Article

2020-04-12 Africa Subsaharan

African nations, US decry racism against blacks in China

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — African officials are confronting China publicly and in private over racist mistreatment of Africans in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, and the U.S. says African-Americans have been targeted too.

Some Africans in the commercial hub have reported being evicted or discriminated against amid coronavirus fears. And a U.S. Embassy security alert on Saturday said that "police ordered bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appear to be of African origin," and local officials have launched mandatory testing and self-quarantine for "anyone with ’African contacts.’"

That’s in response to a rise in virus infections in Guangzhou, the U.S. said, adding that "African-Americans have also reported that some businesses and hotels refuse to do business with them." The U.S. statement is titled "Discrimination against African-Americans in Guangzhou."

A recent increase in virus cases in China has been largely attributed to people arriving from overseas.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with health problems, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia.

The police and public health bureau in Guangzhou on Tuesday told reporters that officials had responded to rumors that "300,000 black people in Guangzhou were setting off a second epidemic," which "caused panic." Officials said the rumor was untrue.

African diplomats in Beijing have met with Chinese foreign ministry officials and "stated in very strong terms their concern and condemnation of the disturbing and humiliating experiences our citizens have been subjected to," Sierra Leone’s embassy in Beijing said in a statement Friday, adding that 14 citizens had been put into compulsory 14-day quarantine.

The diplomats reminded officials of their support of China during the pandemic, especially in the early days. Some African nations that had scores or even hundreds of students stranded during China’s earlier lockdown had sided with Chinese officials against calls for evacuations, and many African nations publicly praised Beijing for its virus response.

Separately, in an unusually open critique of Beijing, the speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives tweeted a video of himself pressing the Chinese ambassador on the issue.

"It’s almost undiplomatic the way I’m talking, but it’s because I’m upset about what’s going on," Femi Gbajabiamila says.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-04-12 09:10|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 From Quartz Africa on the subject:

While many African students and other migrants were keen to leave China at the start of the outbreak, many others decided to stay and take their chances on the Chinese health authorities being best placed to cope with the outbreak than the underfunded health systems in their countries.

But this week, five Nigerians reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 in the southern city of Guangzhou. According to state media, the men broke quarantine and frequented a restaurant where they infected its owner, who then passed the virus on to her eight-year-old daughter.

These reports seem to be what has sparked the current wave of suspicion and anti-foreigner sentiment in the city. “I’ve been sleeping under the bridge for four days with no food to eat… I cannot buy food anywhere, no shops or restaurants will serve me,” a 24-year-old student from Uganda told the AFP news agency.”

So many of them are illegally in a country with over a thousand years of history of discriminating against non-Han Chinese, never mind actual foreigners, and then some of them broke quarantine and infected a local family. The shock is that they were not immediatelyall rounded up and jailed until they got either died or got well on their own. The greater shock is that the various Chinese ambassadors haven’t bluntly reminded their African hosts who exactly has loaned whom money and built roads and belts for them.

Posted by trailing wife 2020-04-12 17:39|| 2020-04-12 17:39|| Front Page Top

11:40 swksvolFF
11:11 HeavyG
11:10 Angstrom
11:07 HeavyG
11:07 Angstrom
11:06 DarthVader
11:05 HeavyG
10:58 alanc
09:43 Mullah Richard
09:27 Warthog
09:11 Mercutio
09:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
08:52 Matt
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1