The Freilich Project is pleased to invite you to a Freilich Network Seminar with Dr Yu Tao, one of the recipients of the 2021 Freilich Small Grants.

Abstract:
Many countries have chosen to close their borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To the approximately 1.5 million Chinese international students, these unprecedented border control measures have placed many challenges. Regardless of their individual political views, many Chinese international students were put in awkward situations created by increasing diplomatic tensions between China and a range of countries, including the US and Australia in 2020. Moreover, as the nationalist sensation rises in China and the West amid the global pandemic, Chinese international students are often subject to racist discriminations aboard while get accused of being unpatriotic at home. This presentation discusses how Chinese international students are forced to renegotiate their identities, loyalties, and sense of belonging due to the discriminations they faced both aboard and at home during the COVID-19 pandemic so far. It also lays out a research agenda on the racial discrimination against and by Chinese international students amid the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Dr Yu Tao is a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Asian Studies at the School of Social Sciences, the University of Western Australia. Trained as a political sociologist, he primarily focuses on studying the state-society relations in contemporary China and overseas Chinese societies.