‘We are doing better’: Biopolitical nationalism and the COVID-19 virus in East Asia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic stirs up strong nationalist and localist sentiments; places pride themselves on containing the virus more effectively: We are doing better. We call this ‘biopolitical nationalism’, understood by us as the dynamics between body, geopolitics and affect. When looking at mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, we analyse how the biopolitical efforts of these places are being compared, applauded and supported. Under a discourse of life and survival, this celebration of biopolitical control does not fall into the classic reproduction of capital, but speaks to geopolitical identification. Biopolitics has morphed into a field of competition, of rivalry, of nationalistic – or, perhaps more generally, localist – power games. What can we do as Cultural Studies scholars?

Family-mediated migration infrastructure: Chinese international students and parents navigating (im)mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Beck 2009). Echoing an emerging body of research (Hu 2020;Kloet et al 2020;Ma and Zhan 2020), our study uncovers the significant threat state-centered responses to the COVID-19 pandemic pose to the security and well-being of the transnationally mobile and their families. As individual families become the liable guarantor of risks and means of (im)mobility, transnational (im)mobility has become increasingly embedded in an unequal terrain, in that the families' capability to be (im)mobile becomes closely anchored in their command of economic resources (e.g., buying expensive air tickets), cultural capital (e.g., gathering and processing information on a transnational scale), and social connections (e.g., securing trusted guardians for their children in the UK).…”

“…These developments have not only disabled specific modular components of the transnational migration infrastructure, but more importantly disrupted transnational coordination that is essential to the operation of the infrastructure (Xiang and Lindquist 2014). As nation-states retreat from a transnational social space (Vertovec 2009), the rise of state-centered risk governance, biopolitical nationalism, and competition for essential medical resources have also stymied the efforts of organizations such as the World Health Organization and United Nations to coordinate transnational initiatives (Kloet, Lin, and Chow 2020).…”

Boris Johnson in hospital: a Chinese gaze at Western democracies in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…To many observers in major Western democracies, China is to blame because of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) coverup when the disease first emerged. Within China, however, there have been shifts in popular perceptions of the CCP's handling of the disease, particularly as Western democracies have seen far higher infection and death rates during the pandemic than China (Kloet et al, 2020).…”

“…Yet, as the outbreak become a global pandemic and Western democratic nations came to see infection and death rates that greatly exceeded those in China, the severe measures adopted by the CCP to handle the disease seemed to have been effective, evidenced by the fact that recent cases in the country were mostly imported from abroad. 1 As Chinese people witnessed the escalation of the outbreak across the Global North, a discourse of China's victory in combating the COVID-19 pandemic has become widespread in the country (Kloet et al, 2020).…”

Curating and Exhibiting for the Pandemic: Participatory Virtual Art Practices During the COVID-19 Outbreak in China

“…On the contrary, the rampant spread of the virus also arouses a shared sympathy toward the government’s radical approach to containing the COVID-19. Echoing de Kloet et al (2020) , this shared sympathy and understanding among the Chinese public has given rise to the “biopolitical nationalism,” in which “the biopolitical efforts of nation-states are being compared, applauded and supported.” Some people’s self-censoring, loyalty-showing, or simply automatic internalization of such imaginary and language also partly contribute to the status quo. Figure 6 is taken from the online exhibition published by the public account of Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Mass Art Center ( Haibei zangzuzizhizhou qunzhong yishuguan 海北藏族自治州群众艺术馆, 2020 ) which explicitly combines current issues with elements typical of the Communist Revolution, namely the image of the People’s Liberation Army and the familiar slogan which translates to “get wounded and do not lag behind.” Similarly, the images in Figures 7 to 9 , published by the account of “Huizhou Micro-tourism” ( Huizhou weilüyou 徽州微旅游, 2020 ), depict traditional Huizhou architecture, landscape, and lifestyle, some of which include the presence of the Communist Party flag and local party members on patrol during the pandemic.…”