# Racism and "Wuhan virus" - only because Wuhan is a fairly well known large city?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 19, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807 "2020-03-19T15:29:23Z")\
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**Showing post:** 79

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**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2020, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807/79 "2020-03-20T13:04:49Z")

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> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> OK, I literally can’t find anyone calling it “Wuhan virus” except for some site that said that Secretary of State Pompeo called it that. It was always coronavirus to me, not because I’m politically correct, but because that’s all it was ever called on any site or news source I look at.
> 
> Can someone point to any mainstream site calling it that? I feel like this whole thread is started on false pretenses.
> 
> BTW, that Trump thing, overwriting coronavirus and changing it to China virus? I know it’s like number one billion in all the awful things he’s done, but it really bothers me. What a divisive asshole that guy is.

CNN: “China’s massive security state is being used to crack down on the Wuhan virus”  
[https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/asia/china-security-police-wuhan-virus-intl-hnk/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/asia/china-security-police-wuhan-virus-intl-hnk/index.html)

Foreign Policy (owned by Washington Post) :  
“The Wuhan Virus Could Hurt the Party’s Legitimacy”

> **[The Wuhan Virus Could Hurt the Party’s Legitimacy](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/wuhan-coronavirus-hurt-chinese-communist-party-legitimacy/)**
>
> Local authorities are taking a bigger hit than the central government.

Global Times, a media arm of the Chinese government: “Chinese netizens fear Japan would repeat Wuhan virus mistake at early stage”

> **[Japan’s low virus control alert worries netizens - Global Times](https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1179921.shtml)**
>
> Video footage featuring hundreds of Japanese people gathering for the country's annual

Quartz: “China’s Wuhan virus unfolds in new age of WeChat”

> **[China’s coronavirus outbreak is unfolding in a new age of information—and...](https://qz.com/1790719/china-coronavirus-outbreak-unfolds-in-a-new-age-of-information)**
>
> People are much more digitally connected today than during the 2003 SARS outbreak. But they're also much more surveilled.

And so on and so forth.

In Taiwan the name commonly used is Wuhan Pneumonia: “The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that it would use the name “Wuhan pneumonia” when communicating with the public”

> **[Virus Outbreak: CECC to continue using the ‘Wuhan pneumonia’ name - Taipei Times](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/02/13/2003730887)**
>
> Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

I guess the ethnically Chinese people of Taiwan suffer from internalized racism…

The Chinese propaganda machine knew well that they only had to drop the R bomb to deflect criticism away from them, and it worked.

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