Hong Kong: Cannon Yu lives in Shantou, Guangdong province.
Her previous sales position at a packaged food company required her to travel to international business conferences. She hasn’t left China, though, since the beginning of 2020, and she now conducts her sales calls online rather than in person in Thailand, Germany, Morocco, and other countries.
While the majority of nations have reopened their borders and allowed travel to resume to pre-Covid levels, China has maintained an exceedingly cautious stance and continues to uphold a strict and unyielding “zero-Covid” policy.
As a result of those regulations, Yu is less likely to interact with people from other nations while the majority of foreigners are kept outside. Yu is eager to start travelling again, despite the fact that China has yet to reveal a plan for lifting quarantine and other barriers to overseas travel. There is one exception, though—she has strong misgivings about going to the US.
The East’s perception of the West
According to Scott Moskowitz, geopolitical risk analyst for APAC at Morning Consult, state-controlled media in China has emphasised instances of anti-Asian violence in the US to discourage its residents from visiting there.
According to him, it’s “a purposefully regulated environment that overreports and sensationalises unfavourable international news compared to the tight constraints on coverage of challenging or upsetting internal instances.”
And Yu’s convictions support that.
She claims that “there,” “they look at people discriminatorily.” “not just for Black folks but also for Chinese. In the US, it’s incredibly challenging to ensure that everyone is treated fairly.”
She continues by mentioning that friends of hers who have travelled to the US have told her that they were stopped and checked by customs officials before being permitted to exit the airport.
Yu is one of a growing number of Chinese tourists who are speaking out against the anti-Asian prejudice that they believe keeps them from visiting the US in the future.
Morning Consult released a study on this precise trend this month. Based on a study of 1,000 persons, they discovered that “a majority of Chinese had little to no interest in travelling to the United States,” citing anti-Asian prejudice and violence as contributing concerns.
Data from Morning Consult show that 22% of mainland Chinese respondents are “not interested at all” and another 23% are “not that interested” in travelling to the US.
57% of survey participants identify serious crime as the main reason they don’t want to visit the US, while 52% name terrorism, 36% cite petty crime, and 44% express fear about residents’ anti-Chinese prejudice.
Another specific issue is mass shootings, with individuals who had “heard, read, or seen” about the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre earlier this year “much more likely to identify violent crime as a reason not to travel” to the nation, according to Morning Consult’s analysis.
According to the report, some Chinese tourists are now going abroad, with Europe’s destinations clearly preferred above those in the US.
An increase in violence
Anti-Asian discrimination has increased because to the epidemic, much of it as a result of inaccurate information or unwarranted agression regarding the origins of Covid-19.
For people to report harassment and assaults, there is a venue to do so through the nonpartisan alliance Stop AAPI Hate.
The “Atlanta spa killings,” in which Robert Aaron Long, a White male, shot and killed eight women in three different massage parlours, may have garnered the greatest media attention since the start of the pandemic. In addition to the killings, Long was also accused of committing hate crimes because six of the eight victims were Asian.
The Covid-19 Hate Crimes bill, sponsored by Congresswoman Grace Meng of New York last year, was approved by President Joe Biden. Meng, a representative for portions of Queens, a diverse borough of New York City and home to several Asian Americans, is of Taiwanese heritage.
Outside of the US, notably in China, these incidents—which range from public harassment to physical violence—are widely reported.
Geopolitical tensions right now aren’t helping. Even though similar occurrences occur worldwide, according to Moskowitz, the impression that the US is China’s main rival has only served to draw attention to reports of anti-Asian prejudice or violence in the nation.
“This disparity is especially pronounced when it comes to how (Chinese state media) covers the US in comparison to Europe and other regions. Some of this is planned and deliberate, tailored to lessen the allure and soft power of the nation China views as its greatest ideological and political competitor,” to CNN Travel, he says.
According to Moskowitz, “China has a very strong view that there is a lot of global bias against their country. There may be worries that greater macro and political complaints and resentments (both genuine and perceived) with a country may be turned back against the individual when travelling overseas because personal and national identities are so closely linked in China.”
Ways to alter perceptions
Although it won’t happen overnight, it’s not impossible to alter how Chinese tourists view the US.
According to Lindsey Roeschke, travel and hospitality analyst at Morning Consult and co-author of the survey with Moskowitz, “the results of this survey specifically suggest that travel companies and destinations should double down on safety-related messaging in marketing campaigns targeting Chinese consumers.”
She continues: “Travel companies should offer pre-departure safety tools and advice. If you want to go further, you might think about giving visitors access to personal safety representatives or safety-focused tour guides while they are there.”
In light of the gun violence in the US, some nations have issued detailed travel advisories to their citizens.
Due to gun violence, the organisation Amnesty International warned people to “exercise caution and have an emergency contingency plan when travelling within the USA” in 2019.
Cannon Yu, on the other hand, is still ready to leave China once it is easier to do so.
Despite everything, she still wants to visit the US because she is interested about it.
She has one spot in particular on her bucket list: Las Vegas. She says, “I want to gamble.” I want to make friends, she says after pausing for a moment.
