[Washington Examiner] Africans in a major Chinese city face evictions and harassment from local officials and businesses fearful of a coronavirus outbreak, a scandal that has created a backlash on the continent at the very moment China is working to build inroads there and outflank the United States."It definitely has sent outrage through African governments," George Washington University’s Jennifer Cooke, who directs the Institute for African Studies, told the Washington Examiner.
Senior Chinese officials maintain that they have "zero tolerance for discrimination," but Africans in the port city of Guangzhou have been subjected to "inhuman treatments," according to a joint rebuke issued by African ambassadors in Beijing. The offending practices include forced quarantines, enhanced coronavirus testing, and forced evictions.
"I've been sleeping under the bridge for four days with no food to eat," Ugandan exchange student Tony Matthias told AFP. "I cannot buy food anywhere. No shops or restaurants will serve me."
Guangzhou officials also ordered all Africans in the city to go into quarantine "regardless of their previous circumstances or how long they have been in Guangzhou." They plan to monitor compliance by placing "a device on their door, and once they open the door, we will be alerted."
A bloc of African ambassadors responded by declaring that the policy "has no scientific or logical basis and amounts to racism towards Africans in China" in a Friday statement. That’s a sharp rebuke of Chinese diplomats, who accused President Trump’s administration of "fear-mongering in a xenophobic way" during a dispute over the origins of the pandemic.
"Chinese engagement in Africa has always been really limited with its primary focus on African political elite and not the people," former Liberian Public Works Minister W. Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, tweeted Monday. "Even corrupt African elite will respond to pressure from their people."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s team added to the chorus of rebukes over the weekend. "The U.S. consulate general advises African Americans or those who believe Chinese officials may suspect them of having contact with nationals of African countries to avoid the Guangzhou metropolitan area until further notice," the State Department advised Saturday.
That warning drew a complaint from China’s diplomatic corps. "This is neither moral nor responsible," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Monday. "Attempts to use the pandemic to drive a wedge between China and Africa are bound to fail."