Naaman Zhou, in The Guardian, 4 March 2021, with this title “How Anti-Chinese Seniment in Australia seeped into the Mainstream”
Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images
Community members say current levels of anti-Chinese sentiment have been fanned by the pandemic, Donald Trump’s rhetoric, souring trade relationship and a political atmosphere that encourages a ‘creeping distrust’ of Australians of Chinese heritage.
Threatening letters sent to Asian councillors and a surge in race hate attacks during the pandemic has renewed calls for a centralised hate tracker.
Councillor Kun Huang received [a hate] letter on a Monday. Among the insults about his name, the threats of death, the blame for the Covid-19 pandemic, the accusation that he had been stealing all the milk powder, buying up all the houses and bringing disease to Australia “for centuries”, the staff at the Cumberland Council noticed a name and an address. This was a race hate letter signed by its supposed perpetrator.
