The Rise of Xenophobia and Nationalism in China Since the COVID Pandemic: Insights from Discourse Analysis

Abstract Since the successful containment of COVID-19 in Wuhan late March 2020, China had implemented a nationwide highly stringent and restrictive zero-COVID policy to manage pandemic until sudden swift away from it early December 2022. How did Chinese Communist Party discursively construct as ‘normal’ legitimate policy? Using interpretivism poststructuralist political theory, this paper examines how elites constructed discourse danger for COVID pandemic, with dominant discursive narratives full xenophobic nationalist languages. The framed ‘foreigners’ ‘threats’ people’s health, advocated that should rely on home-made vaccines medicines and, more importantly, argued rule demonstrates ‘institutional superiority’ over Western governance. This has lingered after dismantling policy. There are grounds us concern whether is seeking self-reliance rather than integrating itself world. A decoupling world—a similar Mao era—is not unthinkable.