“I’ve had to be a lot more careful, even though I know it’s not my fault,” says Yu*. They’re 17 years old and live in California. Both of their parents are from China.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yu has seen countless videos of anyone who looks “remotely east-Asian” experiencing racism. Closer to home, one of Yu’s Chinese-American friends was turned away by several Uber drivers in New York simply because of their Chinese-sounding name.

These experiences are part of a broader pattern. With the spread of the novel coronavirus, Yu says they’ve witnessed increasing animosity towards Chinese-Americans in the U.S. - a trend that has been identified in several studies, including one report that found a 169% hike in anti-Asian hate crimes across 15 major U.S. cities. Another highlighted that a third of Asian-Americans fear they will be targeted for abuse because of their race or ethnicity.

A recurring character in these reports - and in Yu’s own experiences - is former President Donald Trump, who continually described the virus as the ‘kung flu’ and used other incendiary terms. In a Pew Research survey, 20% of Asian respondents cited Trump’s language as a reason for the rise in violence against Asian-Americans.

“Even after it was called COVID-19, he still called it the ‘China virus’. He knew what he was doing,” says Yu.

But Trump’s negative impact began before the virus even emerged.

Min**, 43, moved to the U.S. from China for studies at the age of 25 and decided to stay. She says Trump’s election in 2016 had a detrimental effect on the lives of Chinese-Americans like her.

“I remember thinking that was the first time I realised I did not fully understand this country,” she says.

Min says some Chinese-Americans who had Green Cards, giving them the right to live and work permanently in the country, felt they had to choose between leaving the U.S. or applying for citizenship, because of an increasingly hostile attitude towards those seen as “outsiders”.

“That election in 2016 really gave a reality check to a lot of immigrants that the comfort of having a Green Card [...] is no longer comforting enough,” she says. “That certainly made this country feel a lot less welcoming.”

Yu also noticed this shift. “I feel like, before Trump was elected, I didn’t really notice any outright racism. I felt like people were a lot more subtle,” they say, adding that Trump in the White House seemed to embolden those with racist anti-Chinese views to act more brazenly.

While Trump markedly heightened tensions and antagonism, Dr Sascha Auerbach, a historian at the University of Nottingham, says the former president is representative of the racism already embedded within U.S. culture.

“It’s not like anti-Chinese racism didn’t exist in America before Trump came along. America is a very, very racist place,” he says. “You really don’t have to go very deeply into the American psyche or American landscape before you find this very pervasive, very deep core of racism.”

Dr Auerbach points to nationalism as the root cause of this.

“Nationalism thrives on difference. [It] has to create an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ in order for it to work. [...] How can the American identity be built? It has to be built on opposites.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and quickly worsened, these differences were amplified for political purposes. While Trump knowingly allowed the virus to spread, he sought to blame others for the increasingly dire circumstances in the U.S.

China became a scapegoat, as did the World Health Organization. But Yu says that political talking points have an impact on everyday encounters, pointing to an uptick they noticed in Sinophobic rhetoric.

“[That] was really concerning for me and really stressful,” Yu says.

Biden entered the White House promising to curb such language and protect Chinese-Americans through tough hate crime legislation.

To that end, a bill has now been passed in Congress to crack down on anti-Asian hate crimes. But Min says the bigger picture is yet to change.

“All of these things are extremely helpful, for sure. [But] the fundamental policy of dealing with China has not changed at all,” she says.

The Biden administration has continued much of Trump’s ‘tough on China’ stance, courting the approval of many Americans who fear that the U.S. is losing its grip on global power.

“The problem is that when there is this kind of discourse of rivalry between these two countries, then eventually the effect is going to trickle down to Chinese-American communities,” says Min.

Dr Auerbach sees targeted legislation as a step in the right direction, but says Biden’s language has to change.

“He has this cultural bully pulpit. As much as Trump said ‘It’s okay to hate and you should hate and I want you to hate’, he’s got to get up there and say ‘It is not okay’.”

He adds: “So you can kind of legislate against it but it’s a cultural battle. Racism is not going anywhere anytime soon. Racism is going to go away when there are no more racists.”

As tensions between China and the U.S. continue to build - and some columnists warn of a ‘Second Cold War’ - it isn’t President Biden who feels the effects day-to-day, nor is it President Xi Jinping.

Instead, Chinese-Americans, caught in the middle of the fallout, face the hatred it breeds.

* Their name has been changed for privacy and they/them pronouns used, as per their request

** Their name has been changed for privacy