Politics Over Prejudice? Explaining the Surprising Decline of Anti-Chinese Sentiment in Indonesia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Editor, We read with great interest the recent article by Rohilla et al. published in your esteemed journal.[1] We would hereby like to add our perspective of mental health issues during COVID-19 era. The ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by the novel strain SARS-CoV-2 has dragged the entire world to its feet leaving people scared and anxious. Starting in December 2019 from Wuhan, China, COVID-19 has spread like rapid fire to more than 200 countries.[2] As of July 20, 2020, worldwide there are 14,686,829 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 609,835 deaths.[3] COVID-19 is challenging not just for its medical phenomenon, but also for its capability to affect the financial, mental, emotional wellbeing of the individuals across the globe.[45] National agencies, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and many other organizations are promoting to follow non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) to combat the pandemic.[6] However, amidst the challenges of mitigating COVID-19, little has been known about the mental health impact of NPIs. There is significant evidence to suggest the importance of socialization and connectivity in maintaining a good mental wellbeing.[7] Social networking, community engagement, and participation have been shown to be associated with both physical and psychological well-being.[78] Detrimental effects on mental health are expected to arise with isolation, neglect, and loneliness. COVID-19 pandemic has multi-dimensional impact on our physical, mental, social, and emotional wellbeing.[89] Similar experience was reported during previous coronavirus pandemics, namely SARS and MERS pandemic.[101112] Mental health issues like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are some of the mental illnesses that are on rise ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started which needs immediate attention. Usually, people suffering from mental illnesses are advised to socialize as a part of therapy in most of the psychiatric illnesses. However, for containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all countries are endorsing the concept of social distancing, quarantine, and isolation as the most effective strategies.[13] It has been a couple of months since many countries like India, Italy, Spain, France, etc., are on lockdown with citizens sheltering inside their own houses and following the social distancing protocols. With “restriction of movement” and “not socializing with each other” becoming a new normal lifestyle for most of us, mental vulnerability to conditions like anxiety and depression has been increasingly recognized. During previous outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak, many studies confirmed that there were worsening mental illness symptoms in an individual with preexisting mental health conditions as well as healthy individuals. For example, in Hong Kong, about 70% of people expressed anxiety about getting SARS and people reported they believed they were more likely to contract SARS than the common cold.[14] Hypervigilance, for example, can arise because of fear and anxiety and, in severe cases, result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression.[15] Another aspect that can complicate mental illness symptoms during such times is discrimination. For example, the 2014 Ebola outbreak was considered an African problem resulting in discrimination against those of African descent.[16] Similarly, the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak in the USA saw Mexican and migrant workers targeted for discrimination.[17] Since January 2020, the UK and the USA have reported increased reports of violence and hate crimes towards people of Asian descent and an overall rise in Anti-Chinese sentiment because of the spread of COVID-19.[18] Since isolation and quarantine from the loved ones is the norm of the current world situation, it can often precipitate depression and anxiety and often feel they are being ripped off their purpose of living. Isolation is known to cause a lot of stress which can exacerbate feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. Post-Traumatic Stress Having to be isolated from the society being affected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the fear of transmitting it to the loved ones, patients are prone to experience PTSD which could affect the mental wellbeing of an individual in the long run. Psychological trauma can result in mixture of emotional surges like nightmares, self-blame, flashbacks, and experiencing recurrent thoughts of the trauma.[19] This could happen to the patients as well as to the health care providers. Risk factors that makes patients susceptible to PTSD are self-quarantine, self-isolation, fear of death social discrimination, witnessing others becoming sick and dying and so on. Similarly, for health care professionals, COVID-19 has brought innumerous challenges.[6] Witnessing frequent deaths, fear of acquiring the infection, spreading to the other family members, lack of adequate personal protective equipment's etc., can expose them to recurrent mental trauma and to PTSD.[20] A study was conducted in China on patients who were infected with COVID-19.