The Chinese People Are Not a Problem, but China Really Is

Vice is stretching quite a bit at points here, trying to make yesterday's shootings in Atlanta evidence of some kind of broad anti-Asian sentiment; and especially in trying to avoid blaming the Chinese Communists for their role in spreading the virus. The Communists disappeared doctors who tried to give warnings to the world, while allowing international travel from Wuhan and elsewhere well after they knew it was a hazard. 

Still, Vice is right that this well-intended sentiment probably should have been thought out more than it was.

During a House Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday, Rep. Chip Roy said Texans “believe in justice” while simultaneously invoking the imagery of one of America’s most unjust legacies.  

“There’s old sayings in Texas about ‘Find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree,’” Roy said Wednesday during the House Judiciary Committee meeting. “We take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys. That’s what we believe.” 

On Tuesday eight people were killed and another was injured after a suspect is alleged to have bought a gun and targeted three spas in the Atlanta area. Most of the victims were Asian women.

In principle Roy was expressing anger at the murders, not racism towards Asians; his point was that murderers should be hanged, not that Asians ought to be. However, it's quite right to point out that the quality of justice in our lynching history was ugly at best.

As if Roy’s point wasn’t convoluted enough, it was also patently ahistorical. Lynchings are not, in fact, complimentary to the “rule of law.”  The 1871 “Chinese Massacre” in Los Angeles, in which at least 17 Asian immigrants were hanged, was one of the worst mass lynchings in U.S. history. 

If they'd stopped there, I'd have nothing to say against their argument, but they really shouldn't be using any of this to create defenses for the Communists. 

"My concern about this hearing is it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society, free speech, and away from the rule of law, taking out bad guys,” Roy added.

According to Roy, these “bad guys'' include the Chinese government, which he referred to as “Chi-Coms.” ... Former President Donald Trump often referred to COVID-19—which he repeatedly downplayed even as hundreds of Americans died on his watch—as the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu.” Current White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said this week that there was “no question” that Trump’s statements “led to perceptions of the Asian American community that are inaccurate, unfair,” and that they “elevated threats against Asian Americans.”

There's no reason that criticisms of the Chinese government, which is actively engaged in genocide and slavery, should redound even against the Chinese people -- let alone Asian-Americans. The People's Republic of China is a tyranny of the first water. There are plenty of good people in China, such as those who have recently been robbed of their cherished freedom in Hong Kong. 

Somehow our national conversation turned this weird murderer in Atlanta into a national problem, one that returns as always to the same themes. It would be good if we could stop trying to view every problem in America through the lens of racism and politics; but that is probably too much to hope for, as it is too valuable for a whole class of politicians. It would be nice if people like Roy would stop stepping in it in ways that give opportunity, but that may be too much to hope for as well.

What might still be avoidable is the new theme of protecting the PRC. They really are evil -- the government, I mean, not the people who live under it. Anyone who spins up a defense of the PRC out of any of these stories about America should be asked why, and challenged on the moral quality of doing so. If you think you oppose slavery, they are slavers. If you think you oppose genocide, they are murdering and sterilizing people today.