New York Representative Grace Meng called out The Wall Street Journal for publishing a tone-deaf editorial by opinion columnist William McGurn in which McGurn questioned if there are "Too Many Asians."
The editorial was in response to a report from the Chinese government that its population declined for the first time since the 1960s.
McGurn suggested China's one-child policy—which it has in recent years tried to walk back in anticipation of pending demographic shifts—was imported by the West which once opined fewer Asians would need to be born "if humanity is to have a future."
The article has since been retitled "China and the Population Bomb That Wasn’t" but the article and its contents nonetheless angered Meng, who tweeted images of the article and its original headline to her Twitter followers.
She called out The Wall Street Journal's opinion section when she wrote, referencing recent mass shootings in California that specifically targeted members of the Asian community:
"Can you guys just pretend you care about Asian-Americans? It's never ok to put out a headline like this—but especially hurtful this week."
You can see her tweet below.
Many echoed Meng's criticisms and accused The Wall Street Journal of racism and exercising poor editorial judgment.
Anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes have seen an uptick since the pandemic was politicized by former President Donald Trump and his administration, who regularly referred to the virus as "the China virus."
Last year, a study published in The American Journal of Public Health found Trump’s rhetoric led to a rise of anti-Asian sentiment online.
The study, which reviewed 1.2 million hashtags during the week of March 16, 2020—the first time Trump used the phrase “China virus” in a post—found there was a “massive increase” in use of the hashtag #chinesevirus in reference to the Covid-19 pandemic. #chinesevirus eventually overtook #covid19 in popularity.
Meng herself has previously spoken out about this spike and has described incidents of anti-Asian violence in her neighborhood in New York where she represent's the sixth congressional district, in Queens.
During a 2021 appearance on former Democratic President Bill Clinton's podcast, she said "as a mom, it just breaks [her] heart to have had to talk to my kids" about anti-Asian sentiment and violence, which she said "stems from false information and cowardly acts.”
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