Project MUSE - Yellow Peril and Techno-orientalism in the Time of Covid-19: Racialized Contagion, Scientific Espionage, and Techno-Economic Warfare

The essay examines the rise of anti-Asian aggression within the converging vectors of the pandemic, the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war, and the growing concerns about cyber- and techno-security. By analyzing the techniques and effects of race-making in the current pandemic moment and connecting them to historical antecedents, we trace the persistence of the yellow peril ideology across different contexts. We argue that the yellow peril ideology, now configured within a techno-Orientalist imaginary where China is posited as the chief enemy-threat, is powerfully animating the racial logics and racial affect mediating the multiple terrains of public health, technology, and global trade. In the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, President Trump put out many mixed messages, but he remained consistent with one—that China was to blame for the spread of the virus. Repeatedly, he insisted on calling the novel coronavirus "the Chinese virus," despite mounting publ

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• David Song