Understanding Chinese Christian Far-Right Narrative in the COVID-19 Context: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThis article introduces the controversy over the naming of COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus” and the related hate crimes in the US. It focuses on a group of Chinese Christians in North America who devote themselves to defending and legitimising the concept of the “Chinese Virus” within various social media. This research analyses the content of the related texts and videos and defines the Christian far-right narrative and reviews the relationship between the Christian far-right narrative, Christian fundamentalism, and Christian nationalism. It explores the frame alignment process of American Christian nationalism and evaluates the frame bridging, amplification, extension, and transformation dynamics of the Chinese Christian far-right narrative. It discusses the similarity between Chinese Christian far-right and religious nationalism in different countries and evaluates the cultural and structural factors that contributed to Christian nationalism with Chinese characteristics. The Chinese Christian far-right narrative tends to adopt a friend/foe binary interpretation of political issues, moralise the goal of nation-building, downplay the democratic process and legal systems, and put religious communitarian values over the secular state’s responsibility to protect human rights. The Christian far-right narrative reflects a religious nationalist sentiment to exclude political, religious, and cultural others, which is fundamentalist theologically, opposing to system politically, anti-secular humanism culturally, and anti-progressive morally.