Volume 23 Issue 4 Thematic Issue: The Economic and Social Impacts of Covid-19 Article 3 12-2021 An Increase in Racism during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the An Increase in Racism during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Ontology of Race: Intercultural Comparison of the European and Ontology of Race: Intercultural Comparison of the European and Chinese Traditions Chinese Traditions Jana S. Roš ker University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia, jana.rosker@ff.uni-lj.si Follow this and additional works at: https://www.ebrjournal.net/home Part of the Asian Studies Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Roš ker, J. S. (2021). An Increase in Racism during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Ontology of Race: Intercultural Comparison of the European and Chinese Traditions. Economic and Business Review, 23(4), 251-259. https://doi.org/10.15458/2335-4216.1290 This Original Article is brought to you for free and open access by Economic and Business Review. It has been accepted for inclusion in Economic and Business Review by an authorized editor of Economic and Business Review. ORIGINAL ARTICLE An Increase in Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Ontology of Race: Intercultural Comparison of the European and Chinese Traditions Jana S. Rosker University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia Abstract The article treats intercultural problems of global-scale crises, focusing upon the pandemic of the viral disease COVID-19. It deals with the question of whether racism is universal or culturally conditioned, and shows that it is an ideological inheritance of the ontological status of the concept of race, which was developed and established in the contextoftheEuropeanideationaltradition.BypresentingtraditionalChinesemodelsofrelational andanti-essentialist concepts of the self, the article aims to point to new possibilities of understanding interpersonal and intercultural in- teractions that can help us to develop new strategies against the pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19, Ethics of pandemics, Racism, Racial essence, Substance of race JEL classification: N45 Introduction C ritical situations always generate fear, espe- cially during pandemics when discriminatory patterns of behaviour such as xenophobia and racismflourishinthepopulation.Theperiodduring the global COVID-19 pandemic is no different; it has uncovered and reincarnated many political and interpersonal practices that arose from fear and manifested themselves in hateful reactions, with suchhatreddirectedinmostcasesagainstmembers of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. Afterthedisseminationofinitialinformationabout the“Chinesevirus”,I,asasinologist,wasparticularly attentive to numerous latent, sometimes even completely open expressions of xenophobia, which weredirectedmainlyagainstAsianmigrantslivingin SloveniaandEurope(Rosker,2020a,4).Severalofmy AsiancolleaguesattheDepartment of Asianstudies, forinstance,reportedtousthattheyhadexperienced racial incidents in Slovenia. One of them was even exposedtoviolence,forwhenhewasridinghisbicycle fromthefacultytowardshishome,twoteenageboys threwastoneafterhim,shouting“Corona!“.Another femalelectureroftheJapaneselanguagereportedthat asellerinacommodityshophadrefusedtoserveher. HavingheardsimilarstoriesfromGermany,itwould certainlybeinteresting tobenchmark suchexamples ofracistbehaviourtotheEUaveragesorothercoun- tries which have historically similar relations with China(perhapsothercountriesinCentralandEastern Europe).Nevertheless,thistaskisasubjectoffurther research,sinceitwouldcertainlygobeyondthescope ofthepresentinvestigation. Not long after that, there was news of xenophobic attacks among Chinese people; initially, these were directed against their own fellow citizens from Wuhan 1 and the surrounding regions, and later mainly against internal migrants, who mostly migrated from rural areas to the cities in search of a Received 12 August 2020; accepted 19 February 2021. Available online 23 December 2021. E-mail address: jana.rosker@ff.uni-lj.si. 1 The coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first epidemic broke out. Wuhan made headlines worldwide as the first city where mass self-isolation of all inhabitants took place. https://doi.org/10.15458/85451.1290 2335-4216/© 2021 School of Economics and Business University of Ljubljana. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). better life. Such incidents reached their startling peakinattacks,isolationanddetentionsoftheblack African population working and studying in China (e.g. Boothe, 2020; Pai, 2020). Since these attacks weremostlyprovokedbythevictim'sappearanceor skin colour, they were undoubtedly racist in nature. Since there is a presumption that xenophobia and racism are based on the “innate” fear of strangers, which is supposedly something “inherently human”, this also opens questions of whether racism truly is something universal. In the following, I will deal with this question in detailonthebasisofacomparisonbetweenChinese and European ideational traditions. I will approach these issues from the presumption that racism is a structural, social phenomenon, which is closely connected to the European (and of course also American) culture and history. As such, it was created and developed hand-in-hand with the cen- turies-long processes of colonialism, including its modern variations, such as neo- and post-colo- nialism. Thus, I also work from the presumption that the concept of race and the phenomena of structural racism are closely connected to the eco- nomic, political, and axiological dominance of the West over the regions of the so-called Third World and later of the Global South. To a certain degree, all this also applies to my own country, Slovenia. While this small-size Central European state itself has no colonial history, the average world view is nonetheless still strongly influenced by colonialism, and the concept of “whiteness” is, at least uncon- sciously, still considered superior. Iwillexaminebothassumptionsfromanontological perspective and from the viewpoint of transcultural comparisons.Beforedoingso,Iwillalsopresentsome questions that form the background of the topic in more detail. These are the relation between racism and infectious diseases, the differences between individualizedandstructured(orpolitical)racism,as wellastheconceptofraceitselfwithallitsontological foundationsandsocialimplications. 