Because of the Chinese censorship of news and the internet, a large portion of the Chinese population actually blame America for the virus.
Therefore, I do not believe Trump is referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” to be racist at all; he is just firing shots at China in response to their internal disinformation campaign and playing a blame war with China.
However, even though it’s a pretty far stretch to call his comments racist from my perspective as a half-Chinese individual, racism in America against Asians has escalated recently. Trump’s decision to call it the “Chinese virus” debatably made the situation worse by inciting more racism by making it easier for already racist people to place the blameon Asians. Chinese-Americans and other Asians have received hurtful comments, exclusion, and in some cases, have even had violence against them. While it’s definitely not Trump’s fault by any means, he didn’t make the situation better by calling it the “Chinese virus.”
In tough times like these, politicians and people in power shouldn’t make comments that could potentially foster disunity or controversy but should rather make decisions that bring everyone together. Consequently, Trump has recently decided to stop using the name “Chinese virus” and tweeted that we need to support our Asian community.
….is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020