A Discourse Rule That Applies Only to Criticism of China
Anti-Asian rhetoric is terrible, and epithets like "Kung Flu" are juvenile. But Communist China uses revulsion to it to insulate itself from criticism.
I am going to quote an anonymous blog commenter calling himself “philosophical ron”:
“China’s various innovations in totalitarianism— especially being able to enlist a vigorous Chinese nationalism to support the structure— are getting very scary.”
This is exactly right. Indeed, nationalism and totalitarianism work together to keep the Communists in power over there. What do I mean by this? Well, the totalitarianism part is obvious- the surveillance state, the oppression of Uyghurs (which is made possible by the surveillance state), the new restrictive laws in Hong Kong, the “Great Firewall” that censors the Internet, etc.
But the nationalism part is poorly understood. The CCP promises the Chinese people that it will restore the greatness of China, that it will retake historically Chinese territory (Hong Kong, Macau- Taiwan, they promise, will be next), that they will stop the western world from pushing China around, etc.
It’s impossible to understand the reaction against any sort of rhetoric blaming China for the coronavirus without considering that fact. Yes, juvenile, proto-racist rhetoric like “Kung Flu” is pretty bad. But how about “China virus”? Is that really racist? The virus not only came from China, but the Chinese government acted extremely irresponsibly- obstructing international efforts to study the virus, and allowing travelers to leave China while internal travel was cracked down. China could have saved hundreds of thousands and perhaps even millions of lives if it had acted properly; it didn’t.
So why can’t we say the word “China” in connection with “virus”? The answer that is always given is that it spurs hate crimes against Asians. This is, I would think, unproven. We just went through this moment in our discourse when what appears to be a hate crime against women perceived to be sex workers was turned into a hate crime against Asians. There also seem to be some random attacks on Asian people in American cities. But nobody’s actually been able to identify anyone attacking Asians specifically because of rhetoric about the coronavirus. (And that causal relationship needs to be very tightly proven- even an attacker who “blames China for the virus” may not be committing his crime based on rhetoric; he very possibly would have done it anyway after coming to the conclusion himself that China was at fault for what happened.)
And in any event, since when do we not blame countries for bad acts because it might spur hate crimes? One thing that happened in World War II was that there was a ton of anti-German sentiment. There were documented hate crimes against German-Americans. That hardly would justify not telling the truth about Nazi Germany. Should we have censored criticism of Stalin because we feared reprisals against patriotic Russian-Americans? Was it improper to describe the crimes of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden because such descriptions could, and did, inspire hate crimes?
Further, though, there’s a particular thing that sticks in my craw about not being able to attribute the virus to China- it’s that "nationalism in the service of totalitarianism” thing I mentioned at the start. China, and its surrogates, are encouraging this discourse rule that saying the virus came from China is hate speech. Are they doing this because they believe in a general principle that saying where a virus came from is hate speech? Not at all. Indeed, before the coronavirus, we always used geographical descriptions for viruses. Ever hear of the Spanish flu? The West Nile virus? Do I have to tell you that Ebola is a region in Africa?
The rule that we must not use a geographical description for viruses was invented on the spot when it turned out a virus may have come from China. And even now, it’s not a real rule. How do I know that? Well, there are variants of the coronavirus- the Brazilian variant, the South African variant, and the UK variant. And we use geographical descriptions for all those variants. The ONLY country that has a privilege that it Shall Not Be Named in connection with a virus is China. Why? Because China is powerful and holds to a norm that criticism of its totalitarian government is an attack on the Chinese people. And not only does the regime enforce that principle on its own populace- it demands the rest of the world follow it too.
Now, you can object that this isn’t that important. And in the scheme of things, I agree, it actually isn’t. I happily abide by the rules of discourse and say “coronavirus” or “COVID-19”, not “China virus” or “Wuhan virus”. But it’s worth noting that China does the same thing on much bigger issues. For instance, it is perfectly clear to anyone with a modicum of understanding of the world that Taiwan is an independent country with its own capital, flag, and form of government. China has no control over Taiwan. Yet China will cut off relations with any country whose officials state that fact. Literally. This has nothing to do with any specific policy- the country might support every single Chinese domestic and foreign policy, favor maximum trade and preferences for Chinese goods, etc. It doesn’t matter- tell the truth and China cuts you off.
And as we go forward, China, I believe, will have discovered it has a very powerful new weapon. Anyone who tells the truth can be accused of inspiring anti-Asian violence, and many surrogates will flood the discourse with accusations against those who seek simply to tell the truth. And THAT is scary.