Chinese Virus: Tweet by Trump for Coronavirus
Increase in racial incidents and discrimination after tweet of Trump
COVID 19 has caused massive chaos around the world by which hundreds of thousands of people are infected, and more than six thousand people have lost their lives to this infection, which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization which was previously thought to be localized within China after it was discovered in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan and the reason why some people might refer to COVID 19 as Chinese Virus.
US President’s tweet regarding COVID 19 as Chinese Virus
The United States President Donald Trump has been repeatedly criticized for referring to the novel coronavirus as the Chinese Virus. Critics are calling this that Trump might be fueling biasness and endangering the Asian American communities. Trump’s new label for COVID 19 as the Chinese Virus is due to the discovery of the novel coronavirus in the fish market of the city of Wuhan.
The United States government is placing the blame on China for the pandemic even though the World Health Organization has warned not to link the virus with any place to avoid discrimination between the world communities.
Early Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted about the effects of the novel coronavirus on the US economy and the message for the people to stay united in these horrific times during which he mentioned COVID 19 as the Chinese Virus, which turned several angry heads towards President Trump and the country. The name-calling persisted in another later tweet about how the US states are affected by the pandemic.
This is not the first time US government officials have discriminated against and associated the virus in China. Previously, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has mentioned the novel coronavirus as Wuhan Virus. Many US officials, including the head of the CDC, have criticized the phrase as incorrect and potentially dangerous in encouraging a racist alliance between China and the novel coronavirus.
Full coverage regarding the outbreak
The comments of Trump regarding coronavirus as the Chinese Virus received massive backlash, and people using social media condemned this sort of behavior inside and outside of the United States. The backlash also includes Bill de Blasia, the New York mayor who tweeted that calling the virus as Chinese Virus is misplacing blame and would endanger the lives of Asian communities living inside America.
The Chinese Officials are furious after the tweet by President Trump. Geng Shuang, an officlan from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tweeted to urge that President Trump, along with the other officials who called COVID 19 as the Chinese Virus should apologize to China, correct their mistakes and stop the groundless allegations against China.
A newspaper agency in China responded to Trump’s tweet by writing that using racist and ethnocentric names to throw liability on other countries for the outbreak will only disclose the politician’s leadership and inability to handle an issue which will lead to the escalation of the fear associated with the virus.
Meanwhile, in China, the Foreign Minister official Zhao Lijian posted a false conspiracy theory that the United States might be the ones who brought the novel coronavirus into China. This accusation was based on the event that took place in Wuhan before the outbreak as US military athletics was visiting China for the Annual World Military Games.
The American State Department contacted the Chinese authorities and urged them to stop spreading the disinformation to the public. For that, the director of the Foreign Ministry of China issued a strict warning for the United States that any plan of action against China is destined to fail.
Many people have condemned the behavior of calling the infection as the Chinese Virus, which will fall under the category of racial assault and is ethically very bad. Along with the virus spread, the number of racist incidents, harassment, and discrimination has increased massively since the name-calling of COVID 19 begins as the Chinese Virus.