Dispatch Lite: Your request to go easier on the Chinese government is politely denied
The policies of the Chinese government are exactly that: policies of a government, not a comment on a race of people.
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You might’ve noticed this week that three out of the four articles we published dealt, in some way, with China. This was not exactly planned, but it was also not exactly unplanned. The Line is still a small enough organization that we only rarely seek any specific piece that we publish. Entirely for budgetary reasons, if there’s a piece we really want to do, Jen Gerson or Matt Gurney will typically write it themselves. That said, China appeared to be on a lot of brains this week, and we decided to roll with it. Next week, we’ll run the other stuff.
That shouldn’t require any explanation. China’s emergence as a global power is going to be one of the defining stories of the first half of the 21st century. We probably aren't reading and writing about it enough. Late this week, however, we received a note from a now-former reader, who said that the pieces we had run, and the overall focus on China, reflected anti-Asian racism, and they would not be supporting us going forward.
Look, it’s your money, folks. We want more and more of you to subscribe all the time. But we certainly respect your right to decline, or to unsubscribe if you don’t like the offerings. However, we do have a word of reply to those who would suggest that publishing articles about China is racist: get bent.
There is indeed anti-Asian racism out there. We have seen a lot of disturbing signs of it during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Asians of any description have been subjected to harassment and even random acts of violence. In the United States, some of the more fiery anti-Chinese rhetoric favoured by the former president also undoubtedly contributed to that wave, and that has spilled over here. Further, the problem of anti-Asian racism of course isn’t new. We have a long history of anti-Asian discrimination in North America. This must be acknowledged. Anti-Asian hate was real before Trump and COVID, and it'll remain long after both are finished.
But writing critically about the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese armed forces, the policies of the Chinese government, the actions of the Chinese government, and the increasingly overt meddling in the affairs of other nations by Chinese intelligence operations, does not reflect any discredit upon Asian-Canadians, or any Asian in general. The policies of the Chinese government are exactly that: policies of a government. Criticizing policies and governments is not just acceptable, it’s absolutely necessary.
Indeed, we noted with grim amusement during a recent conversation with a colleague, who is comfortably nestled within the left-leaning progressive side of Canada’s political spectrum, that progressives in particular ought to be 100 per cent comfortable criticizing Chinese government policy. After all, progressives have been loudly and correctly noting for generations that there is a difference between rank antisemitism and warranted criticism of Israeli government policy. We find it fascinating that some of the very same people who would be horrified to be accused of antisemitism for criticizing Israel get tongue-tied when the Chinese government starts throwing religious minority women into rape camps.
We suspect some of it is simply rooted in the rampant identitarian obsessions of Western political discourse. People who criticize white supremacist Western imperialism a dozen times before breakfast might find it intellectually discombobulating to acknowledge that Western liberal democracies are not the only big baddies on the global stage. We’ve witnessed the many mental gymnastics that have been deployed to minimize or wish away credible reports of genocide and concentration camps, as if they were merely a Western fantasy being used to concoct a pretext for war. This is an ahistoric argument, by the way. The West has not been angling for war with one of its most lucrative suppliers and customers, quite the opposite. Until recently, we’ve operated under a Fukuyama delusion: the ironclad belief that China would moderate and liberalize as it grew more prosperous. This was predicated on the arrogant assumption that the liberal democratic West was the end state of history and that China would eventually meet us here, thus allowing peace and profit for all. That optimism hasn’t panned out, and many Western countries — Canada among them — have spent the last few years trying to reconcile our economic interdependence with our collective “oh shit” epiphany.
We expect that some people, on the other hand, have no illusions about China's increasingly toxic and dangerous influence on world affairs, but simply keep their heads down and mouths shut to avoid antagonizing colleagues or risking an accusation of racism.
What can we say? People need to find their own way to cope with reality. But reality will have its way in the end, and the reality is this: China’s leadership is increasingly assertive, increasingly powerful, increasingly unmoored from the rules-based international order, and Canada is on the shit list. This might be intellectually uncomfortable or professionally awkward for some of you to acknowledge. Your Line editors are suffering under no such limitations. We'll continue to published measured and warranted criticisms of the policies and actions of the Chinese governments, while responsibly avoiding anything that veers into race-based tropes or sloppy, overly broad generalizations of entire peoples. And anyone who wants to pretend that this coverage is racist can take their subscription dollars and leave. We'll be slightly poorer without it, but better off even so.
Round Up:
Well, and with that, Line readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please continue to support us by subscribing today, sharing our work far and wide and inviting your friends to join in as subscribers. We’ll talk to you next week.
The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com