The New Yorker Radio Hour – "Life After Lockdown, and the Politics of Blaming China"

Date: May 29, 2020
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Peter Hessler (New Yorker staff writer, reporting from Chengdu, China), Evan Osnos (New Yorker staff writer, reports from Washington)

Episode Overview

This episode explores two interwoven themes: life in China as cities emerge from lockdown and a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic shaped and intensified political rhetoric around China in the United States. The first segment is a personal and detailed account from Peter Hessler living through and after quarantine in Chengdu, while the second segment, featuring Evan Osnos, analyzes the U.S. political response, the surge of conspiracy theories, and the long history of blaming China in American political discourse.

Segment 1: Life After Lockdown in China

Guest: Peter Hessler
Timestamps: 00:10 – 08:54

Life During and After Lockdown

• Early Lockdown Experience

  • Hessler and his family entered strict quarantine in January 2020, well before the U.S.
  • “Convenience stores were always open. Kind of like small markets were always open. A lot of people do stuff online anyway here.” (Peter Hessler, 00:32)

• Reopening & Nightlife

  • Peter reports on social life resuming, including attending a crowded techno party:
    • “It was a club and…it was mostly gay, young Chinese. Chengdu is a pretty hip place and it's got a pretty active music scene.” (01:00)

• Public Health Measures and Social Practices

  • Despite mask-wearing, there’s little social distancing:
    • “People wear the masks. They know that's important, but there's no space in lines...I was just on a flight…There was not a single seat empty on that flight.” (01:29)
  • Schools Reopening:
    • Hessler’s children returned to a class of 54 students; initial mask-wearing was soon dropped.
    • “They wore masks for three weeks. And then the teachers got tired of it, clearly, and they let everybody take the masks off.” (02:17)

• Remaining Precautions and Surveillance

  • Intensive temperature checks, QR code health tracking required for school and travel:
    • “You have to scan a QR code for each of the kids. And one of these health code apps...I have to send to college where I teach my own information every morning.” (03:39)
    • “You could not travel in China now without a smartphone.” (04:29)

• Government Accountability and System of Control

  • Outbreaks met with swift punitive action (e.g., officials fired after a cluster in Jilin):
    • “When they don’t contain it…they fire people. So, you know, the system is built partly on fear.” (03:08)

Cultural Contrasts: U.S. vs. China

• Compliance vs. Rebellion
  • “There is a complete difference in terms of the response…in China…people were very obedient, very willing to go along.” (05:20)
  • Messaging and strategy in the U.S. are described as lacking clarity and follow-through:
    • “…they never told Americans it's going to take this amount of time. And while we're lockdown, we're going to set up a system that makes sure that we can tell where this disease is popping up.” (05:20)

Conspiracy Theories and Perceptions

• Chinese Public Perception
  • Conspiracy theories exist (“the US started this and that it was brought in by the military”), but Hessler finds them half-hearted:
    • “If the US did deliberately, they should have been ready for it. It’s not a very good conspiracy theory.” (06:46)
  • Chinese people, on a personal level, respond with “pity” rather than anger toward the U.S.:
    • “I almost feel like they feel sorry for me and sorry for what's going on there.” (07:26)

Looking Forward: Hopes and Anxieties

• Vaccine Uncertainties
  • Divided expert opinion within China on vaccine prospects; no long-term national plan:
    • “I asked them, I said, so what's the long term plan? And he said, there is no long term plan. There's no country that has a long term plan.” (08:54)

Segment 2: The U.S. Politics of Blaming China

Guest: Evan Osnos
Timestamps: 09:03 – 20:14

Chinese Response: Failures and Strengths

• Initial Mishandling

  • Chinese authorities suppressed early warnings, notably Dr. Li Wenliang’s attempts to raise the alarm.
    • “He was silenced. The police told him not to spread rumors…there was this critical six day period in January when the senior leadership in Beijing knew the severity…but didn’t move to do anything.” (10:14)

• Authoritarian Effectiveness

  • The government quickly implemented stringent controls, forced quarantines, and achieved world-leading testing and tracking.
    • “...all the things on which the United States frankly, failed.” (10:54)

• Global Impact of Delayed Response

  • “A British study…estimated that at least 60% of the cases in March around the world could have been avoided had China moved faster.” (11:54)

American Political Rhetoric and Anti-China Sentiment

• Political Ads and Narratives
  • Donald Trump and Republicans are using China as a central campaign theme.
    • Sample ad: “China’s killing our jobs and now killing our people.” (12:48)
  • Osnos’s analysis:
    • “They're going to use that idea where they just took the freeform political energy that had been circulating around the sense that China's economic competition has undermined America's way of life. They've shifted that now onto the language of the pandemic.” (13:09)

Trump and Biden: Complex Records on China

• Trump’s Praise and Rhetoric

  • Trump alternated between praising China and blaming it for the virus.
    • “You had a moment early on when...Trump was trying to decide...whether to turn China into the opponent. Trump, he was saying, I think the Chinese government has it under control.” (14:30)
  • Motivation: Trump wanted calm in the markets and hoped for a personal relationship with Xi Jinping.

