19.10.2020
This publication is a revised version of a new article in the Kommersant newspaper, which in turn was based on the material of the well-known Chinese publication South China Morning Post, broadcasting from Hong Kong. In general, these publications raise a very relevant and unexpected question for the candidates: who will 13-14 million Asian-American citizens who have the right to vote vote for on November 3 in the presidential elections?
According to the authors of the article, this number is not a trifle even against the background of the total number of voters in a country with a population of 328 million people, of which about 239 million. this is a Voting-Eligible Population, or those who have the right to vote (www.electproject.org/2020g). Thus, Asian Americans make up 5% of the vote, and this may be quite a decisive factor.
And here, according to experts, not only Chinese Americans, but also all Asians who have the right to vote in the United States can bring big surprises to Trump. For more information about the ethnic and racial situation of voting Americans, you can read in a recent study http://www.pewresearch.org/…/the-changing-racial-and…/.
And so, why did the authors pay attention to this question?
The Chinese diaspora in the United States is the largest foreign Chinese community outside of Asia. It is estimated that the number of Chinese Americans is about 4.9 million people (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state…/asian-population). The Chinese represent 23% of the total number of Asian Americans (20 million Asians, 6% of the US population).
According to Pew Research, Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing groups of the electorate in the United States (over the period 2000-2020, their number increased by 139%, for comparison, the number of white voters increased by 7% over the same period, and African-American by 33%). (http://www.pewresearch.org/…/asian-americans-are-the…/)
By the way, the McKinsey Institute, calling Asian diasporas a big economic force in the United States, generating up to $ 700 billion a year in American GDP, pays great attention to studying their role in the life of the country (http://www.mckinsey.com/…/covid-19-and-advancing-asian…)
According to estimates, this part of the electorate today significantly sympathizes with the Democrats (almost 72%). If we talk specifically about the Chinese diaspora, polls show that 54% of Chinese Americans will vote for Biden and 30% for Trump. And this alignment, apparently, may not change in the direction of the latter.
A significant role in this was played by the bullying that began in the United States against the Chinese Americans in particular, and against Asians in general, against the background of the pandemic and Trump’s reports that COVID-19 may allegedly have an Asian origin.
Accordingly, in November of this year, most of the entire Asian community of the United States may vote against Trump, this may also be influenced by the general growth of racial problems in the country in 2020, to which the current American president reacted ambiguously in general.
You can read more about the history of harassment of Asians in the United States in a recent publication of the authoritative American magazine “National Geographic”, which says: when leaders call COVID-19 a “Chinese virus”, it returns society to decades of state-sanctioned discrimination against Asian Americans. (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/…/asian-american…/)
In addition, modern Chinese Americans, like all Asians in general, are no longer those quiet and fearful emigrants, as they are stereotypically perceived. Today, they are gradually increasing their role in American society, in politics and the economy.
The Chinese, like other Asians, have already had and have their representatives in the US Congress and Government. So, in 2020, Michelle Au, an American of Chinese descent, is applying for the post of senator from the state of Georgia (she opposes the Republican).
And — most importantly-in four states, it is the Asian population, according to analysts, that can tip the scales in the current US presidential elections. This, according to polls, is the “suspended” electorate at the moment between the two parties Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.
As already mentioned, the attacks on Chinese and Asian Americans in the United States began against the background of Trump’s public accusations of the PRC in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. And at the same time, the ruling American establishment demonstrates something incredible: it simultaneously promotes two contradictory versions of the “viral crime of Beijing”.
The first version began to sound in the winter of 2020.
It says that the current virus is “a deadly biological weapon created in Wuhan laboratories specifically to release it into the world and turn this world upside down. That is, to destroy the United States and promote China, which has protected itself with a strict quarantine and is now doing well, to the leaders.” Indeed, according to the latest data, China is the only major power that will have economic growth in 2020 (2% growth), all other countries will be in the red. Although the question is-who prevented other countries from taking similar measures quickly?