[21] Online assessment using a 17 item self-reported PTSD checklist (PCL-C) was used. A total of PCL-C score of ≥ 50 is an indication of 'having significant posttraumatic stress symptoms. A total of 730 COVID-19 patients were assigned in the study and the prevalence of significant posttraumatic stress symptoms was 996.2% (95% CI: 94.8% -97.6%). In addition to the psychological impact, a recent report suggested immune dysregulation in patients suffering from chronic stress secondary to PTSD which might make them prone to opportunistic infections like COVID-19 pneumonia.[22] Information Adding Anxiety and Fear In a crisis like this, it's a common interest of people to find out as much information as possible to stay tuned on what is going on around them people are consuming information on every platform available like WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and many others, which necessarily does not contain accurate information. Subjects who used updates via phone text messages and used social media for critical updates during the lockdown had higher chances of exposing themselves to false information and stress [Figure 1]. Higher acute stress was seen in heavy social media users in the study. This report highlights the importance of releasing substantive official updates at regular intervals during a crisis event and monitoring social media to reduce exposure to misleading information and distress 36.2% (95% CI: 94.8% -97.6%).[21] Other factors that could contribute to the anxiety and mental unrest are fear of losing job, financial crisis, interruption in studies, physical inactivity, running out of medicines, lack of sleep, social isolation, fear of acquiring infection.[23242526]Figure 1: Pictorial description of the potential concerns of a person during COVID-19When we are grappling with this gigantic global crisis humans can get creative with their social interactions and can even have trivia nights with your coworkers or friends or maybe even have a virtual date night. Having this social connection can improve not just your mental health but your physical health as well. These social interactions give us a sense of togetherness as a species in our fight against this virus. Moreover, experts suggest having a daily routine can help fight anxiety during this unprecedented time. Having a routine while maintaining the sleep cycle can have a positive impact.[27] Emerging Role of Telemedicine in Psychiatry The impact of isolation can be more severe in individuals with preexisting mental illness, with worsening of anxiety, depression, despair, and feeling of loss of control. Coping with pandemic can get especially difficult when patient's access to its primary source of support and care is restricted. There is a tremendous role of psychotherapy in the treatment of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and other mental illnesses. Not only do regular visits to the clinic help in getting appropriate therapy and care, but they also add a good working schedule for individuals. Patients suffering with alcoholism and other substance use disorders who are associated with various deaddiction programs might also find it difficult to refill their prescribed medications like methadone, suboxone, etc., Also, it is difficult to continue their engagement with support groups, and programs due to closure of these societies. However, despite knowing the importance of in person encounter in clinical practice of psychiatry, unfortunately due to the fear of community transmission, cross infections, and other logistic reasons of lockdown, travel restrictions, and limited health care access, health care providers are not able to execute their health services to their patients suffering from various mental health issues. Telemedicine service has proved itself as an important asset, and a way of effective communication between patients and their physicians.[28] It has especially proven to be of great benefit for patients with mental conditions to receive psychoeducation in a timely fashion via using telemedicine and remote medical care services.[29] This will be of utmost importance especially in patients who are having active psychiatric disease flare up.[2930] Kalin et al. recently share their successful institutional experience with telemedicine in the inpatient setting. They shared their experience based on 110 tele encounters during inpatient psychiatry consults.[31] They could successfully accomplish an effective dialogue exchange and were able to execute supportive psychotherapy during tele encounters. Although, in our opinion a telemedicine is certainly an immediate solution to provide the supportive therapy to patients, it can never replace the impact, and positive outcome of an in-person meeting. Also, it might not be possible to communicate and engage in an effective conversation in patients who are mentally challenged or in children with ADHD, autism, etc., A healthy parenting might help in such scenarios till the regular clinic visits services are resumed. Conclusion From the mental health perspective, so far, the COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging. With the uncertainty of the current living situation, people with preexisting mental illnesses like PTSD, anxiety, depression, and severe persistent mental illness are prone to having worsening of their conditions, and studies from the past pandemics reflect the same. Time-bound behavioral therapy should be provided to persons who exhibit signs of mental disorders to reduce the cognitive effects of the pandemic. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists should maximize the use of telemedicine services use to connect to their patients. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.