• Biden’s Approach and Evolution

  • Under pressure, the Biden campaign engages directly with the China issue but risks feeding racist or xenophobic attitudes.
    • “They have to meet some of this China focus toe to toe...Now the question will become: how do you have a response to it that does not take this in a downward spiral to the lowest common denominator?” (15:52)
  • Noteworthy: Increase in anti-Asian incidents in the US, attributed partly to pandemic-related rhetoric:
    • “There have been a significant uptick in attacks on Asian Americans...this is attributed...to this climate of hostility…” (15:52)
  • Biden has generally represented the “Washington consensus” of engagement with China, but both parties have shifted toward a more confrontational stance in recent years:
    • “He is harder on the place than he was when he was the Vice President and certainly than when he was in the Senate.” (16:50)

Down-Ballot Races and Longstanding Trends

• Anti-China Messaging in Local Campaigns
  • Example: Texas congressional candidate Kathleen Wall’s ad:
    • “China poisoned our people...President Trump has the courage to call it what it is, the Chinese virus...China is a criminal enterprise masquerading as a sovereign nation. It’s time to fight back.” (18:31)
  • Evan Osnos contextualizes this as a recurring political strategy:
    • “This idea of attacking China has been part of our politics for a long time…So the effect is that it has amped up the anti China rhetoric to quite a remarkable degree.” (19:02)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I mean, honestly, you could not travel in China now without a smartphone.”
  — Peter Hessler (04:29)

• “The system is built partly on fear.”
  — Peter Hessler (03:08)

• “If the US did [start the virus] deliberately, they should have been ready for it. It’s not a very good conspiracy theory.”
  — Peter Hessler (06:46)

• “There is no country that has a long term plan.”
  — Peter Hessler (08:54)

• “A British study…estimated that at least 60% of the cases…could have been avoided had China moved faster.”
  — Evan Osnos (11:54)

• “There are just very few people in the United States who are going to rise to the defense of the Chinese Communist Party right now…”
  — Evan Osnos (13:09)

• “It's a live issue…whether the United States is gonna…see China as an opponent that it can deal with…or whether it's…an enemy…of a fundamental Cold War style conflict.”
  — Evan Osnos (16:50)

Key Timestamps

• 00:10 – Peter Hessler describes daily life and reopening in Chengdu
• 02:17 – Schools reopening and changes to mask-wearing
• 03:39 – Surveillance and health QR codes
• 05:20 – Compliance/culture comparison: China vs. the U.S.
• 06:46 – Conspiracy theories in China
• 09:03 – Evan Osnos on the pandemic’s politicization in the U.S.
• 10:14 – Osnos on China’s early mistakes and strengths
• 11:54 – Quantifying the cost of delayed action in China
• 12:39 – Example of China-focused American political ads
• 13:09 – Osnos: Why anti-China rhetoric works politically
• 16:50 – How the U.S. consensus on China has changed
• 18:31 – Down-ballot anti-China ads and historical context

Tone & Language

Remnick’s tone is earnest and inquisitive, aiming for clarity and depth. Peter Hessler is detailed, pragmatic, and occasionally wry (“not a very good conspiracy theory”); Evan Osnos provides clear-eyed, concise analysis of politics and policy. The episode moves briskly between personal narrative and high-level political analysis, maintaining a balanced, insightful tone throughout.

Summary Takeaways

• China’s post-lockdown life is marked by a rapid return to normalcy in some respects, but under the watchful eye of intense surveillance and public health monitoring.
• Cultural and political responses to COVID-19 differ sharply between China and the U.S., explained in part by government structure, clarity of public messaging, and historical context.
• COVID-19 is politically weaponized in the U.S., with both major parties engaging in aggressive anti-China rhetoric, often lacking nuance and risking further stigmatization of Asian Americans.
• The global consequences of China’s early concealment were severe, yet its later efficiency in containment stands in sharp contrast to failures in the West.
• The pandemic may fundamentally reshape U.S.-China relations, with both nations—and their leaders—trying to recalibrate their post-pandemic strategies.