1TheincreaseinracismduringtheCOVID-19 pandemic:thefearof “theother”asaresultof fear of the disease Many researchers, particularly in the field of psychology and to some degree also in sociology and anthropology, work from the presumption that mostpeoplereactinstinctivelytoinfectious diseases in a similar way to animals. This behavioural “immune system” consists of several psychological mechanisms that first detect the signals indicating the presence of pathogenic infections. When such signals appear, these mechanisms stimulate the corresponding emotional and cognitive responses that stimulate behaviour which safeguards the avoidance of infection. However, this system is designed to trigger mechanisms based on very common signals that can lead to a general aversion towards objects and people who in reality do not pose any risk (Schaller & Park, 2011). In recent years, such studies have uncovered several prob- lematicimplications,expressedinfeelingsofdisgust and hatred towards the “Other”, which naturally reinforces xenophobia and similar prejudices in in- teractions with people from different cultures. Perhaps the phenomenon of racism can also be better understood through the lens of Michael Hogg's “uncertainty-identity theory” (Hogg, 2007), which is based on the social identity theory, and refers to social cognitive and interactive practices that are linked to social identity in order to show howself-uncertaintystimulatesgroupidentification, and vice versa, namely how group identification thendecreasesfeelingsofuncertaintyaboutoneself. Such an analysis helps us to improve our “under- standing of the way in which intense and contin- uous uncertainty may lead to group ‘extremism’” (Hogg & Wagoner, 2017). The latter can manifest itself in zealotry, fanaticism, ideological orthodoxy, xenophobia, dehumanization, collective violence, fascism, neo-Nazism, ethnocentrism, and certainly alsoinracism.Hogginadditionclearlyshows(2014) that uncertainty not only drives us toward distinct and clear groups, but also motivates us to defend our in-group against outgroups who we perceive to threaten our group's values and beliefs. From the viewpoint of the state, however, group identitiesareimportant,becausetheyareabasisfor national identity, which brings about social inter- connection and cohesion. On the other hand, they are also required to incorporate and counterbalance the economic disparities that often come with differentgeographicorigins,sowecanstillmaintain our view thatsuccess and failure are in the hands of individuals (Jensen, 2013). In this regard, race is a significant concept, because it influences the pros- pectsandexperiencesofindividuals,notonlydueto thesocialdominationofessentialism,butevenmore because of “historical and social reasons, which no single individual is sufficiently powerful to change” (Yanow, 2003). 252 ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 Of course, the prevalence of racism and scape- goating in the face of catastrophes and disasters has a much longer history than the recent outbreaks described above . 2 This history provides us with an important context enabling us to better understand the connections between social conditions and the arising of such critical situations. It reminds us that disasters and catastrophes are not exclusively nat- ural phenomena, but also a result of the economic, political and social decisions that increase the de- gree of vulnerability to various risks. It can also illuminate the fact that discrimination, racism and scapegoating have long been used to distract citi- zens from the underlying economic, political and social decisions that produced vulnerability to disaster and disease in the first place (Pasch, 2020). The historical framework therefore helps us to realize that our understanding of crisis situations is always linked to these decisions, which are often based on specific interests of external political and economic power relations. 3 This paper was inspired by the increase in racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to manypositivepracticesthatdidmuchtocontainthe pandemic and were based on interpersonal soli- darity and cooperation, the onset of the crisis also revealed the darker side of human reactions to in- fectious diseases and other catastrophic situations. Inmanycountriesthiswasreflectedinthespreadof mistrust, fear and open racism. In Europe and America, we have often witnessed the prevalence of stereotypes about the inhabitants of China or Eastern Asia. The Ebola and SARS epidemics were no different in this respect. AsasinologistIhaveaskedmyselfmanyquestions regarding the reasons for this situation and the con- ditionsthatledtoit.Itiscommonknowledgethatthe emergenceoroutbreakoftheepidemic,whichbegan in the city of Wuhan, inhabited by more than eleven million people, was most likely closely linked to inadequate sanitary conditions in wet markets with living animals, including wild ones. News of this triggered a wave of disgust and indignation directed against the inhabitants of that city and also against