US Visa Office Under Fire for Comparing Chinese Students to Dogs
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Deleted post from visa office of US embassy to China's Weibo account Photo: screenshot of Weibo
The visa office of the US Embassy in China has come under fire on Chinese social media as netizens pointed out its account has compared Chinese student visa applicants to dogs in a controversial post, which some net users said was "pure racism that has hit the lowest of the low."
The post, published by the visa office on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, on Wednesday, one day after the US Embassy resumed visa processing for Chinese students, said that "As Spring blossoms, are you the same as this puppy, eager to go out and play?" before informing students about the visa application resumption.
A video of a dog, struggling to jump over a fence that trapped it in a tiny balcony and trying to reach out, was posted along with the words.
The post soon ignited Chinese netizens' anger as many believed the US Embassy had compared Chinese students to dogs. Those indignant web users called it "blatant racism."
"I am shocked to my very core about the embassy's hitting the lowest of the low. Putting such things in an online post has fully exposed the country's racism," said one Sina Weibo user named toumingjun.
"Is this American humour? I believe they did it on purpose!" another user wrote.
"Dogs in American culture basically have positive meanings, but in Chinese culture and idioms, they are mostly negative," wrote another user. Others quipped that the students' "master" was now calling them back to the United States.
Hashtag "US Embassy compares Chinese students to dogs" soon was trending on social media, which attracted more than 800,000 reads within three hours after its publication.
Yet the post was deleted later.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Beijing issued an apology on Thursday morning to anyone who had been offended by the comments.
"The social media post in question was meant to be light-hearted and humorous," he said. "We took it down immediately when we saw it was not received in the spirit we intended."
The US Embassy suspended visa applications for Chinese students last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Chinese students' willingness to study in the US has been gradually waning, after the two countries became locked in a series of competitions, including trade and technology disputes, and the former US administration continuously imposed restrictive and discriminative visa policies on Chinese students with certain backgrounds.
Last year, a white paper co-issued by one of China's biggest private education services, New Oriental Education, showed that the UK had overtaken the US to become Chinese students' favorite destination for studying abroad.
Source: Reuters, Global Times
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