{"id":251,"date":"2020-05-08T19:34:16","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T23:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/?p=251"},"modified":"2020-05-08T19:34:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T23:34:16","slug":"the-enemy-of-your-enemy-is-not-your-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/uncategorized\/the-enemy-of-your-enemy-is-not-your-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"The Enemy of Your Enemy is Not Your Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Audience: Readers in the Pioneer Valley, perhaps The Daily Hampshire Gazette.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In a mere three months, the racism and xenophobia brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is so extensive that <\/span>Wikipedia has an article documenting incidents from all continents<\/span><\/a> (except for Antarctica, which has no confirmed cases) with a whopping 337 citations, despite being <\/span>created on February 2nd<\/span><\/a>. I don\u2019t need to conduct a survey to know that this behavior is abhorrent to the vast majority of us here in the Pioneer Valley. The gut reaction to hearing President Trump use racist language towards a minority group is to push back against it in whatever way we can and express our solidarity with his targets. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that; it is imperative that we continue to provide a welcoming environment for those that are subject to hate crimes and other discriminatory behavior, even when national figureheads openly sow racial divisions amid international crises. However, we cannot let valid criticism of China be ignored in the name of anti-racism, even if there are Americans spreading conspiracy theories that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan and blaming China for a failure in domestic responses.<\/span><\/p>\n

I urge residents of the Valley to not make the mistake of conflating the actions of China\u2019s rulers with the interests of China\u2019s workers and residents, and realize that oppressive regimes are not limited to the legacies of Western ex-colonial countries like Great Britain and the United States. While \u201cChina\u201d or \u201cthe Chinese\u201d can be used to refer to a government or its people, it would be disingenuous to say the two are the same. Donald Trump is president of the United States despite less than half of the population voting for him in 2016. Could we say that he represents all of our views and wants exactly what we want? Does saying that the United States (the government) failed to deploy measures to combat the coronavirus mean that the United States (its residents) is culpable for the spread within its borders? Of course not. Should we not extend the same logic to the Chinese government and the individuals it claims to represent? It is entirely possible to criticize China (the government) for bungling its coronavirus response without resorting to racist dogwhistling and claiming all Chinese people are unhygienic. It might be a good idea to celebrate medical workers in China the way we do for the ones in the U.S.; in both countries, they are staying awake and working tirelessly to treat COVID-19 patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite touting itself as anti-imperialist and left-wing, the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s claims of progressiveness are overshadowed by its actions, which I fear may have misled some of my peers. I have heard dismissals of reports that China has continually underreported the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus, particularly from those of the anti-capitalist stripe who mistrust Western critiques of China as merely stoking fear about leftist policies. This dismissal sometimes includes pointing to the Chinese government\u2019s <\/span>response to the SARS outbreak in 2003<\/span><\/a>, noting that the <\/span>closure of markets in Wuhan<\/span><\/a> came much more quickly and probably mitigated the spread of COVID-19. Despite this, there is evidence of authorities attempting to suppress <\/span>information about the disease during the early days of the pandemic<\/span><\/a>, and attempts to control the narrative after fact include censoring <\/span>messages on WeChat<\/span><\/a>, the state-funded social media app (and the most popular one in China), and <\/span>deploying bots to praise China\u2019s response abroad<\/span><\/a>. Combined with the <\/span>pre-existing restriction of free press combined with extensive surveillance<\/span><\/a>, this points to a government that is acting in direct contrast to the interests and well being of its citizens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of a country without this heavy handed restriction of speech, it is important to level a critique against a government that is only meant to benefit itself, rather than the constituency it is supposed to serve. This is true whether this is about a leader elected by our fellow citizens strawmanning an ethnic group to improve their election odds and enrich themselves or a foreign superpower maintaining a facade of control over a major health crisis. Praising the Chinese government for their efforts to contain the pandemic condones the way they treat their constituents and feeds into a narrative that could hamper a response during the next pandemic, or aid a resurgence of coronavirus cases in China, should the Chinese government continue to suppress information and underreport statistics, leading their citizens to believe they are safe to resume life like it was before the pandemic. Even as we uphold values of racial tolerance in the Valley, we should also remember that a personal attack from Trump doesn\u2019t mean his target should be immune from being held accountable for their actions.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Audience: Readers in the Pioneer Valley, perhaps The Daily Hampshire Gazette.) In a mere three months, the racism and xenophobia brought on by the COVID-19…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingThe Enemy of Your Enemy is Not Your Friend<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4219,"featured_media":252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-oped","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}