Anti-Chinese sentiment increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting as a considerable spike in overt violence and hatred directed at Asian American individuals. However, it is less clear how subtle patterns of consumer discrimination, which are difficult to directly observe yet greatly impact Asian American livelihoods, changed through the pandemic. Here we examine this in the context of restaurants-ubiquitous small businesses that sell goods that are closely entwined with ethnicity. Using a series of surveys, online search trends and consumer traffic data, we find that Asian restaurants experienced an 18.4% decrease in traffic (estimated US$7.42 billion lost revenue in 2020) relative to comparable non-Asian restaurants, with greater decreases in areas with higher levels of support for Donald Trump. Our findings are consistent with the roles of collective blame, out-group homogeneity and ethnic misidentification in explaining how anti-China rhetoric can harm the Asian American community, underlining the importance of avoiding racism and stigmatization in political and public health communications.

Sinophobia, anti-Chinese sentiment, has existed on the Web for a long time. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the extended quarantine has further amplified it. However, we lack a quantitative understanding of the cause of Sinophobia as well as how it evolves over time. In this paper, we conduct a largescale longitudinal measurement of Sinophobia, between 2016 and 2021, on two mainstream and fringe Web communities. By analyzing 8B posts from Reddit and 206M posts from 4chan’s /pol/, we investigate the origins, evolution, and content of Sinophobia. We find that, anti-Chinese content can be evoked by political events not direclty related to China, e.g., the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement [59]. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, daily usage of Sinophobic slurs has significantly increased even with the hate-speech ban policy [43]. We also show that the semantic meaning of the words “China” and “Chinese” are shifting towards Sinophobic slurs with the rise of COVID-19 and remain the same in the pandemic period. We further use topic modeling to show the topics of Sinophobic discussion are pretty diverse and broad. We find that both Web communities share some common Sinophobic topics like ethnics, economics and commerce, weapons and military, foreign relations, etc. However, compared to 4chan’s /pol/, more daily life-related topics including food, game, and stock are found in Reddit. Our finding also reveals that the topics related to COVID-19 and blaming the Chinese government are more prevalent in the pandemic period. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the longest quantitative measurement of Sinophobia.

Sino-phobia, which has reportedly grown internationally during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a potential obstacle to China’s economic and foreign policy initiatives involving Russia and Central Asia. After providing historical and theoretical context, the authors analyse publicly reported time-series data from Russia and original survey data from Russia and Kyrgyzstan to assess the extent of Sino-phobic attitudes and their associations with demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic variables. By also considering attitudes toward Americans and other national groups, the authors show that anti-Chinese sentiment, while high, does not exhibit especially pronounced tendencies. In Russia, nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment are key correlates of Sino-phobia. Additional survey research is necessary to assess the impact of COVID-19 on Sino-phobia and determine whether it hinders China-friendly policies, as some observers have suggested.

Sinophobia, anti-Chinese sentiment, has existed on the Web for a long time. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the extended quarantine has further amplified it. However, we lack a quantitative understanding of the cause of Sinophobia as well as how it evolves over time. In this paper, we conduct a largescale longitudinal measurement of Sinophobia, between 2016 and 2021, on two mainstream and fringe Web communities. By analyzing 8B posts from Reddit and 206M posts from 4chan’s /pol/, we investigate the origins, evolution, and content of Sinophobia. We find that, anti-Chinese content may be evoked by political events not directly related to China, e.g., the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, daily usage of Sinophobic slurs has significantly increased even with the hate-speech ban policy. We also show that the semantic meaning of the words “China” and “Chinese” are shifting towards Sinophobic slurs with the rise of COVID-19 and remain the same in the pandemic period. We further use topic modeling to show the topics of Sinophobic discussion are pretty diverse and broad. We find that both Web communities share some common Sinophobic topics like ethnics, economics and commerce, weapons and military, foreign relations, etc. However, compared to 4chan’s /pol/, more daily life-related topics including food, game, and stock are found in Reddit. Our finding also reveals that the topics related to COVID-19 and blaming the Chinese government are more prevalent in the pandemic period. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the longest quantitative measurement of Sinophobia.

This paper focuses on Sinophobia which is usually not expressed openly in the public service media. The Sinophobia discourse intensified in 2020 in connection with the coverage of the pandemic. How are anti-Chinese attitudes expressed in the news discourse of the Czech Radio and Czech Television? Examples from a broader analysis of the representation of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in news and journalism programmes are given. Inductive qualitative research methods (discourse and semiotic analysis) were used to detect subtle nuances of meaning and reveal implicit presuppositions. This study focuses on the manifestations of bias, e.g., the ideologically grounded attitudes of the speakers. The anti-Chinese statements (about poor hygiene habits and eating wild animals) were most often mentioned in connection with the origin of the coronavirus, vaccination, and China expansive policy. Sinophobic messages were built on the opposition of Us and Them, which is, according to van Dijk (2000), the core of new racism. In spite of the fact that the open hate speech and systematic bias (intentional implications, obvious evaluation or signposting) were not found in the researched sample, the analysis identified the presence of Sinophobic statements in both public service media.