Chinaingeneral.IntheeyesofmanyintheWest,the Chinese became the “primitive” people “with a very low level of culture”. This soon led to an explosive increaseinsinophobiaandotherformsofneo-racism inEuro-Americansocietiesthatwereassociatedwith unreflective prejudices and based on a lack of knowledge of the complex factors that accurately defineeachculture,itsvaluesandthebehaviourpat- ternsofthepeoplelivingthere.Theunderstandingof thenatureofthe“Other”andothergeneralizedviews of him/her as the bearer of certain characteristics which are supposedly the consequence of his/her racialorethnicaffiliationhaveonceagaincometothe forefront.Itseemsthatracismislatentlypresentallthe timeinWesternsocieties,asitispartofthestructured foundations of ideologies, social orders and concur- rent cognitive and behavioural patterns that are the consequence of the spread of implicit and explicit ideologicalmessages.Atthesametime,wehavealso witnessedxenophobic andracistoutbreaksinChina, triggeredbythefearofanewepidemicorthesecond waveofCOVID-19. Therefore,wemustaskourselveswhetherracismis truly a universal phenomenon that arises in crisis situations all over the world, because if we consider the abovementioned assumptions of psychological research, racism itself would stem from the biologi- callydevelopedinstinctivereactionsofallmembersof humankindtothefearof“difference”.However,ifwe view racism from a different perspective, which also takes into account epistemological and ontological factors of understanding the “Other”, it would also seem that it is much more likely that we are dealing withaspecificculturallyconstructedideologythatcan be used as a “considerably effective political mecha- nism for controlling the wider population and pro- tectingtheinterestsofthefinancialelitesinsocietiesof the centre that build their modernization on colo- nialism”(Rosker,2020b). 2 Individual and structural racism and the dichotomy of nature and society Sociology differentiates between two kinds or types of racism. The first one is individual and manifests itself in racist attacks within inter-human orinterpersonalrelationships.Suchatypeofracism pertains to racist presumptions, viewpoints and behavioursoftheindividualandcanbeseenassuch a form of racist discrimination, which is based upon conscious and unconscious individual prejudices (Henry& Tator, 2006). 2 On the other hand, this kind of “history” isesadly enoughestill very much alive. In his article on Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’, Bhambra clearly shows that the rhetoric of both Brexit and Trump campaigns was equally rooted in such a vision of the past that was “constituted by nations that were represented as ‘white’ into which racialized others had insinuated themselves and gained disproportionate advantage” (Bhambra, 2017). 3 This can be illustrated by the example of Dr. Li Wenliang, a doctor who tried to warn the public at a very early stage of the danger of the coronavirus epidemic.Immediately afterwards, hewas visited bythepolicewhothreatenedhimwithseverepenalties, ifhedidnot signapublicstatement confirming thathisinformationwasfalse.Thisexampleclearlyshowsthatacceptingtherelationshipbetweeneconomics,politicsandtheconstructionofvulnerability to danger obviously implies that such disasters are not only a problem of nature, but also of politics. ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 253 Themostimportantfacthereisthatthesekindsof racism manifest themselves on an individual, i.e. personal, level and must be separated from the so- calledstructuralracism,whichisthesecondtype.In this latter form of racism, inequalities are rooted in the ideological foundations of the functions of a social system which excludes a significant number of members of certain social groups and discrimi- natesagainstthemwhenitcomestoparticipationin central social institutions. Of course, we cannot overlook the fact that the origins of this systematic or structured racism are closely linked to colo- nialism, which was one of the main pillars of Western modernization and its economic and po- litical dominance. 4 The roots of both colonialism and racism are closely connected to the dominant world views and axiological systems that helped shape European societies since Antiquity. Furthermore,racismcanbedividedintothelatent and manifested, similar to Said's concept of Orien- talism(1995).Thefirstformistheformofvisibleand blatant belittling, discrimination or violence against members of non-European cultures or people whose appearance differs from the standards of a Westernwhiteman.Theseformsofopenracismare based on racist ideologies that are part of an inherent, often even essential part of any discourse of Western philosophy based on the belief in the reality of the concept of “race” as a “substance” defined by determinism, hypostasis and objectiv- ization or concretization of paradigms, based on the primality of the unchangeable and static concept of being, of which I will speak of in the following chapter. Latentformsofracismarealsobaseduponsimilar ideologies and worldviews, which are treating the “Other” as inferior. This type of racism is shown in the continued mechanical, unreflected and uncriti- cal tendency to preserve the current condition; its elementary orientation is in contradiction with any kind of autonomy, and conservative in its very na- ture.Inthissense,latentracismisnolessdangerous than its candid and manifested forms, because both types contribute to the structural preservation of existing discrimination. We could even claim the opposite, namely that latent (and hence mostly un- conscious) forms of racism are often more dangerous (and more persistent) than its manifest practices, because we live in a society in which only a few people in their sane minds would openly advocate racism. That is