Written by Luke Witzaney
M.A. Candidate, The Hopkins-Nanjing Center,
John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

When making a return journey back to Shanghai, China in late February of this year I had no premonition of how bad things might get and just how quickly. The day after the extended Lunar New Year holiday had passed, I cancelled my return flight scheduled for three days later in light of the evolving coronavirus outbreak, which had not yet been declared a global pandemic, only to later rebook after reassessing the overall situation and the trade-offs arising from any or all of the multiple risks, including both health and financial concerns. 

As an international student I had few options in terms of temporary living arrangements, and yet my school located in Nanjing had already confirmed that the spring semester would start as scheduled, but only that it would, in the interim, take place virtually and online only. Thus, having foresaw getting ‘stuck’ in a predicament someplace somewhere sometime soon, and provided a safe and reliable alternative in the form of crashing at a friend’s place in a foreign country indefinitely, I decided that a return trip was the best available option.

Coming from Canada’s Midwest and venturing back and forth from the ‘Far East’ or, depending on your perspective, the ‘Far West’, what seemed once like an intrepid globetrotting tour has, over time, gradually been normalized into a 13-hour transcontinental slumber in the dimmed recesses of economy class, all with a choice of cookies or pretzels. So, when news of a novel coronavirus emerged in early January of this year, what had once seemed routine now seemed uncertain and, at worst, increasingly foreboding. China has now served as my temporary home for the past six years and despite all the challenges and risks involved in planning and perfecting relocations, visas, registrations, and the like, never has the act of travel itself seemed so daunting, so dangerous a task. 

But it also offered me time to pause and think about the resilient world we are trying to build together, as an International Studies student who was born and raised in Canada but now lives in China.

Social Distancing Without Borders & What We Learn from History

In 2018, I relocated to the “Southern Capital” of what once was the Middle Kingdom to take up graduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University – Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. Having opened its doors in 1986, the center represents one of the earliest attempts at educational collaboration between a Chinese and an American university in post-reform China. Having weathered many storms in the past,[1] it is now at the forefront of Sino-global relations and its solemn pledge to continue advancing closer bilateral and multilateral ties between China and the international community remains more crucial than ever. 

If it was not apparent prior to the outbreak of the world’s newest pandemic, since the turn of the century questions of the world’s fate or probable future rest not in the metropolitan centres of bygone great powers, but in a re-emergent Asia where in fact the broad majority of Earth’s inhabitants currently reside today. It was this anticipation, and moreover a lack of French immersion education as a small-town Prairie boy, that first drove my eighteen-year-old-self to pursue Mandarin Chinese as a second language. While Mandarin and Cantonese are the most commonly spoken languages after English and French in Canada, language and area studies still appeared to be the most practical path towards a deeper cross-cultural understanding of diverse communities both at home and abroad. This kind of understanding is all the more urgent given the current deplorable state of public discourse surrounding the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak, along with discriminatory policies and statements that have served only to stigmatize entire communities. It was only the rapidity of the spread of the virus and a global call to action that staved off what appeared to be a slippery slope of name calling and finger pointing. 

It was not very long ago when HIV too was branded a “foreign,” “deadly,” “dangerous contagious disease,” and despite the risk of contracting HIV arising not from nationality but from specific behaviors, discriminatory immigration laws since the 1980s continued to effectively ban non-nationals living with HIV from entry into many countries, territories and areas.[2] Despite the World Health Organization having described such practices as “ineffective, impractical and wasteful” as early as 1988,[3] HIV-related travel restrictions in the U.S. and China remained in place until they were finally lifted in 2010. 

While Canada did not institute such a ban, its Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in effect since 2002, mandated medical screenings for permanent and temporary residents beyond a six month stay and, depending on one’s immigration status, persons living with HIV could be deemed inadmissible if found to represent an “excessive demand on health or social services.” This threshold was raised on June 1, 2018 after Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada issued a temporary revision to this stipulation with a view to fostering a more inclusive approach,[4] one that recognized the intrinsic value and dignity of every individual who, if given the equal opportunity, could participate and contribute to society fully and as actively as anyone else. 

These are, in fact, representative of core Canadian values, including a respect for human rights and an open embrace of our multicultural heritage in all its forms. As a microcosm of the world, ours is a diverse community of language, culture, race and ethnicity, religious affiliation, gender and sexual orientation, economic and health status. It is this hope for greater inclusion, participation and understanding, not to mention continued support for what is now nearly a 50-year old policy of multiculturalism in Canada,[5] that galvanized me to pursue an education in International Relations and East Asian Studies.

While I have found it absolutely necessary to take a stroll outside of the Ivory Tower to gain a down-to-earth appreciation of the wider world out there, I nevertheless remain cloistered inside once again, not out of fear of the unseen enemy of COVID-19, but in the frantic pursuit of finishing my M.A. thesis for final submission by month’s end. Though I remain far from idle, the sparing moments of repose can offer only the slimmest of reprieves, thoughts of solidarity with global citizens far and wide shuttered inside or outside borders, homes and workplaces, and medical personnel struggling on the frontlines, quickly give way to recurring doubts about the state of global affairs today and the daunting tasks ahead in building a better, more inclusive and more resilient world for all tomorrow. 

[1]Including the 1989 Tian’anmen Square Protests, the 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and the 2003 SARS crisis.

[2]See: UNAIDS & UNDP, “Still Not Welcome – HIV-related Travel Restrictions,” (June 27, 2019) https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/2019/hiv-related-travel-restrictions-explainer (accessed April 8, 2020).

[3]See: Susan Timberlake (Senior Advisor, Human Rights and Law, UNAIDS Secretariat), “Statement of the UNAIDS Secretariat to the Sixty-First World Health Assembly: Agenda Item 11.9 – Health of Migrants,” (May 21, 2008) http://data.unaids.org/pub/pressstatement/2008/20080522_wha_travel_restrictions_unaids_statment_en.pdf (accessed April 8, 2020).

[4]Government of Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, “Temporary Public Policy Regarding Excessive Demand on Health and Social Services,” (June 1, 2018) https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/excessive-demand-june-2018.html (accessed April 8, 2020).

[5]See: Laurence Brosseau and Michael Dewing (Legal and Social Affairs Division, Parliamentary Information and Research Service), “Canadian Multiculturalism – Background Paper,” Publication No. 2009-20-E, Ottawa: Library of Parliament, 2018. Available at: https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/200920E (accessed April 8, 2020).