The cost of anti-China rhetoric

 Today is National Citizenship Day, a time in which we are meant to celebrate the establishment of the U.S. Constitution and our nation’s fundamental commitment to diversity and inclusion. So today, we demand our elected representatives and other people in positions of power: please separate how you talk about diplomatic issues with the government of China from how you talk about Chinese people at large, including the more than 5 million Chinese Americans who call this country home.

By JO-ANN YOO |

September 17, 2023 at 5:00 a.m.

A headline in the Washington Post reads: “State lawmakers move to ban Chinese land ownership.” Shockingly, this is not an article from the 1910s but rather from last month. 

A centuries-old anti-Asian movement is once again rearing its ugly head in our modern age.

In recent years, diplomatic relations between the United States and China have undoubtedly worsened. This is a complex foreign policy issue and not what 

we are seeking to comment on. The problem we want to address is one that is trickling down to our streets here in New York: anti-Asian xenophobia arising from

 unrelated foreign policy.

As tensions with the government of China gain traction in the news, lawmakers are looking to earn cheap political points by criticizing “China,” but they

 fail to see how their words and policies are harming Chinese Americans and the larger Asian-American community.

We’ve seen this happen in different ways. Several states recently introduced legislation to prevent Chinese citizens from buying property. Some have tried

 to ban TikTok, accusing it of being a Chinese government tool. Others have tried to ban the Chinese government and “foreign adversaries” from buying 

“agricultural” land including here in New York.

These loaded claims put forth a dangerous assumption: because an individual has ancestry from a country the U.S. has diplomatic disputes with,

 that individual can only be dangerous and disloyal. This only reinforces the harmful “perpetual foreigner” myth, which erroneously portrays 

Chinese and Asian-Americans as not “real” Americans but rather a secondary, lesser group — and now one being accused of foreign sabotage.

This is a tired playbook we’ve seen before: lawmakers equating an ethnic group in America with a foreign government — and then employing 

racist domestic measures and language to gain political advantage. It has spurred some of our most shameful policies and waves of violence throughout history.

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act declared Chinese immigrants to the U.S. ineligible for American citizenship. In the early 1900s, alien land laws were 

passed in many states to ban Asian immigrants from owning land, property, and the American Dream. During World War II, the U.S. government 

incarcerated more than 125,000 people of Japanese descent over a perceived danger of Japanese American “disloyalty.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, xenophobia toward Muslim Americans skyrocketed, resulting in many hate crimes and 

attacks on places of worship. Most recently, following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the branding of the virus by the then-U.S. president 

as the “China virus” or “kung-flu,” we’ve experienced a heartbreaking crisis of anti-Asian hate.

So, when politicians and leaders talk about how “China is stealing our manufacturing jobs” or introducing these odious 21st-century versions of

 alien land laws, let’s be clear that the Chinese government is not the one that will feel the pain. When Congress accuses TikTok of espionage, 

singles out its CEO of Asian descent for every sin of the Internet under the sun, and a senator demands that he be “deported immediately,” 

it’s not the Chinese Communist Party that will be affected.

When a New York legislator crows that his bill will stop “the Chinese government to continue purchasing large amounts of agricultural land” 

— without a shred of evidence that the Chinese government owns any such land in New York — it’s not “China” that’s going to feel the pain.

It is regular Chinese Americans — and other Asian-Americans, our neighbors, our colleagues — who will suffer when they are accused of being 

foreign spies, are called a slur while walking down the street, or if they, unfortunately, become a victim of a hate crime.

Politicians’ anti-China rhetoric does not live in a vacuum. Its most significant impact is felt not in the sphere of foreign policy but here in America, 

among the millions of Americans of Asian ethnic descent.

Today is National Citizenship Day, a time in which we are meant to celebrate the establishment of the U.S. Constitution and our nation’s fundamental

 commitment to diversity and inclusion. So today, we demand our elected representatives and other people in positions of power: please separate 

how you talk about diplomatic issues with the government of China from how you talk about Chinese people at large, including the more than 

5 million Chinese Americans who call this country home.

Do not try to push racially targeted domestic laws aimed at fearmongering and finding “foreign” scapegoats. Do not let Asian-Americans 

become the victims of geopolitical disputes; history has warned us what happens when we blame diplomatic issues on an American ethnic group.

Instead, work to uplift the Asian-Americans who love this country and make it great.

Yoo is the executive director of the Asian American Federation.

Author

Jo-Ann Yoo