why hidden and latent forms of racism are actually more damaging, because they are hard to point out, to directly bring out and fight against. As we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, a small virus is enough for thisundergroundracismtogainastructuralground and come alive once more, spreading at least as fast as the virus that caused it. Like the concept “gender”, the notion of “race” is also a socially constructed idea that has no direct connection to the biological make-up of people who are definedas belongingto a certain genderor race. Many theoreticians believe that without an insight into this constructedness, we could not effectively fight against discrimination, which is always con- nected to such categorizations. Today's claims that sexual identities are socially constructed and not biologically determined are only possible against the background of Cartesian tradition; there is no modern feminism and anti- racism without Descartes' thought ( Zizek, 2020). Both statements included in this quote are Euro- centric, the first one because it presumes that the dualistic model of Cartesian philosophy is the one and only possible perspective of the real and true understanding of the relationship between matter and idea, or between reality and the comprehension of it. ThesecondstatementisEurocentric, becauseit stressesonlytheconsequencesbutnotthereasonsfor thefeministandanti-racistmovements.Inthisway,it emphasizes the positive connotations of the effect, withouttakingintoaccounttheindubitablenegativity ofthereasons.Justasthereisnoneedforfeminismin a society without the domination of the patriarchy, thereisalsononeedforanti-racistmeasureswithout theexistence of racism.Of course,I am not claiming that the patriarchy is only present in societies in whichthephilosophyofCartesiandualismtookhold. However,differentsocietiesinducedifferentformsof patriarchy; therefore, feminist movements from differentsocietiesandculturesalsohavetoreactand fight against patriarchy in different ways and with different methods. Ergo, “modern feminism”, which is conditioned (as the name says) by modernization, might not be the best form of resistance against a patriarchy that stems from different social and cul- turalspecifics,unliketheonesthatshapedtheEuro- peantypeofpatriarchy. 5 4 For a very good and informative analysis of this phenomenon see the first chapters of Keegan, 1997 book The Colonial Roots of Racism: Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order. 5 An excellent essay about the unreflected transfer of the Western model of emancipation and fight for women's rights and equality to Chinese society was written by the female anarchist He Zhen, who lived on the threshold of the 20th century (see He, 1983). 254 ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 Therefore, the transfer of the concept of racism to other “non-Cartesian” cultures deepens the prob- lem of racism as such, because, as we have shown above, any talk of the existence of structured racism in non-European societies is problematic and rushed,untilweproducedetailedanalysesandgain evidence that it also exists in some non-European cultureswhichdidnothaveaWestern-typecolonial history. However, let us return to the first presumption in the Zizek quote and investigate whether Car- tesian dualism is truly the only epistemological model that offers us an insight into the dividing line between body and spirit, and thus an under- standing of the relationship between nature and culture. The unspoken basis of the quote is a prerequisite that speaks of the superiority of the dualistic view of the world, which implicitly pre- supposes that the differentiation between impor- tant segments of reality such as biological materiality and its socio-ideational interpretations is only possible on the grounds of the dualistic model. My critique of such prerequisites is based on the basic methodological and theoretical as- sumptions of Chinese philosophy as an autono- mous discourse. 6 Even though this philosophy is holistic, it is also based on the relational network which is binary structured. This is nothing out of the ordinary, since human thinking is also based on the differentiation of binary contrasts, and the model of Cartesian dualism is but one of the bi- nary structured epistemological paradigms. The classical Chinese model of binary structured rela- tional holism that works in the frame of the so- called binary categories 7 is based on the principle of complementarity in which both counter poles that construct the binary model are not in mutual contradiction but are merely mutually opposed. However, their position is completely reciprocal. In this model, both counter poles mutually com- plete each other and are co-dependent. Culture and nature are also two entities in such a model. Being parts of a binary category, they are mutually separated; however, the dividing line between them is not static and fixed, but rather changeable and dynamic. In such a way nature and culture are in constant interaction and under continuous mutual influence. It is also important to note that in such a model culture cannot exist without na- ture, and vice versa. This is why it comes as no surprise that in the frame of Chinese cognitive tradition, the differenti- ation between nature and culture is common knowledge and has belonged to the basic and commonlyvalid modelsof understandingtheworld since the pre-Qin period. 8 First, let us see the opinion of Confucius, the most famous representa- tive of ancient Chinese culture and thought, on the subject of nature and culture. Below is one of the most famous quotes, which describes the relation- ship between the natural and learned elements of the personality: The Master said, “By nature, menare nearlyalike; by practice, they get to be wide apart. 