Sinophobia Part 2 - The Media
The second in a four-part series, multidisciplinary playwright, actor, spoken-word poet and Mandarin translator, Enxi Chang 常恩悉 , explores the increased prevalence of Sinophobia, and Western society’s reluctance to admit it.
In the first part of this series, I discussed how Sinophobia is all too often glossed over and ignored when discussing the rise in Anti-Asian racism, even by people within the ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) diaspora. Given recent events, addressing and tackling Sinophobia is more urgent than ever, yet as usual, there is a concerted, coordinated attempt by media outlets and institutions to divert the conversation to other factors, or even to deny the existence of Sinophobia altogether.
The horrific Atlanta spa shootings on 16th March 2021 were a turning point. After over a year of looking the other way, the rest of the world can no longer ignore what the ESEA community has been dealing with for over a year - and longer. The Atlanta shootings were the first time that many people realised that Anti-Asian racism is a real thing, let alone a serious problem, and the reaction has been a predictable mixture of bewilderment, confusion and denial, not least of which from the media.
The news coverage immediately following the shootings seemed intent on downplaying the racial element of the attacks as much as humanly possible, either by focusing entirely on the misogynistic nature of the attacks and not mentioning the race of the victims at all, or by outright denying the attacks had any kind of racial motivation. Of course, there was undoubtedly a deeply misogynistic element to this attack, but to suggest misogyny is the only factor demonstrates both a clear lack of intersectional analysis, as well as a misunderstanding of how racism against ESEA bodies operates. The police in Atlanta issued a statement that the attacks were purely the result of the killer's sex addiction, and there was no reason to believe they were racially motivated. He was just having a 'bad day'.
Because of this man's 'bad day', Tan Xiaojie, Hyun J Grant, Feng Daoyou, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Park Soon-chung, Kim Sun-cha and Yue Yong-Ae lost their lives.
Many have condemned the initial police and media
response exactly for what it is - the well-oiled machine
of white supremacy springing into action to protect its own.
Following the intense public outcry, more and more articles placing this racialised femicide within the wider context of Anti-Asian racism have been written, but the vast majority seem entirely uninterested in addressing the real systemic roots of why this is happening in the first place, instead treating this wave of violence as isolated incidents stemming from COVID-influenced racism, and little more.
Indeed, it seems the media is far more interested in stoking tensions between communities of colour - it's not a coincidence that when Vicha Ratanapakdee was shoved and consequently killed by a Black man, there was no attempt to humanise the killer or debate his motivations. It was reported as racially motivated and that was that, whereas a white man who made the conscious decision to drive to three different Asian spas and kill eight people has been afforded empathy, humanity and a backstory. The agenda couldn't be more disingenuous, and it couldn't be more transparent.
As besea.n is a UK-based organisation, it is important to discuss how the tragedy in Atlanta has affected things over here: Sinophobia and Anti-Asian racism are not exclusive to the US. This piece will examine and critique two articles in The Guardian - generally considered the most left wing of the UK's mainstream newspapers - and how they have chosen to report on the tragedy in Atlanta and the racism facing ESEA communities as A WHOLE.
The first article is Myths of Asian privilege fuel a brutal and cartoonish bigotry by Kenan Malik. Overall, the article provides a fairly nuanced critique of how American race discourse regarding Asians has been primarily focused on the model minority myth, and the extent to which Asian Americans benefit from 'privilege' due to their perceived high socioeconomic status (which doesn't reflect how wealth inequality among Asian Americans is higher than any other racial group in the US).
The article also provides a fairly comprehensive picture of Anti-Asian sentiment within the US, stating that the wave of hate crimes sparked by the pandemic and Trump's 'China Virus' rhetoric fits into 'a long history of Anti-Asian racism reaching back to the “yellow peril” panics of the 19th century'.
However, the article is critical of the role of 'white supremacy' as a catch all for understanding the roots of Anti-Asian racism within America, citing racial tensions between the Black and Asian communities such as the infiltration of Asian-owned businesses in Black neighbourhoods and the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, as another major contributor to Anti-Asian racism.
This is a nuanced and complex topic to navigate - while the above events and more have undoubtedly stoked tension between the Black and Asian communities in the US, this article comes dangerously close to placing hostility towards Asians as an issue fuelled by interracial tensions rather than ultimately systemic factors, especially given its explicit downplaying of white supremacy as a contributing factor.
Generational anti-Blackness within ESEA communities must be addressed, but it doesn't feel like that's what this article is referring to. Instead, the article seems to be implicitly reinforcing narratives that Black people are the main aggressors towards the ESEA community, an inherently anti-Black implication that sows further division, as well as being untrue - hate crimes towards ESEA people are primarily a result of how society and the media chooses to portray and stereotype ESEA bodies, rather than the actions of individuals or inter-community tensions.
After all, if identitarian politics specific to US history rather than white supremacy are the main reasons for anti-Asian racism, the article fails to account for the rise in hate crimes targeting ESEA people outside of the US, which has seen a spike across Europe, Australia and Canada, none of which are countries with the same history of racial tensions.
It feels as though this article is operating off a fundamental misunderstanding of what white supremacy actually is. White supremacy is not just Britain First rallies or hooded KKK members burning crosses. White supremacy is a complex, multinational power structure that we are all unknowingly complicit in upholding, and it is imperative to understand and think about 'white supremacy' as shorthand for a huge number of issues, ranging from microagressions to institutionalised racism, from the way Western European accents are viewed as romantic and sophisticated while accents from the Global South are mocked, to imperialist propaganda about countries that are not allied with US hegemony - including but not limited to Sinophobia.
