Fears of coronavirus trigger anti-China sentiment worldwide
A mother reacts as she pleads with police to allow her daughter to pass a checkpoint for cancer treatment after she arrived from Hubei province at the Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of a new coronavirus, February 1, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
A scary new virus from China has spread around the world. So has rising anti-Chinese sentiment, calls for a full travel ban on Chinese visitors and indignities for Chinese and other Asians.
Restaurants
in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam have refused to accept
Chinese customers. Indonesians marched near a hotel and called on
Chinese guests there to leave. French and Australian newspapers face
criticism for racist headlines. Chinese and other Asians in Europe, the
United States, Asia and the Pacific complain of racism.
Two
dozen countries outside of China have reported cases of the new
coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and sickened
thousands of others in China. Many countries have sent planes to the
Chinese city of Wuhan to evacuate their nationals.
The
anti-China sentiments come as a powerful Beijing bolsters its global
influence, and China's rise has caused trade, political and diplomatic
disputes with many countries.
But with rising fear of the mysterious disease has come a more acute anti-Chinese and, in some cases, anti-Asian backlash.
Here's a look from AP journalists from around the world:
A Chinese citizen undergoing testing for coronavirus while passing
through a temporary corridor opened at a border checkpoint between
Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. Temporary corridors are opened to return
Russian and Chinese citizens to their countries as the Russian
government orders to close the border with China as a measure to prevent
the coronavirus spread. All the people passing through the temporary
corridor are tested for the virus. The 2019-nCoV pneumonia-like
coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019;
according to the latest reports, about 11,000 people globally have been
infected, 259 have died from the virus. Svetlana Mayorova/TASS
SOUTH KOREA
South Korean
websites have been flooded with comments calling on the government to
block or expel Chinese and racist remarks about Chinese eating habits
and hygiene. A popular Seoul seafood restaurant frequented by Chinese
tourists posted a sign saying ''No entry for Chinese'' before taking it
down Wednesday after an online backlash.
About
600,000 South Koreans have signed an online petition filed with the
presidential Blue House calling for a temporary ban on Chinese visitors.
Some conservative opposition lawmakers publicly back these steps, and
about 30 people rallied near the Blue House on Wednesday demanding the
government immediately ban Chinese tourists.
''Unconditional
xenophobia against the Chinese is intensifying'' in South Korea, the
mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial Thursday.
''Infectious diseases are a matter of science, not an issue that can
resolved through an emotional outpouring.''
THE UNITED STATES
After
news broke that someone attending Arizona State University has the
virus, Ari Deng, who is Chinese American, said she sat down at a study
table on the Tempe, Arizona, campus near five other students.
Deng,
who was the only Asian, said the other students began whispering.
''They got really tense and they quickly gathered their stuff and just
left at the same time.''
In a recent
business class a non-Asian student ''said 'Not to be racist, but there's
a lot of international students that live in my apartment complex. I
try my best to keep my distance but I think it's a good precaution for
all of us to wash our hands,''' Deng said.
''It stings but I don't let it take up room in my mind or weigh on my conscience,'' she said.
Meanwhile,
the University of California, Berkeley's health services center removed
an Instagram post Thursday that said ''fears about interacting with
those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings'' were a
normal reaction to the coronavirus outbreak.
''No
matter how much time we spend in this country, at times we are almost
immediately viewed as a foreigner,'' Gregg Orton, the national director
of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said. ''It's a
pretty frustrating reality for many of us.''
A thermal camera
scanning citizens passing through a temporary corridor opened at a
border checkpoint between Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. Temporary corridors
are opened to return Russian and Chinese citizens to their countries as
the Russian government orders to close the border with China as a
measure to prevent the coronavirus spread. All the people passing
through the temporary corridor are tested for the virus. The 2019-nCoV
pneumonia-like coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in late
December 2019; according to the latest reports, about 11,000 people
globally have been infected, 259 have died from the virus. Svetlana
Mayorova/TASS/
EUROPE
A
French teacher started a Twitter conversation recently under
(hash)JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (I am not a virus) that has drawn numerous
accounts of discrimination, from children taunted in the schoolyard to
subway passengers moving away from people who appear Asian.
