Donald Trump has made controversial comments claiming Chinese migrants moved to the US to build an “army” to attack the country.
The former president made the inflammatory comments during a recent campaign rally where he said “military-age” men were coming to the United States and forming a migrant “army.
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“They’re coming in from China – 31, 32,000 over the last few months – and they’re all military age and they mostly are men,” Trump said during a campaign rally last month in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania. “And it sounds like to me, are they trying to build a little army in our country? Is that what they’re trying to do?”
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Trump and others exploit a surge in Chinese border crossings a
Trump and others exploit a surge in Chinese border crossings ( Image: VCG via Getty Images)
As Trump and others exploit a surge in Chinese border crossings and real concerns about China’s geopolitical threat to further their political aims, Asian advocacy organisations worry the rhetoric could encourage further harassment and violence toward the Asian community.
Asian people in the US already experienced a spike in hate incidents fueled by xenophobic rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Trump’s dehumanising rhetoric and blatant attacks against immigrant communities will, without question, only fuel more hate against not only Chinese immigrants but all Asian Americans in the US,” Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, said in a statement.
“In the midst of an already inflamed political climate and election year, we know all too well how harmful such rhetoric can be.” Gregg Orton, national director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said many Asian American communities remain “gripped by fear” and that some Asians still feel uncomfortable about taking public transportation.
Tensions are fraught between the US and China
Tensions are fraught between the US and China ( Image: VCG via Getty Images)
“To know that we might be staring down another round of that, it’s pretty sobering,” he said. Wang Gang, a Chinese immigrant who travelled several weeks from Ecuador to the southern US border, then spent 48 hours in an immigration detention facility before heading to Flushing, said the idea that Chinese migrants were building a military “does not exist” among the immigrants he has met.
“It is impossible that they would walk on foot for over one month” for that purpose, he said. “We came here to make money.”
Immigrants in Flushing, a densely populated Chinese cultural enclave in Queens, said they came to the US to escape poverty and financial losses from China’s strict lockdown during the pandemic, or to escape the threat of imprisonment in a repressive society where they couldn’t speak or exercise their religion freely.
Donald Trump made the controversial comments during a campaign rally
Trump has been slammed for his comments ( Image: Getty Images