9 ” (Lunyu s.d. Yang Huo). Thus,Confuciusclearlydeniedtherelevanceofany inborn,i.e.biological,differencesbetweenpeople;this of course is no coincidence, if one considers the fact thatoneofthemainattributesoftheConfucianschool isitsemphasisontheimportanceofeducationonthe groundsofaworldviewthatcouldbeseenasaformof social constructivism. Socialization based on educa- tion is one of the main positions of Confucian philo- sophical,socialandethicalthought.Itisimportantto note here the universal presumption that such so- cialization is possible for all peopleeregardless of their“race”or“gender”.Thus,wereadintheConfu- cianAnalects:“Allpeoplecangeteducated,regardless ofthe(social)categorytowhichtheybelong” 10 (Lunyu s.d.,WeiLingGong). Onthe other hand,structuralracismthatforms,as we have seen, the ideological foundation of colo- nialism(andalsoofmoderncapitalism),isnecessarily basedontheconceptofrace.Asrevealedbytheabove quotationfromtheConfucianAnalects,andaswillbe shown in the following section, this kind of concep- tualizationoftheselfisnotpossiblewithintherefer- entialframeworkofChinesephilosophy. 6 This does not by any means mean that Chinese philosophy is the only possible discourse (alongside the Cartesian one) that gives an insight into the dichotomy between nature and culture and offers a rational interpretation of this dichotomy. 7 Themostwell-knownandcommonbinarycategoryoftheChinesetraditionisyingyang,whichinessencedescribestherelationshipbetweenthesunny and shady side of the hill. It is a representation of the relation between the latent and manifest or passive and active. However, several other conceptual pairs also belong to binary categories, such as the differentiation between roots and branches (benmo), by which we can explore the relationship between the universal and particular or between cause and effect. A well-known and often applied binary category is also shaped by the opposition of essence and function (tiyong), which describes the relationship between an object and its application. 8 The pre-Qin period refers to the time before the autocratic rule of the Qin Dynasty (221e206 BC), which marked thefirst unification of an all-Chinese empire. It is a sinological terminus technicus and marks the period of the blossoming of ancient Chinese philosophy. 9 子曰: 「 性相近也,習相遠也。」 10 有教無類。 ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 255 3 The ontology of race The concept of race as such was developed within the frame of the European ideational tradition. Although itis scientifically completely unjustified,it has had great influence on the history of Western thought as a standard for categorizing human pop- ulations. Although races have neither an ontological status nor a concrete scientifically measurable reality, contemporary Western society tends to believe that the world population can be divided biolog- ically into “blacks”, “whites”, “Asians” and others, and that they are sustainably separated and hier- archically ordered as superior and inferior popu- lation types … Although races do not exist from a biological point of view, the belief that such cate- gorization is useful is still widespread. This conviction has, for example, had grave conse- quences for the perception of the “white Euro- pean” and other members of different population groups, and has manifested itself in the subordi- nation, exploitation and even murder of the “inferior” people. In other words, even though races do not exist, racism or the belief in the ex- istence of such biological differences has serious consequences for the behaviour and actions of all social performers at all levels (Gulic, 2015). The ontological predispositions of the concept of race were problematized in the post-Enlightenment Euro-American philosophy. However, in contrast to the referential frameworks of the classical Chinese philosophy, the blueprint of traditional European thought itselfisstructuredinsuch awaythat allows theexistenceoftheconceptofraceasacategorythat isbasedonsubstanceoressenceasafixedcollection of all substantial characteristics. ThetraditionalEuropeanconceptualizationdefines raceasasetof“bio-behaviouralessences”,whichare baseduponnatural,thatis,biologicaldesignations. 11 The category of race is still quite common at present and is stilledespite its inherent, historically docu- mentedproblemsewidelyusedinnumerousscienti- fic disciplines, such as for instance medicine (cf. Ramsak, 2020). All these practices contribute immensely to a false understanding of “race” as a natural formation. The phenomenon of social racism is therefore based on an outdated biologistic assumptionoftheexistenceofabiologicalconceptof race and “racial groups whose characteristics have been inherited and passed down from generation to generationandwerepossessedbyallmembersofthe group”(Gulic,2015).Boththeconceptofraceitselfand theexistenceoftheso-calledracialgroupsaredevoid ofanyscientificbasis,andtherehaslongbeenwhatis known as an “ontological consensus” (Mallon, 2006) among philosophers, sociologists and anthropolo- gists,allofwhomagreethattherearenobehavioural essences. Despite all this, both categories, i.e. the categoryofraceandthecategoryofracialgroups,have been preserved in the form of socially constructed entities 12 (ibid.). And notwithstanding the negative ontologicalstatusofrace,racialessentialismhasper- sisted in such social structures to this day and often playsthedecisiveroleincontemporaryphilosophical debatesontheconceptofrace(ibid.). In their criticism of a dichotomist understanding ofnatureandculture,inwhichtheyareperceivedas two opposite poles, numerous feminist theories question the foundations of the traditional Euro- pean ontology and the corresponding metaphysics and expose the fact that such a “pure” ontological