Chinese Media Blames Trump for ‘Wave of Hate’ Against Asians

A Chinese journalist residing in the U.S. blamed President Donald Trump for a recent “wave of hate” against Asians amid a global backlash against China for its role in spreading the Wuhan coronavirus. The op-ed was published in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper Global Times on Thursday.

Some outlets have reported an increase in alleged hate crimes against Asians in the U.S. and other countries since the world learned that China covered up its initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan at the end of last year, greatly contributing to the rise of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

The Global Times blamed Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus” for the crimes:

The wave of hate was encouraged by President Donald Trump’s description of COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.” According to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, which has been tracking hate crimes against Asians … incidents surged to 650 in the week when the president insisted on using the term in mid-March. Trump has dropped his use of the description now, but in recent weeks he has stepped up his anti-China attacks.

“[T]he average [American] racist hater out there on the street? They normally do not have the intelligence to differentiate between people by anything other than their skin color,” the New York-based author tells her readers, most of whom reside in China.

The op-ed, entitled “Love and hope amidst ignorant racism,” comes as reports this week revealed that the CCP has resumed a forced labor program for ethnic Uyghur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang region. The program has been criticized as a form of slave labor; its unwilling participants are detainees of concentration camps, which the CCP calls “re-education camps,” targeted for their ethnic Muslim heritage.

The Muslim Uyghurs, a Turkic people, and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are the victims of a decades-long campaign of ethnic cleansing executed by the majority Han Chinese, who want absolute control and cultural assimilation of the region bordering Central Asia.

The CCP has implemented a standardized program of oppression including security surveillance and concentration camps, where they arbitrarily detain Muslim Uyghurs for offenses including outward displays of their cultural heritage. Uyghurs can be charged and jailed for these signs of religious “extremism,” as the CCP calls them.

Examples include altering the “color of their hair” – Muslim men who complete an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, dye their beards red to mark the accomplishment – and “women who wear religious clothes to work” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which is currently underway and officially banned by the CCP in Xinjiang.

Uyghurs, who speak a Turkic language, are also forced to learn and speak Mandarin Chinese as part of political and ideological indoctrination programs run in the “re-education camps.”