Tracking paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and the targeted policing of China-connected research, which combine to create a hostile atmosphere for Chinese people in the U.S.
“Faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone.”
—MIT President L. Rafael Reif, June 25, 2019.
Since early 2018, the American immigration and justice system has appeared to target Chinese students, and ethnically Chinese researchers, with paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and targeted policing and politicization of China-connected research. Together, these three trends comprise the primary — but not only — components of the current atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in America of not just Beijing, but Chinese people as a whole.
This tool tracks rising Sinophobia in the U.S. Click on the filters to view different categories of Sinophobia-related developments, including Responses to Sinophobia, like the letter by the MIT President cited above.
Read about why The China Project launched this Sinophobia Tracker, in the words of our Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Goldkorn.
Senate Bill 264, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May, restricts nationals from certain “countries of concern” — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria — from buying land or property within 10 miles of a military installation or “critical infrastructure facility” in Florida.
That distrust has only grown as evidence mounts that COVID-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan and as China has moved closer to Russia. It was also fed by the shocking sight of Beijing’s giant spy balloon (now deemed “silly” by our president) wafting over our nation and by news that China and Cuba are planning to open a joint military training base some 100 miles off our shores. Each of these events has been downplayed by the Biden White House; its timidity is inexcusable and inexplicable.
With geopolitical tensions between the United States and Chinese government rising, we’re once again seeing politicians like DeSantis lean into racism, hate, and fear for their own political gain. Florida’s pernicious new law weaponizes false claims of “national security” against Asian immigrants and others.
The Vincent and Lily Chin Institute, along with ACJ and the Planning Committee of the Vincent Chin 40th Remembrance and Rededication, all firmly believe that Vincent Chin's legacy continues to advance the ideals of equal justice and solidarity against the racism and hate that Lily Chin courageously addressed.
"Inevitably, the two formulations were deliberately blurred and melded by Beijing, except for the 'peaceful' part."
"We should immediately restart the Fulbright program in China, which sent thousands of Chinese and Americans between the two countries for research and learning until it was halted during the Trump administration, and increase federal funding for Chinese studies programs at our universities."
"In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Chen said he believed law-enforcement officials had miscalculated in bringing his case and some similar ones, in part because they are unfamiliar with how scientists work."
"After the experience of the last year — the early-morning arrest, the handcuffs and shackles, being described, in a news conference, as loyal to China — [Gang Chen] is uncertain if he will ever feel safe applying for U.S. government funds for research again."
An op-ed by Chén Gāng 陈刚, the MIT professor whom the U.S. Department of Justice dropped all charges against, a year after accusing him of failing to disclose ties to China. In his opinion piece, Chen describes his time under investigation as “a living hell,” calls the China Initiative “terribly misguided,” and says that there were “critical mistakes on the part of the FBI, federal prosecutors, and other federal investigative agencies” that need to be reviewed “by Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice to hold individuals accountable for this glaring misconduct.”