categoryisnotpossibleassuch,becausetheconcept of “being” can never really be separated from its social perception (Haslanger, 1995). Such a view of reality corresponds to the above- mentioned ancient Chinese model of mutually complementary interactions between two concep- tual anti-poles, which is also the basis of the spe- cifically Chinese disciplines of onto-epistemology (Tan, 2018) and onto-hermeneutics (Cheng, 2003). However, in Western intellectual history any kind of being that went beyond the static classical Euro- pean conceptualizations of being and identity 13 was generally understood as a mere product of Carte- sian paradigms and the later Enlightenment phi- losophy: “This is why, for a Cartesian philosopher, ethnic roots and national identity are simply not a category of truth” ( Zizek, 2020). Since we are talking about intercultural compari- sonshere,wemustalsoconsiderthisquote fromthe pointofviewoftransculturalinteractions.Evenifthe two concepts mentioned above do not belong to the categoryoftruthforCartesianphilosophers,thisdoes not mean that Cartesian philosophy has a monopoly on deciding what belongs to this category and what does not. Besides, the values (and evaluations) of 11 These “endowments” are hereditary, biological characteristics shared by all members of a particular race. They can be used to explain different behavioural, cultural and character predispositions of individuals and racial groups (Gulic, 2015). 12 As such, they were also transferred to China in the process of modernization of non-European societies. 13 Such a view belongs to the ontology of the immutability of being, as defined by the pre-Socratic Parmenides; this type of static ontology became the basis of later developments that dominated the history of European thought. 256 ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 Cartesian philosophy are completely different from thevaluessharedbymostpopulationsinthesocieties inwhichitflourishesandinwhichitwasdeveloped.It is important to stress the fact that both concepts, i.e. the concept of ethnic roots and that of nationaliden- tity, are specific to the Euro-American ideological systems within which they were created. Therefore, themainconcernsoftheChinesepeopleeeventhose critical of the current PRC governmenteare not relatedtotheexistenceofsuchconceptsorthestrug- gle against them. Thisdoes not mean, of course, that thesetwoconceptsdonotservethegovernmentwell when it comes to the oppression of (mainly Central- AsianandotherMuslim)ethnicminorities.Weknow thattheyweretransferredfromEuropetoChinainthe 18th century, together with other ideological con- structs, as part of conceptual transfers within modernizationprocesses. Two further positions are important for an inter- culturalunderstandingofthe Zizekquotation.First,it isimportanttoemphasizethattherehasneverbeena debateabout“truth”inChinesephilosophy,sincethe meaningandsenseofthisterminthesenseofastatic and universal unity was already overthrown by the most influential philosophers of the pre-Qin era. 14 ThisappliesnotonlytotherelativisticDaoistsandthe Confucianrepresentativesofprocessphilosophy,but also to classical logicians like Mo Di (Fraser, 2012), who acknowledged the existence of a pragmatic, normative and even semantic truth, but not its exis- tence as something absolute, as it appears in the theoriesofcorrespondenceandcoherence.The Zizek quotation only speaks of the factthat the concepts of ethnic roots and nationalidentities inthe framework of Cartesian philosophy are not real, which means that they do not correspond to the facts, indicating that we cannot equate people with their ethnic roots or national identities in the sense of their substantial characteristics.However,thisdoesnotchangethefact that the concept of race emerged in the European intellectual history as an ontological category. In this sense, the notion of race was formed as a philosoph- icalconceptofsubstancethatcouldbeappliedtoboth biological reality and social theories. Race was un- derstood as a combination of innate characteristics that could not be changed on a personal level. The race of a human being is thus his/her telos, which determines him/her to a great extent. The secondary characteristicsofaparticularpersonhaveanegligible influence on this type of substance. Within such a logic, the essence of each person takes precedence, and all his or her empirical characteristics, such as cultural competence, education, moral conduct, and historical experience, are of a secondary nature (Xiang,2019a,b). Thus, in his work “The Anti-Semite and the Jew” Jean-Paul Sartre describes the fundamental nature of anti-Semitism through the lens of ontological substance and shows that the principle on which anti-Semitism is based works in an almost magical way (Sartre, 1995), because even if a Jew integrates all the characteristics of French culture, he or she will never be able to become a true Frenchman/ Frenchwoman, because he or she carries inside the irrevocable essence of Judaism. All this, of course, has clear consequences for racial discrimination, which enables the French to maintain and develop their sense of superiority. By perceiving the Jew as a less worthy and nega- tive being, I also confirm that I belong to the elite. In contrast to the elite of modernity, which is based on achievement, merit or work, this elite is more similar to the hereditary aristocracy. Nothing needs to be done to strengthen my su- periority, and I can never lose it. It was given to me once and for eternity (ibid.). The concept of race as an essence which defines being was developed within the Parmenidian paradigm, which in principle is still the basis of Cartesian philosophy. In Chinese philosophy, on the other hand, it could never evolve, because the latter was based on the anti-essentialist conceptu- alization of the self. In the original canon of Confucian texts, for example, the humanness of each individual is defined by the inclusion of cul- tural norms and appropriate behaviour. 