According to Trump, China is “to blame for the fact that “it did not close the departure of its infected citizens anywhere”, that it “hid the truth about the virus” in collusion with “the World Health Organization bought by it…”. And now new defectors from China are appearing on republican resources in the United States, for example, biologist Yan Limeng from Hong Kong, who are confused in their testimony, but still say something like “such a virus does not just arise”.
Here we can recall that the entire top of the administration, including Trump, constantly and persistently accuses Beijing of something similar and demands it to answer.
At the same time, in mid-September of this year, the US House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, adopted a resolution condemning all forms of anti-Chinese manifestations related to the coronavirus. It is noted that the resolution also calls on the American authorities to condemn the use of such expressions and to take care of the health of all Americans, regardless of their ethnic origin.
The resolution, submitted by a member of the Democratic Party, Grace Meng, received 243 votes in favor, and 163 votes against. Of this number, 14 Republicans and 229 Democrats voted for it. All the “against” votes came from Republicans. (http://www.reuters.com/…/us-health-coronavirus-trump…)
The reason for the adoption of the resolution is that against the background of the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, a wave of verbal and physical attacks on Asian Americans is growing, according to reports, thousands of such incidents are reported in the media. (http://www.urban.org/…/confronting-racism-and…)
The second version of the “Chinese wine” has emerged recently.
It takes into account the obvious fact that in fact the virus was not as deadly as it was thought in the first half of the year. And the question is getting louder in the global debriefing today: how did it happen that most of the world succumbed to mass panic, why did they not listen to the now confirmed estimates of many experts that the virus will be less deadly than many last year’s and the year before last flus.
Then who is to blame for the disinformation campaign and the panic? China, say the same people who previously reported that Beijing had launched a “deadly” virus into the world. Now it turns out that he launched a completely non-lethal virus (these Chinese are not suicidal), but sowed panic, which struck its blow.
And now some “evidence” is quickly emerging of how the Chinese were persuading the governments of Italy and even the United States to introduce quarantines, allegedly at the same time earning money on medical supplies. Thus, according to Trump’s version, in any case, China is somehow, but necessarily to blame. In general, very strong logic.
At the same time, Trump’s political strategists are still trying to play subtle, as far as this approach is generally applicable to Trump. So, it is not China in general that is officially blamed for the malicious virus-panic campaign (and everything else), but the Chinese Communist Party (thus, American strategists are probably trying to separate the Chinese people from the representatives of the regime). And even the standard telegram from the United States, signed by Secretary of State M. Pompeo, on the occasion of the day of the formation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, this time congratulated only the “Chinese people”.
Again, a strange approach: historically, October 1 is inextricably linked with the CPC, as the political force that won the Chinese civil war and therefore received the right to establish the PRC. In this regard, the congratulations of the Chinese on “October 1” in any form is the fact of recognition of the CPC as a state-forming political force.
At the same time, relations with the Chinese government and especially with the ruling Communist Party of China are in a critical state at the White House. As the first result of this , the US Migration Service recently announced that it will not give citizenship or residence permits to “members of Communist parties and related organizations”. The reference is to the law of 1918, which did not allow Bolsheviks, anarchists and other subversive elements to enter the United States.
A similar situation is returning. If in the first years of his rule, Trump mainly focused on disputes over the terms of trade with China, today everything Chinese is under the gun of pressure: technologies, students, Confucius institutes, diplomatic missions, etc. It is clear that all this is a classic manifestation of the”cold war”. But when the forest is cut down, the chips fly.
As a result, their own American citizens of Chinese origin also fall under a large distribution in the United States (and Asian in general, who is there in America in a fit of emotions understands something – the Chinese are “to blame” there, or the Vietnamese with the Japanese?). And they, apparently, will also make their retaliatory move in future elections, voting for a more consistent, adequate and tolerant leader.
Anyway, it will be interesting to observe the development of US relations with China after the November elections, the effect of which on US-Chinese relations will most likely be felt no earlier than by the spring of 2021.
Based on the publication: “The Revenge of Confucius. Who will the Chinese Americans vote for?”
Author Dmitry Kosyrev.
Source: www.kommersant.ru/doc/4519785
China Studies Centre,
Nur-Sultan, 2020
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