The coronavirus pandemic, in addition to ending dozens of lives, is also triggering racial tensions around the world. There is a long history of naming pandemics by linking them to a specific place and people. For example, the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was found in Spain, was named ‘Spanish flu’ and the recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) is named after the Ebola River in the Congo, where it was first discovered. . In the same way, West Nile Virus and Zika were also named after their geographic origins. Following the same theme, people started calling the coronavirus, which first reared its ugly head in the Chinese city of Wuhan, as ‘Wuhan coronavirus’ or ‘Chinese virus’. Even well-known Western newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post used similar terms to initially refer to the virus.
Official nomenclature: The World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the death as coronavirus disease and the virus as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The Associated Press (AP) style book, which is considered the gold standard for media professionals, prescribed the use of coronavirus or COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-19).
Trump’s plain language: In the United States, heading into the election, where political temperatures have recently risen, Republicans have begun using terms like Wuhan Coronavirus, Chinese Virus, and even Kung-Flu to highlight the origins of the virus. President Trump, who tends to trash political correctness and tell the truth, repeatedly used the expression ‘Chinese Virus’ to highlight the fact that the virus not only originated in China but also spread due to conspiratorial actions. of the totalitarian communist regime in China.
Is the reference to China racist? The Communist Party of China (CCP), which does not respect freedom of expression and exercises strict control over its domestic media, has opposed the use of China-centric expressions, calling them racist. And left-leaning Western newspapers, which until now used the same terms, changed their tune and began to toe the CCP line. Even leftist politicians around the world also toed the CCP line and started punishing people who used expressions that highlighted the Chinese origins of the virus.
What people think? Despite what the WHO says or what the AP Stylebook prescribes, the virus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan will always remain a ‘Chinese virus’ in people’s minds. Because people firmly believe that the terrible eating habits of the Chinese and the conspiratorial actions of their communist regime regarding the outbreak of the virus pushed the world into this terrible crisis.
Mass cover-up: It is a widely known fact that the CCP-led communist regime is highly despotic and authoritarian. He wants to use his economic and military influence to achieve his political and territorial ambitions. In pursuit of his ambitions, he tightly controls information to build a favorable narrative about himself. As a result, there are hardly any independent media houses in China. The media houses that exist in China have been reduced to mere propaganda machines of the despotic regime. There are reports that China is even trying to gain favorable publicity by buying popular newspapers to plant favorable news and opinion pieces about itself. It is said that even many Indian journalists sold their souls to the CCP.
Terrible Eating Habits: After the coronavirus pandemic began to inflict ever-increasing mortality, many questions were raised about the role played by China, where the disease originated. The first thing the world began to discuss is the terrible eating habits of the Chinese. The Chinese are known to eat anything that moves, including scorpions, snakes, bats, dogs, donkeys, and more. According to the research findings, the new coronavirus originates from Chinese slaughterhouses and wet markets. Therefore, people all over the world concluded that the terrible eating habits of the Chinese caused the birth of this virus. Many videos are circulating both on social and mainstream media, showing the incredibly cruel methods the Chinese use to kill animals, such as boiling and burning live animals.
Conspiracy Actions: And furthermore, there are many accusations that China hid the enormity of the virus outbreak to prevent damage to its economy. She misled the world by stating that the coronavirus is not transmitted from human to human and therefore the world should not worry about it. He also tried to create the impression that the virus is only local to China and therefore no flight needs to be cancelled. The world trusted his words and paid a heavy price as a result in terms of loss of life and damage to the economy.
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
The tweet made by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 14, 2020 is a clear indication that China lied about the nature of the virus.
Li Wenliang, China’s whistleblower doctor, who warned his colleagues about the virus in December 2019 and took to social media to alert people, has been accused of spreading fake news and reprimanded by the Communist Party of China (CPC). ). The doctor subsequently contracted the virus and died while receiving treatment. The CPC made a posthumous apology to the doctor’s family. There are many observers who feel that if the CCP had listened to it and taken proper steps to curb the spread of the disease and even alert the world community, the world would have been in a much better place to mitigate the side effects of the virus. outbreak.
Expulsion of Journos: China expelled many American journalists who it thought were working against its interests. Journalists working for prominent newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have been expelled by China for not following its rules. The endless opacity maintained by the CCP dealt a death blow to the world’s efforts to contain the virus during its early stages.
Selling Fake Fatality Numbers: Many observers are even suspicious of the death toll figures given by China. If a small country like Italy can have more than 15,000 deaths, China must have suffered many more deaths, which it somehow hid. According to a US intelligence report, China’s public reports of cases and deaths are intentionally incomplete and its death figures are false.
Conspiracy theories: There are many conspiracy theories that are flying. Many observers believe that China, to promote its economic and territorial ambitions and establish its hegemony in the world, was involved in the manufacture of biological weapons. And during the manufacturing process of these weapons the virus accidentally escaped from one of their laboratories.
According to the tweet sent by China Daily on May 29, 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in Wuhan, Hubei province, preserved more than 1,500 virus strands. Surprisingly, the tweet was deleted some time ago, reinforcing suspicions that China wants to hide something from the world community. Many observers suspect that the virus escaped from one of those bioresearch labs due to poor biosafety management.
Although there is no way to verify these claims at this time, suspicions will always remain in the minds of people who consider the CPC to be untrustworthy.
Biased WHO: Even the WHO was on the receiving end for the way it handled the coronavirus crisis. Instead of independently verifying the facts, he simply followed the Chinese Communist Party line and kept the world in the dark.
When many countries including the United States, Australia and Singapore were denying entry to foreigners traveling from China as part of their efforts to limit the spread of the virus, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom urged the world community not to do so. He even went so far as to end such measures and “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade.” His statements toeing the line of the CCP were largely responsible for the spread of the virus far and wide.
He even misled the world about the nature of the disease. There are allegations that the head of the WHO, when he was the health minister of Ethiopia, acted in favor of Chinese interests, and China, as a quid-pro-quo, actively promoted his candidacy for the position of head of the WHO using its political influence. .
Conclusion: The COVID-19 outbreak and its aftermath brought to light the dangerous and toxic nature of China’s communist regime. The lack of democracy and the absence of independent media keep the world in the dark about the potential dangers arising from China. Its economic, political and territorial expansionism denies equal conditions to other nations and works to its disadvantage. Therefore, the world must unite to launch an independent investigation into the virus outbreak and the role played by the Chinese communist regime.
China, after navigating through the crisis by keeping everyone in the dark about developments, opened its factories and resumed production. The COVID-19 test kits it exported to Spain and Turkey have been shown to be defective. Even the Netherlands, after discovering that the masks imported from China were defective, withdrew them from the market. Although the products produced in China are known for their mediocrity, the virus that originated there seems to be strong and long-lasting. The world community undoubtedly has to form a united front to combat the coronavirus disease at this time. But at the same time, it must also be on guard not to let the Chinese totalitarian regime exploit the situation to establish its political, territorial and economic hegemony over the world.
List of works cited:
Hasson, Peter. “China helped put this man in charge of the World Health Organization. Is it paying off?” The National InterestThe Center of National Interest, March 23, 2020.
Lisa, Schlein. “WHO chief urges countries not to close borders to foreigners from China.” voice of americaFebruary 3, 2020.
Nick, Wadhams, and Jennifer Jacobs. “China hid extent of virus outbreak, says US intelligence” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, April 1. 2020.
Payne, Adam. “The Netherlands has recalled 600,000 coronavirus masks it imported from China after discovering they were defective.” Business InsiderMarch 29, 2020.
