In times of war and love

Abstract

As our mediated and interconnected everyday life has been deeply implicated in the global changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, I look at the residual world-system coloniality in disease prevention in Taiwan as a focal point for inter-Asia referencing. By drawing some observations from the ways the pandemic governs the society, I argue that COVID-19 has returned us to deflected cold war problematics in view of the escalating U.S.-China conflict. I first observe how the nationalization process of the stressed epidemic prevention that governs daily practices in Taiwan has expanded into a normalization of the warfare state (of mind) against the Coronavirus made synonymous with China. I also consider how the cold war logic of militarization mediates the longstanding imperialist world order of Sinophobic orientalism across the Pacific. Lastly, I comment on how the convergence of pandemic and war discourses enables a nationalistic reimagining of Taiwanese origin and race through a liberal framing of love and marriage.