COVID-19 and political polarization: Notes on Australia’s Chinese communities

Abstract

In this article I draw from my personal observations as a participant in two WeChat groups; a group with my university classmates most of whom are now residents of Australia, and the other a skilled migrant group based in South Australia. I explore the main narrative threads of these two groups in relation to their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic during the first half of 2020. I argue that the COVID-19 pandemic sharpened the political polarization that exists between denouncers of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and their detractors, and also underlined particular moral dilemmas.