France
has a significant and growing Asian community, and Chinese visitors are
a pillar of the French tourism industry, but old prejudices run deep. A
regional newspaper in northern France carried a front-page headline
warning of a ''Yellow Alert,'' and later apologized amid national
criticism.
''It's a virus that comes
from a region in China. It could have come from North Africa, Europe or
anywhere,'' said Soc Lam, a legal adviser to Chinese community groups in
Paris. ''People should not consider that just because we are Asian, we
are more likely to spread the virus.''
A
Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, published a cartoon that replaced the
yellow stars of the Chinese flag with representations of the virus. The
Chinese Embassy in Copenhagen called the cartoon ''an insult to China''
and demanded the newspaper apologize.
The
German Der Spiegel magazine ran a headline that said ''made in China''
along with a photo of an individual in protective gear.
On
Friday, a cafe near Rome's Trevi Fountain, a popular tourist site,
posted a notice in its window saying ''all people coming from China are
not allowed access in this place,'' according to the Italian news agency
ANSA. When AP journalists went there to check on it, the post was no
longer in the window.
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
More
than 51,000 signatures have appeared on an online petition demanding
apologies from Australia's two biggest-circulation newspapers over their
headlines.
The petition condemned
Melbourne's Herald Sun headline Wednesday that read, ''Chinese virus
pandamonium,'' a misspelling that plays on China's native pandas, and
Sydney's The Daily Telegraph headline on the same day that read, ''China
kids stay home.''
Singaporean Kiwi
Dollice Chua told the New Zealand Herald that when she went to an
Auckland mall last week to buy a wedding card a woman gave her a dirty
look and told her ''You Asians are the ones who brought this virus.''
Chua has lived in New Zealand for 21 years. ''It's racist and beyond
rude,'' she said.
JAPAN
Many
Japanese have taken to social media to call for a travel ban for the
Chinese visitors amid worries they'll come to Japan for virus-related
treatments. One tweet said, ''Please ban Chinese tourists immediately,''
while another said, ''I'm so worried that my child may catch the
virus.''
A candy store in Hakone, a
hot springs town west of Tokyo, recently made headlines after it posted a
note saying, ''Chinese people's entry into the store is prohibited.''
On Wednesday, Menya Hareruya, a popular ramen chain in Sapporo on
Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, posted a sign saying ''No entry for
Chinese tourists.''
Zhang Jiaqi, a
Chinese student in Tokyo, said he has not faced any unpleasant response
from his Japanese classmates and friends, but, he added, ''I noticed
that some people have turned around or watched me with angry looks on
their face when I was talking to my friends in Chinese.''
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Last
weekend, several hundred residents in the Indonesian tourist city of
Bukittinggi marched to the Novotel Hotel, where some 170 Chinese
tourists were staying, to protest their entrance into Indonesia.
They
blocked roads near the hotel to prevent the Chinese, who'd arrived a
day earlier, from getting out of the hotel. Local authorities decided to
send the visitors back to China later in the day.
More
than 400,000 Malaysians have signed an online petition calling for a
ban on Chinese travelers and urging the government to ''save our family
and our children.''
A hotel in Danang, Vietnam, a popular beach destination, has been refusing to accept Chinese tourists.
A
former police officer and town mayor, Abner Afuang, said he burned a
Chinese flag on Friday in front of the National Press Club in Manila to
protest the problems China has brought to the Philippines and other
Southeast Asian countries, including the virus and Beijing's claim to
disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The
Philippine president's office said in a statement: ''Let us not engage
in discriminatory behavior, nor act with any bias towards our fellowmen.
The reality is everyone is susceptible to the virus." (AP)
Source: http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=282767
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