This article discusses racism and anti-China sentiment in Australia. Racism is not quite popular within International Relations studies (IRs). However, this article aims to find how racism may become an exciting topic in IRs as racism has happened in many parts of the world and became widespread during and after the pandemic, including in Australia. Racism itself is not a popular topic within the study of IRs. Still, this research specifically seeks to explore the correlation between the rise of racism and the long Chinese history with Australians. This paper uses qualitative library research to focus on secondary data from previous literature and official websites. This paper argues that immigrants of Chinese or Chinese descent in Australia are, to some people, seen as second-class people. Despite being wealthy and educated like Penny Wong, discrimination towards their race is still their most significant challenge living in Australia. Covid-19 Pandemic has made the challenge more extensive and more robust. The problem is rooted in the racism that has happened and institutionalised since early Australian history. Nevertheless, although the White Australian Policy had abolished, however, racism which was reflected by the Anti-Chinese sentiment, has been continued to play a big part in Australia's foreign policy. It was reflected by the decision of the Australian government to call for an investigation into the outbreak of Covid-19 and Australia's accusation of violation of human rights by the Chinese government had done. Therefore, Australia must be open on this issue because it will help the country build better bilateral relations with its neighbours, including China.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans have endured a stark rise in discrimination, harassment, and violence. Public discourse regarding COVID-19 has also been filled with anti-Asian and xenophobic rhetoric, including former President Donald Trump’s usage of racially charged epithets like “China Virus” and “Kung Flu.” However, this is not the first time that Asian Americans, and specifically Chinese Americans, have been condemned as a public health threat. In the late 1800s, Chinese immigrants were stereotyped as the “Yellow Peril” and dirty disease carriers amidst growing anti-Chinese sentiment, culminating in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Additionally, San Francisco Chinatown was intentionally and unfairly targeted by public health officials in attempts to purge the bubonic plague at the turn of the century. While court cases like Wong Wai v. Williamson (1900) and Jew Ho v. Williamson (1900) determined that such public health campaigns violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by singling out Chinese individuals, their legal outcomes do not represent the overall social consensus, both historically and today. Thus, our current moment of surging anti-Asian rhetoric and racism must be contextualized within America’s long history of branding Asian and Chinese people as unwanted, filthy vectors of contagion to be excluded. This paper argues that the uptick in anti-Asian racial violence during the COVID-19 pandemic is a direct extension of xenophobic scapegoating, racial formation, and sociocultural representation of Chinese immigrants as harbingers of disease that rationalized the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and San Francisco’s racist public health measures in 1900. Ultimately, I argue that America's historical intersection of exclusionary immigration law and discriminatory health policy set the stage for COVID-19 to play out as a “Yellow Peril” redux.

The article analyses the current status of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its key achievements and challenges, including those related to the COVID 19 pandemic. In the 2010s China has become one of world’s largest investors and BRI is one of the most important tools of Chinese investment policy. Due to its flexible structure, BRI has been able to adjust and develop in the context of the U.S. – China trade war and the growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the world that included the concerns over so called China’s debt diplomacy. But this lack of rigidity is also a challenge to those who study BRI because there is no official list of projects (estimations vary between 118 and 374) and countries participating in BRI (up to 138). China’s key BRI partner is Pakistan. The total value of projects implemented by China in Pakistan as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was initially estimated at $46 billion but now exceeds $70 billion (new projects were signed even during the pandemic). BRI is increasing the number of its participants. In March 2019 Italy became the first G7 country to sign a BRI MoU with China. While implementing BRI China has faced such challenges as rising concerns of “China’s debt trap”, as well as ecological and political issues. In 2020 BRI is facing a new challenge with the COVID-19 pandemic. Some BRI projects were postponed because of the pandemic, but in some cases they were unaffected. There are 64 out of 138 countries participating in BRI that come from low and lower-middle income groups according to the World Bank classification. Their average ratio of foreign debt to GDP was 54% in 2018–2019. It is most likely that these countries will be hit hard by the coronacrisis. Thus the pandemic will encourage China to tighten the selection process for BRI projects with a focus on the most strategically important and cost effective ones. From the point of view of China’s BRI partners, the effect can be two-fold: the most unstable economies will increase their dependence on China, while with the economically strong countries China will be more willing to make concessions and offer more favorable conditions for cooperation.