15 The dif- ferences between people are not understood as the result of biology, but as the product of differences between different cultures and customs. 16 The pro- cess of education that makes such acculturation possible can best be described by the German term “Bildung”,asitisde fined by Jean Grondin who 14 ThefundamentalquestionofChinesephilosophyisnot“Whatistruth?“,butrather“WhatistheWay?”or,translatedintothelanguageoftoday,“What isthemethod(of discovery)?”(Foramore detailed explanationofthisdistinction seeHall&Ames, 1998).This proceduralaspect ofonto-epistemologycan be found in the works of many contemporary Chinese philosophical theories, for instance in Li Zehou's system of anthropo-historical ontology (see Van den Stock, 2020). 15 Foranexcellentandverydetailedanalysisofthedifferencesbetweenontologicalconceptualizationsofraceasanessentialistcategoryononehandand Confucian, culturally conditioned positions of self on the other, see Xiang, 2019a and 2019b. Also, Ames in his article about the issues of “metaphysics” in Chinese philosophy (2020), gives a thorough explanation of the difference between the ancient Greek concept of “the human being” and ancient Chinese understanding of “human becoming”. 16 The same goes for the infamous Confucian hierarchy, which was solely a kind of social hierarchy and certainly not an ontologically based one. ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 257 claims that the essence of humankind is precisely the ability to surpass any essence that could be attributed to them. A person who is constantly learning cannot have a fixed being. One can always upgrade and reshape oneself through Bildung (Grondin, 1995). Similarly, traditional Chinese thinkers have never raisedquestionsaboutthefinalessence,whichwould definecertainindividuals. 17 Theyfocusedonlyonthe processofhisorherlearningandpersonalgrowth.In contrasttotheessentialistpersonalitymodel,theonly characteristic that, according to the traditional Confucian view, is given to everyone from birth is theirpotentialforgoodnessandmorality: Theabilitypossessedbymenwithouthavingbeen acquired by learning is the intuitive ability of beingmorallygood,andtheknowledgepossessed by them without the exercise of thought is their original knowledge. There is no child carried in the arms who would not know how to love their parents (Mengzi s.d., Ji Xin I.). 人之所不學而能者,其良能也;所不慮而知者,其良知 也。孩提之童,無不知愛其親者。 This is of course related to the fact that Chinese philosophy is processual and therefore not compatiblewiththephilosophicalsystemsthathave developed on the basis of a static understanding of substance. It is therefore not surprising that ontology, as we have already seen, cannot exist separately from epistemology in Chinese culture. ThisisofcoursealsoreflectedinConfucianethics, which is based on the assumption that every person can become a highly moral person if he or she cul- tivates themselves sufficiently. This assumption is diametrically opposed to the very idea of race and racial determinism, and at the same time it has taken on the role of the main criteria for regulating interpersonal relations, including the relationship between people of different countries, cultures or origins. Traditional Chinese ethics is relational, sinceinpre-modernChinesesocietythehumanself in the sense of personal identity could only be established through the many different networks of relationships with other people. In this sense, the factthattheselfcannotexistwithoutparticipatingin interpersonalinteractionswithinaparticularculture is also very important. In a positive sense, it is precisely these relationships that enable each indi- vidual to participate on an equal footing in the culture in which he or she lives, and thus become able to change it creatively. 4 Conclusion As the sociologist Füredi (1998) noted, many studies have clearly shown that the phenomenon of racism is “a major weakness of Western societies that is difficult to refute” (Füredi, 1998). In response to this, a strong tendency to relativize Western concepts of racism has been observed in Western sinology in recent decades, reflected in attempts to reconstruct racism as something universal (Füredi, 1998). In this context, we can mention Dikoetter's book The Discourse of Race in Modern China,inwhich the author tries to prove that a widespread concept ofraceexistedinpre-modernChina.However,even such works have to admit that racial categorization in China began to develop only after the adaptation of Western thought, when modern scholars such as Fu, Qichao and Youwei deliberately turned against Chinese tradition and tried to replace it with “pro- gressive” Western ideas. However, this article has clearly shown that it is precisely this tradition that could offer us one of the possible different views of the “Other”. Awareness and study of the different models of understanding of man and humanity can offer us hope for the possibility of building up genuine interpersonal solidarity and cooperation which transcends the limitations of the essentialist under- standing of “races” and “cultures”. Ergo, an insight intosuchmodels,whichisonlypossibleonthebasis of free and ideologically unencumbered trans- cultural exchange and cooperation, should be an importantpartofthestrategytofighttheCOVID-19 pandemic and many other similar challenges that we will undoubtedly face in the near future. Acknowledgement The author acknowledges the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) in the framework of the research core funding Asian Lan- guages and Cultures (P6-0243) and in the scope of the research project N6-0161 (Complementary scheme) Humanism in Intercultural Perspective: Europe and China. 