Racist slurs reflect US president's failure to timely respond to outbreak

The latest use of "China virus" and "kung flu" by the US president and some other US leaders is not just a presidential election year stunt and a desperate bid to deflect public attention from the administration's failure to timely and appropriately respond to the pandemic, but blatant racism that people should not ignore, let alone condone.

The US president indulged in racist slurs during his 2016 election campaign. Now with his job approval rating holding steady at a low level and the picture of the US' response to the novel coronavirus pandemic looking bleaker than before, blaming China to distract American public attention has become a strategy for the US administration ahead of the presidential election scheduled for November.

Gallup polls in the past week showed that only 38 percent of Americans approve of the job the US president has been doing, while a new high of 65 percent of adults in the US say the pandemic situation in the country is getting worse, contradicting what the US administration claims.

With more than 2.92 million COVID-19 cases and 129,000 deaths, according to WHO figures, the US is by far the worst-hit country in terms of pandemic control and mitigation. Many other economies, such as the European Union, have effectively flattened, even lowered the curve after suffering a heavy blow. Yet the world's only superpower continues to set single-day records — it registered more than 60,000 new novel coronavirus cases on Tuesday.

That's why US leaders have intensified their attacks against China, often using racist language, in campaign rallies, on TV and social media, in a bid to deflect public criticism.

Sadly, resorting to such racist rhetoric is regarded as a good strategy by some Republicans to appeal to the voters. The fact that many supporters in campaign rallies cheered the leaders who used racist language should shock the world, especially after worldwide anti-racism protests sparked by the death of African American George Floyd due to police brutality in Minnesota on May 25.

The racist slurs relished by top US officials are also partly responsible for the increasing discrimination and attacks against Asian Americans. A Pew survey released on July 1 showed that about four-in-10 US adults say it has become more common for people to express racist views against Asians since the pandemic broke out.

However, the condemnation of such racist language against Asian Americans is more muted than during the recent Black Lives Matter movement. Peter Navarro, a White House trade adviser with a track record of hate speech against China, has frequently used lies and racist language in his interviews with US media outlets lately, but he has often gone unchecked and unchallenged. Which speaks volumes of how media outlets sometimes, intentionally and unintentionally, spread racism.

MSNBC host Ali Velshi set a good example by quickly contesting Navarro who was peddling his conspiracy theory last Saturday on a program saying China "spawned the virus" and "they hid the virus. They sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals over here to seed and spread the virus before we knew". Velshi was quick to question Navarro: "What are you talking about?"

In reply to the US president's tweet on Monday that "China has caused great damage to the United States and the rest of the World!", I tweeted that the whole world knows how incompetent and anti-science he has been in his response to the outbreak. The tweet received more than half a million views and has been quoted by several news outlets.

Those US politicians may not stop using xenophobia and racism to advance their political agenda, but at least sane people across the world should speak out more forcefully against such hate rhetoric, so as to not to become their accomplice.

The author is chief of China Daily EU Bureau based in Brussels.