Yellow Perils: Pandemic imaginaries and the contest for global power
Yellow Perils: Pandemic imaginaries and the contest for global power

Summary/Abstract: The precise origins of COVID-19 may never be established, but the weight of available evidence confirmsthat, together with the pandemics of 1890 and 1918 and the two most recent coronavirus viruses, SARSand MERS, it has followed a zoonotic path of transmission—from animals to humans. In which case theproblem lies with the accelerating clearances of forests and woodlands for cattle ranching and palm oil andsoya plantations to service a global food system increasingly organised around meat intensive fast and con-venience foods. McDonald’s and KFC may have originated in America, but their brightly lit outlets are nowa familiar sight in Chinese cities servicing a shared urban lifestyle that supports the unsustainable consump-tion that is driving the present climate and environmental emergencies.If this analysis is correct, responsibility for COVID-19 and the likelihood of future coronavirus pandem-ics lies primarily with the corporations promoting the intensified industrialisation of global agriculture.These companies form a complex agribusiness network connecting US and Chinese enterprises and drivingdeforestation and habitat destruction across the world. By escalating contacts between displaced speciesand humans these interventions significantly increase the likelihood of zoonotic transmission. Addressingthis threat requires transformative changes to prevailing priorities for global production and consumption.Confronting the embedded cultures of distrust and antagonism generated by successive abrasive encountersbetween China and the West is an essential step towards recognising that the major perils now facing hu-manity are universal and in urgent need of a common and collaborative response.

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