17 The abovementioned absence ofthe conceptof race in Chinese philosophy and culture isdefinitely connected to Chinese history.The Chinese people, who form a fifth of humanity, do not represent one entity, since they developed (and are still developing) as a hybrid result of the amalgamation of originally different people and cultures that inhabited the geographical region which is known today as China. China did not spread through expansive colonization, but rather through the acculturation, assimilation and absorption of originally “foreign” regions. 258 ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 References Bhambra, G. K. (2017). Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’: On the misrecognition of race and class. British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), 214e232. Boothe,C.(2020).Covid-19Theories,BlackHistoryandTransmodernity. Academia. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/42868007/ Covid_19_History_and_Transmodernity.(AccessedJuly2,2020). Cheng,C.-Y.(2003).Inquiringintotheprimarymodel:YiJingand theonto-hermeneuticaltradition.Journalof ChinesePhilosophy, 30(3, 4), 289e312. Fraser, C. (2012). Truth in moist dialectics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 39(3), 351e368. Füredi, F. (1998). The silent war: Imperialism and the changing perception of race. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Grondin,J.(1995).Sourcesof hermeneutics.NewYork:SUNYPress. Gulic, P. (2015). Filozofske razseznosti rasizma [Master's thesis]. Filozofska fakulteta. Hall, D. L., & Ames, R. T. (1998). Thinking from the han: Self, truth, and transcendence in Chinese and western culture. Albany, New York: SUNY. Haslanger, S. (1995). Ontology and social construction. Philo- sophical Topics, 23(2), 95e125. He, Z. (1983). Nüzi jiefang wenti女子解放問題. In M. Ge (Ed.), Wuzhengfuzhuyi sixiang ziliao xuan (pp. 98e107). Beijing daxue chuban she. Henry,F.,&Tator,C.(2006).RacialprofilinginCanada:Challengingthe mythsof“afewbadapples”.Toronto:UniversityofTorontopress. Hogg, M. A. (2007). Uncertainty-identity theory. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 39, pp. 69e126). San Diego, CA: Elsevier. Hogg, M. A., & Wagoner, J. A. (2017). Uncertaintyeidentity the- ory. In The international encyclopedia of intercultural communi- cation (pp. 1e9). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ 9781118783665.ieicc0177 Jensen, C. (2013). The social construction of race, inequality, and the invisible role of the state. In A. Kouzmin (Ed.), State crimes against democracy (pp. 135e155). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Keegan, T. (1997). The colonial roots of racism: Colonial South Africa and the origins of the racial order. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Lunyu(s.d.)[Disscusions].InChineseTextProject.Pre-QinandHan. Available at: https://ctext.org/analects (Accessed July 7, 2020). Mallon,R.(2006).Race:Normative,notmetaphysicalorsemantic. Ethics, 116(3), 525e551. Mengzi孟子(Mencij).(s.d.).Chinesetextproject.Pre-qinandhan. Availableat:https://ctext.org/mengzi(AccessedJuly10,2020). Pai, H. H. (2020). The corona Virus Crisis has exposed China's long history of racism. The Guardian. Available at: https://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/coronavirus- exposed-china-history-racism-africans-guangzhou. (Accessed July 2, 2020). Pasch, K. (2020). Coronavirus: The latest disease to fuel mistrust, fear and racism. The Conversation, 12.02.2020. Available at: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-the-latest-disease- to-fuel-mistrust-fear-and-racism-130853. (Accessed July 6, 2020). Ramsak, M. (2020). Medical racism. European Journal of Bioethics, 11(1), 9e36. Rosker, J. S. (2020a). What is virism and how is it connected to Chinese philosophy. In C. Soeffel (Ed.), EACP newsletter 2020 (pp. 3e6). Trier: EACP. Rosker, J. S. (2020b). Relacijska etika in organizacija sinitskih druzb v obdobju pandemije COVID-19 (in press). In J. S. Rosker (Ed.), Izolirajmo virus, ne Azije!. Ljubljana: Znanst- vena zalozba FF. Said, E. W. (1995). Orientalism. Western conceptions of the orient. London, New Delhi: Penguin. Sartre,J.-P.(1995).Anti-semite andJew: An explorationof theetiology of hate. New York: Schocken Books. Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2011). The behavioral immune system (and why it matters). Science, 20(2), 99e103. Tan, C. (2018). The equal onto-epistemology of the ‘equal discourse of things’ [齊物論 Qiwulun] chapter: A semantic approach. Tetsugaku, (2), 282e295. VandenStock,A.(2020).Imprintsofthethinginitself:LiZehou's critique of critical philosophy and the historicization of the transcendental. Asian Studies, 8(1), 15e35. Xiang, S. (2019a). Why the Confucians had no concept of race (Part I): The antiessentialist cultural understanding of self. Philosophy Compass, 14(10). Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1111/phc3.12628 Xiang, S. (2019b). Why the Confucians had no concept of race (Part II): Cultural difference, environment, and achievement. Philosophy Compass, 14(10). Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1111/phc3.12627 Yanow,D.(2003).Constructing“race”and“ethnicity”inAmerica. In Category-making in public policy and public administration. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Zizek, S. (2020). Politically correct white people who practise self- contempt are contributing NOTHING in the fight to end racism. Available at: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/493408-white-racism- fight-guilty/?fbclid¼IwAR0UTkZ8yKvLFivWUhYFgpz7FOhZu KcEZvjBVY2W3Gdba2zXkCKTRNJU_Sk. (Accessed July 2, 2020). ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS REVIEW 2021;23:251e259 259