White supremacy is not simply acts of white aggression; it is the power structure that has historically enabled violence against people of colour across the world stretching back to the colonial era as well as 20th century imperialist military aggression in countries like Vietnam, Laos, Korea and the Philippines that caused the mass displacement of ESEA refugees across the Western world. US-specific racial tensions are a US issue, but the imperialist power structure of white supremacy is not, and it is within the interest of a white supremacist power structure to sow tensions between marginalised communities, as this article seems to be doing. Some commentators have stated that focusing on white supremacy as the root cause of Anti-Asian hate is reductive, politically correct narrative pushed by US college students, but this belief is (ironically) reductive in and of itself, rooting itself in US exceptionalism and displaying a misunderstanding of how white supremacy manifests through imperialism at home and abroad.
In contrast, another article in The Guardian, The Guardian view on anti-Asian hate: not just a pandemic problem comes close to addressing the systemic issues at hand while skirting around confronting the issue head-on. Again, the article mentions Trump and the rise in Anti-Asian hate crimes, but the final paragraphs are of note:
Denouncing assaults and avoiding overtly racist terms such as “kung flu” is not enough. [...] Politicians, the media and others must take much more care that policies, rhetoric and imagery distinguish clearly between the actions of Beijing and the lives of Chinese immigrants or those of Asian descent. There must be no loyalty tests, or sweeping bans on Chinese nationals. Valid concerns about Beijing’s handling of the virus, economic policy or covert influence should be raised in a way that recognises and reduces the dangers of scapegoating or racial profiling.
Perpetrators, of course, bear the primary responsibility for hate crimes. But those who fail to bring them to book, and those who foster a climate of suspicion, discrimination and intolerance, must be held accountable too.
This is encouraging. It is commendable that a mainstream news outlet has gone as far as to implicitly condemn the frightening levels of Sinophobia within Western society, although it falls short of using the actual word. However, perspectives like this are few and far between. To use just one example - Idrees Ahmad, senior editor of Newlines Magazine and writer for Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and yes, The Guardian, recently tweeted this absolute cappery:
It is wildly irresponsible for Ahmad to use his platform to spread misinformation as transparent as 'there is virtually no discussion of China in the UK'. At best, this tweet demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of what is going on in the UK, and at worst it is a deliberate lie with deeply violent connotations. I already provided several examples of the UK media's obsession with China (and sinophobic rhetoric) within British media in the last part of this column, but even before the outbreak of the pandemic, throughout the latter half of 2019 the UK was consumed by constant debates over Hong Kong's sovereignty. I'd also like to shout out @dearasianyouthlondon, who made a viral IG post (over 100k likes) showcasing the violently sinophobic reaction of the British public to Boris Johnson wishing the British Chinese community a Happy New Year - hardly the reaction of a country where there is 'virtually no discussion of China'.
It's especially distressing - though unsurprising - to see this narrative being pushed by a person of colour. POC in mainstream journalism occupy a precious space, largely beholden to their primarily white employers, colleagues and readership. Chinese reporters are no exception, expected to condemn China 24/7 or else be labelled a CCP spy. The number of influential figures on China Journo Twitter (Chinese and non-Chinese alike) who have remained completely silent on the rise of Anti-Asian racism despite maintaining an active twitter presence is deeply worrying, albeit for different reasons. It's clear that white China Watchers (like the ones I discussed in my last column) have absolutely no interest in taking any accountability for the real-world consequences of their academic curiosity, while many Chinese journalists are presumably too afraid of the potential fallout to speak out, articulated in this thread/cry for help from UK-based academic Chenchen Zhang (who I'm blocked by on Twitter 🥰)
Scapegoating the pandemic, racial tensions, or Trump's 'China Virus' rhetoric (an all-too-common liberal tactic designed to prevent true systemic change by pinning accountability for the US' vast array of systemic issues on a single orange boogeyman rather than the imperialist power structure that enabled Trump's rise in the first place) for the rise in Anti-Asian racism is a depressingly predictable response by a liberal Western media superstructure designed to gaslight us into upholding white supremacy at all costs. But the cracks are beginning to show.
Slowly but surely, awareness of Sinophobia is creeping into mainstream discourse, and the word itself is finally gaining traction outside of often problematic pro-China online leftist circles. It's clear that the media still hasn't worked out how to craft the narrative surrounding anti-ESEA racism - after all, they've been ignoring it for this long. This provides an opportunity for ESEA activists and allies to push for genuine systemic change, rather than parroting superficial liberal platitudes.
White supremacy is not just perpetuated by individuals.
Hate crimes cannot be viewed as isolated incidents,
the result of nothing more than interracial tensions
and the actions of individuals who are having a 'bad day'.
We have to start demanding accountability from the organisations, institutions who uphold the systems and ideologies that enable these individuals in the first place. People are dying, and the answer is not better media representation, or increased policing (do people not remember Christian Hall? Or everything that last summer was about?).
Stopping Asian Hate means radical systemic change, it means decolonisation, mutual aid, anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, it means addressing and dismantling our own internalised racism, anti-Blackness, colourism, sinophobia and inter-community conflict. It means locating white supremacy wherever it exists, whether in the media or our own communities, and tearing it out at the root - because white supremacy enabled all of this, and white supremacy pulled the trigger.
Enxi Chang 常恩悉 is a multidisciplinary playwright, actor, spoken-word poet and Mandarin translator working in theatre, film and music. Her work seeks to bridge the gap between China and the West, whilst exploring the intersections of mixed diaspora identity, growing up in London, and navigating the world as a trans woman. She is also a member of queer mixed-Asian music collective East Wave (@eastwavecollective). Previous credits include Invisible Harmony and WeRNotVirus. Her poetry was recently featured on Benjamin Zephaniah's spoken word show Life and Rhymes. To find out more follow @miss_enxi on Instagram and Twitter.