The Hate Country
Now is the perfect time for US to reflect on how anti-China outlook is fuelling hatred against all Asians across America
Tom Fowdy
is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.17 Mar, 2021 18:26Get short URL
Dawn Cheung and Victoria Do clap and cheer while listening to speakers during a protest against anti-Asian hate crimes © Reuters / Lindsey Wasson
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Follow RT onAnti-Asian sentiment is on the rise in the US, fanned by constant criticism of China over Covid-19 and its increasing global influence. Politicians must realise that legitimising hostility encourages racism.
America woke up today to the appalling news of shootings at massage parlors in Georgia that claimed the lives of eight people, including at least six female victims of Asian origin, four of whom were Korean Americans.
A suspect has since been arrested. The specifics behind the killings are still under investigation, although it is being claimed ‘sex addiction’ may be to blame. Early speculation, though, had suggested that anti-Asian racism may have been behind the slaughter, and even if that proves not to be the case, the very idea that it was being considered as a potential motive is alarming, but perhaps not surprising.
It’s abundantly clear that anti-Asian sentiment has increased in the United States due to the impact of Covid-19 and Donald Trump’s confrontational policies against China.
This has led to a surge in reported racial hate crimes which have targeted Asian people from all backgrounds. Between March and December last year, nearly 3,000 incidents were reported by the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate, which has even documented assaults on elderly people.ALSO ON RT.COMPompeo has wilfully crossed China’s red line on Taiwan, and now the world waits to see how Beijing will respond
These figures are shocking, and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the Trump administration must bear some responsibility for exacerbating Sinophobia in the US on multiple levels, via the virus and constant fearmongering against Beijing in the pursuit of geopolitical goals.
There’s little sign of significant change under Joe Biden. The White House continues to politicize the virus and place accountability on Beijing, albeit in a more refined manner, and has accepted Trump’s new anti-China consensus.
Diseases have a long history of being tied to xenophobia and racism. It is a well-established trait that a given community blames a pandemic on another group that it believes to be dirty, uncivilized and inferior, believing that such an event could not have occurred otherwise. Therefore, a logic of accountability is invoked against this ‘other.’ This mindset exists within a broader orientalist discourse of ‘east vs west’ and, by extension, popular beliefs concerning China and Chinese culture.
When Covid-19 struck the west, some politicians sensed an opportunity to invoke this racist sentiment in order to deflect blame towards China, coating it with the disguise of criticizing the country’s political system. The Trump administration sought to use it extremely aggressively, not only to excuse itself of blame – an understandable diversionary tactic, with more than 500,000 Americans now dead – but also to forcibly re-write US foreign policy and steer it permanently towards hostility towards Beijing.ALSO ON RT.COMAmerica’s fantasy that China will soon collapse like the Soviet Union did is based on arrogance and ideology, not facts and reason
As a result, Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heavily pushed the meme of the China virus and blamed Beijing for the catastrophic situation in the US, invoking all kinds of conspiracy theories in the process. Pompeo is still doing it even now.
Yet focusing only on the virus limits the scope of what they did. Yes, the virus was part of the problem, but it was a medium to greater, more sinister things. The administration and its lackeys in the media also whipped up extreme paranoia pertaining to all things China in the process. This included relentless accusations of espionage, which targeted Chinese academics and overseas students. Pompeo even stated that Chinese students who studied in the US were sent by the communist party. At every level, the White House promulgated hatred, and despite the focus on racial injustices thanks to the Black Lives Matter protests, received very little scrutiny for it.
It is no surprise that in such an environment, bombarded with negativity and hatred every day, that American perceptions of China have plummeted to a historic low. Actions, of course, have consequences, and what are those consequences? Although defenders of Trump have persistently argued that they are targeting the Chinese Communist Party and have claimed that they stand with the Chinese people, the surge in hate crimes related to Asian-Americans cannot be a coincidence. It is a product of the new and volatile political context that the Trump presidency engineered and, to some degree, Biden has simply inherited rather than disavowed.ALSO ON RT.COMBiden’s China policy is a ‘diet coke’ version of Trump’s trade & tech war sledgehammer
Last week, in his address to the nation, Biden condemned the “vicious hate crimes against Asian-Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated.” But at the same time, members of the administration continue to politicise the virus. They do not use explicitly racist language such as “China virus” or “Kung-Flu”, yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for example, continues to follow essentially the same messaging of Pompeo by prolonging the idea that China is responsible for the situation in the US. This becomes a venting point for public anger, and continues to put Asian people in the firing line. The language may be a bit softer, a bit more polite, but they have not changed.
The pace of America’s vaccination roll-out may finally help society move on from the flames of hatred that Trump poured petrol over, but we have to be honest in accepting that anti-Asian sentiment has been fuelled by government policy as a whole, rather than just a pandemic.
Decisions made for geopolitical reasons are not detached from ordinary life; they have an impact on society’s outlook as a whole, especially in a democracy where the state is pushing to achieve public consent for its objectives. Therefore, you cannot legitimitize hostility towards China without grassroots consequences. The result is that America is becoming an increasingly hostile place not just for Chinese people, but for all Asians.
Comment: America is, was and always has been a nation full of hate against ALL ASIANS: Korean War, Cambodian War, WW2, Vietnam War, etc. etc. No one geopolitically likes this country and soon America’s hatred will be returned to It when the dollar collapses. Everyone is degraded by Uncle Satan for Uncle Satan is anti-humanity. Period. Racist Uncle Satan represents the super racist Rothschild Nazi’s/British Empire & Their ZIONIST Banksters.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Shootings at Atlanta Asian massage parlours leave eight dead
Three separate massage parlours appear to have been targeted by the same man, who is now in custody.
Wednesday 17 March 2021 20:58, UK
Eight people have been killed in shootings at massage parlours in and around Atlanta, Georgia.
A 21-year-old man suspected of carrying out all three shootings has been arrested.Sponsored link
The attacks began around 5pm local time, when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlour in a strip mall near a rural area in Acworth, about 30 miles north of Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Captain Jay Baker said.
Two people died at the scene and three were taken to hospital where two more succumbed to their injuries. Captain Baker said two of the dead were Asian women, along with a white woman and a white man.
Around 50 minutes later, police called to reports of a robbery at the Gold Spa in the Buckhead neighbourhood of Atlanta found the bodies of three women.Advertisement
While at the scene, they learned of a call reporting shots fired at another spa across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, and found a woman who appeared to have been shot dead inside the business.ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADVERT
Atlanta police’s Chief Rodney Bryant said all the victims of the two attacks in the city appeared to be Asian.
Surveillance cameras picked up the same vehicle at all three shootings.
Around two hours after the last attack, police in Crisp County, 150 miles (241km) south of Atlanta, were informed that the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, was heading in their direction.
Crisp County Sheriff Billy Hancock said deputies and troopers set up along the interstate and “made contact with the suspect,” who was driving a 2007 black Hyundai Tucson, around 8:30pm.
A state trooper performed a PIT, or pursuit intervention technique, manoeuvre, “which caused the vehicle to spin out of control,” Hancock said. Long was then taken into custody “without incident” and was being held in the Crisp County jail.
The killings came amid a recent wave of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the United States.
In New York an NYPD spokesperson told Sky News they are deploying counterterrorism officers to Asian communities throughout the city out of an abundance of caution following the Atlanta shootings.
Comment: This Hate Media/Lie Factory has been doing this a long time:
