US politicians' stigmatization of China on the coronavirus has sparked instant concern over racial discrimination, US disrespect for medical science, and its disregard of World Health Organization, according to analysts.

To stigmatize a country or a location by associating the virus with that place is improper. It is not only anti-science, but is xenophobic

K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India

The WHO has officially named the COVID-19 virus as SARS-CoV-2, but US politicians including its president have been calling a name just based on where the virus was first discovered.

"To stigmatize a country or a location by associating the virus with that place is improper," stated K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. "It is not only anti-science, but is xenophobic."

"A virus should be named by the biological name or the scientific name given to it," he insists.

"(The world needs to) move to shared values of respecting countries and respecting ethnicities and adopting a fully respectful non-discriminatory attitude towards all populations, and not encouraging xenophobia in any way that links any ethnic group in a negative association with any disease."

Helen Sawczak, National CEO of Australia China Business Council, considers the sort of commentary by the US politicians as "particularly unnecessary and unhelpful", and regards COVID-19 as a global humanitarian crisis which will have profound and long-lasting economic impacts around the world.

"WHO officials have emphasized that the virus does not have an ethnicity, does not respect borders and requires a united response," Sawczak said. "As China is beginning to contain the virus, and resume normal life, Australia and other countries are beginning to deal with major disruptions to their way of life in response to COVID-19 as it spreads to other parts of the world."

In her view, the Australian companies are keen to ride out this storm, and restore business confidence and get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. Thus, the road to recovery from this pandemic and its economic impact will require much greater international cooperation and a de-escalation of tensions between all parties.

Aaron Jed Rabena, Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress, a Manila-based foreign policy think-tank, said this US blame has revealed that even the global pandemic didn't stop the strategic rivalry between two of world's most powerful countries – China and the US.

"Trump was stressing about the geographical origin of the virus. His emphasizing the 'Chineseness' (of the novel coronavirus) stigmatizes China as a country. It can also inflame racist sentiments – and not just against the Chinese," said the research fellow.

He has observed that Asians too are victimized because Asians have similar physical features, as there are also reports of people in Europe or the US attacking Asians and blaming them for the COVID-19 outbreak.

"India also had this problem of a similar kind," said Reddy from India. "So we are no strangers to this nature of propaganda, which is xenophobic. We fully have solidarity with the Chinese position on this, at least the scientists do. And I believe that we shall together counter this."

According to Professor Jane Golley, director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University in Canberra, Trump works the name game to his own political gain among wide criticism of his slack response until recently.

She believes the COVID-19 outbreak is a time for global cooperation to solve a global problem, if there was ever one, as rising levels of nationalism across the globe make the prospects for global cooperation seem bleak.

But, so far it is "a gift for those seeking to wind back the China-US relationship, not only through trade and investment restrictions, but now with restrictions on people as well", as described by Golley.

Contact the writers at karlwilson@chinadailyapac.com