This article investigates the escalation of anti-northeastern racism during the COVID-19 pandemic in India, by analysing the existing and underlying forms of domination faced by north-eastern Indian populations living in the metropolitan cities of India. It particularly investigates the intersectionalities of caste and race, gender, LGBT, and the older form of anti-Chinese sentiment called the yellowperil myth. It explores Mary Magdalene’s life and reflects on the public and cultural narrative, while simultaneously highlighting the lived experiences of north-eastern women in Indian cities. The article compares the experience of Mary Magdalene with that of the indigenous northeastern women. It asks how Mary, if she were slant-eyed, negotiated the humiliation and discrimination of race and gender, and how the figure of Mary can help challenge the public myth and offer a site of resistance for north-eastern women, many of whom are Christian.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge in anti-Chinese sentiment emerged as a pressing issue, with debates on how the pandemic exacerbated such sentiments. To explore this intricate relationship, we conducted two survey experiments, incorporating COVID-specific contextual inquiries in Australia and the United States during two phases (8–21 June 2021 and 28 July-12 August 2022). Our findings reveal that individuals’ perceptions of the Chinese diaspora remained unaltered when presented with information regarding the Chinese government’s initial management of COVID-19. However, when exposed to a message suggesting the Chinese government’s influence over overseas Chinese communities, people’s attitudes towards the Chinese diaspora significantly deteriorated. In addition, Australian respondents demonstrated heightened sensitivity to perceived foreign interference from China compared to their American counterparts. Our study underscores the role of suspicions and apprehensions surrounding China-related foreign interference in shaping anti-Chinese sentiment in the Western context.

Historically, pandemics have spurred an influx of disorganized information and escalated intergroup animosity, and COVID-19 is no exception. Pandemic reporting often features cues and testimonials to mark the distinction between “us” versus “them”; however, the influence of such journalistic practices on intergroup animosity remains largely unexplored during public health crises, let alone their potential interplay with ubiquitous user-generated comments that often accompany pandemic news stories in the digital era. We conducted an online survey experiment with a sample of U.S. participants ( N = 1428) during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, systematically varying the presence of stigmatizing outgroup cues, testimonials from in-versus outgroups, and social media comments either predominantly endorsing or condemning xenophobia. Our findings reveal that stigmatizing outgroup cues amplified the effects of testimonials detailing ingroup suffering, thus heightening anti-Chinese sentiment. These results underscore the importance of evaluating the implications of journalistic practices in public health reporting on intergroup dynamics and social solidarity. Additionally, we found that online comments predominantly condemning xenophobia moderated the effects of ingroup testimonials in the direction of inducing more positive sentiments, highlighting the vital role of an engaged audience in moderating the influences of public health news coverage.

Asian women’s paradoxical position of hypervisbility and invisibility is a result of society caricaturing and fetishizing their sexuality and bodies while simultaneously denying their humanity and personhood. Despite the long history of objectification and fetishization of Asian women in the United States, extant mental health counseling training programs and literature offer limited guidance to counselors on this concern, perpetuating an epistemic lapse in mental health counselors’ competency. With rising anti-Asian hate, the racialized COVID-19 pandemic, and anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, there exist increased threats to Asian women’s mental health. Responding to a paucity of counseling literature, this article offers strategies grounded in the multidimensional model of broaching behavior to broach racialized sexual harassment experienced by Asian women. Implications for counselor training and future research are also offered.

COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. People are locked in their houses having a very low option to move out during the lockdown period. The objective of the study is to focus on the impact of COVID-19 on consumer behaviour towards the use of mobile phones and their view towards Made in India products. The consumption pattern of individuals might be altered due to COVID-19 as there is no knowledge of when everything will be resumed back to normal. A survey sheet was floated to collect individual data via responses using social media platforms, blogs and calls. These responses would provide data for further analysis to determine the outcome of the study. Hypothesis testing method is used for the data analysis and to interpret the results

As part of a larger study, this paper presents findings from my exploration of discourses about China-US geopolitics through popular discussions on Chinese international students (CIS) who are attending American universities during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. The study seeks to advance scholarship for international students attending American colleges, with particular implications for Chinese students, as agents of geopolitical relations. In doing so, it investigates (a) how these students are represented in American media and (b) the criticality of international geopolitics in the mobility of international students. The findings reveal that American popular media sources assume a tone when writing about CIS that may stem from a deeper anti-Chinese sentiment that exists in the US. They also suggest that American institutions of higher education, and American companies that employ CIS after graduation, treat these students as imported subjects/objects that support America’s intellectual and economic advancement. In doing so, the media perpetuates narratives of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, while representing CIS as unwitting agents of those tensions. The study seeks to advance scholarship on international students attending US colleges, particularly those from China, during an era of rising populism and right-wing movements in the US coupled with rapidly deteriorating US-China relations.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12140-023-09409-5.