Why China-Africa relationship should reflect more about common people
One of the obvious consequences of the failures of world leaders so far in combating the COVID19 pandemic, is the game blaming among themselves.
When the pandemic started to ravage the world, various global leaders especially US President Donald Trump quickly began to blame China for what he claimed Beijing was the reason for the catastrophe.
Trump and his Secretary of States, Michael Pompeo faced with criticisms and backlashes at home started to brand the disease as Chinese Virus and Wuhan Virus.
This trend of embedding the epidemic with certain group of people or its geographic origin, exacerbated racial discriminations in various parts of the world, due to the fact that Trump’s supporters and those who believed it was right to use those names started and some still continue to associate Coronavirus with people of Asian origin, particularly Chinese.
A report by the Stop AAPI Hate network published by the US based NBC television site shows that in just one week between March 18 and 26, 2020 there were about 650 cases racial violence against Asians.
However, what was clear is that, beside the few people supporting the discriminations acts, there were more global condemnations, sending a clear message that the Virus has no borders or race and that the enemy was the virus itself not the people or certain ethnicity.
The amount of opposing voices brought significant relief although there are still some cases that continue to be reported.
First, President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo dropped the use of the names Chinese and Wuhan Virus. Second; is the building of a sense of unity and solidarity among global citizens in resisting any forms of discrimination that associate the epidemic with a certain group of people.
However, with the relief being achieved, for several days now it is as if the World has been pushed back into the same events. In China where the World stood in solidarity against discriminations of Chinese, there are now reported incidents of racial discrimination against foreign nationals, especially those of African descending.
Discriminations are witnessed through mandatory testing for Covid19 despite not having symptoms, forced quarantined regardless of travel histories or contacts with sick people, barred from accessing public services and so on as fears mount among Chinese that foreigners are the source of new infections.
The city of Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong Province has reported the highest number of racial discrimination and mistreatment of foreign nationals.
This is due to the fact that the city is home to a large number of foreigners because of its special businesses significance to the world and the African continent in particular.
Huang Shiding of the Guangzhou Institute of Social Sciences estimates the number of permanent residents of foreign nationality to be around 50,000, of which some 20,000 are of African origin.
But also according to Chinese authorities some Africans in the area were found to be asymptotic as they tested positive for Covid19.
Many images and texts featuring different forms of discriminations were widely circulated. From one of the McDonald's restaurants that displayed an announcement preventing blacks from getting in to the violent police arrests and sleeping on the streets by Africans in the city due to deprivation of accommodation services have been hitting the internet world and arousing different emotions. However, McDonald's China later apologized for the racist incident.
According to Keith Richburg, a lecturer at the Hong Kong University and Director of Center for Journalism and Media Studies, these incidents are largely caused by China’s successful containment of local transmissions of Covid19 and thus beginning to report all new cases as imported despite the facts that more than 90 per cent of these cases still involve Chinese nationals returning home from overseas and to a lesser extent there are still domestic cases being reported.
"The way it is interpreted is that foreign nationals are currently bringing the Coronavirus, as a result Chinese citizens are skeptical, angry and always subject foreign nationals to scrutiny" says Richburg in an interview with Inside Story's Aljazeera.
Although in the middle of this crisis there are also waves of fake videos and contents distorting the reality yet the overwhelming evidence tells that such acts are real.
This is what prompted various heads of African foreign ministries to summon Chinese diplomats in their respective countries to express deep sorrow and dissatisfactions.
Countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Namibia, Uganda to mention few not only issued statements condemning and urging China to take appropriate actions, some especially South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya have gone so far as to arrange evacuations of their citizens.
The African Union also summoned the Chinese ambassador to the bloc. Through his twitter account The Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat said “My Office invited the Chinese Ambassador to the AU, Mr. Liu Yuxi, to express our extreme concerns at the allegations of maltreatment of Africans in Guangzhou and called for immediate remedial”.
Yet African ambassadors in Beijing, in their meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong held on April 13, 2020 expressed similar remorse and later wrote a letter that, among other things, called for interventions.
Tanzania’s ambassador Mbelwa Kairuki who was in attendance, said despite the good intentions of containing new infections, Chinese authorities acknowledged the existence of several challenges and promised changes.
In a statement via the Twitter page of the consulate, Kairuki explained that four issues had been agreed. First; ensuring that the COVID19 Infection Control exercise is conducted fairly without targeting a specific social group; Second, African nationals who have been removed from rented houses and hotels should be given alternative temporary accommodation; third; providing public awareness especially in public service areas and in the Community to avoid any actions that could be interpreted as discriminating against any social group and finally it was agreed to establish a specific communication network between the Guangdong State Authority and the Embassy Offices in the city of Guangzhou for quick response to any challenges that arise.
In implementing the resolutions, the Guangdong Provincial Foreign Office published a document on its website titled ‘Working together to fight the epidemic and build a community of human health’. Among other things, section 5 of the document dated April 18, 2020 reads: "No unit or individual may restrict or refuse a particular group of persons to stay in a hotel, rent a house, or enter or leave a public place such as a community, shopping mall, park or other public space on the account of nationality, race, gender, color”.
However, despite this problem being placed in formal systems of communication and gotten resolutions, the approaches are short timed and require new strategies if China and Africa need a healthy relationship. I am skeptical that these measures will actually put on halting the issue.
First, it is the continuing of China’s blame on America for the problem or completely denying its existence despite the formal addressing.
Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian has repeatedly blamed the US and ignores the facts that there are also firsthand frustrations by Africans through various viral videos. “It is irresponsible and immoral for the US to sow discord” Zhao Lijian said in a press briefing.
“Its attempt to drive a wedge between China and Africa will never succeed,” he added. The Chinese media has also been planning interviews with some African nationals living or shortly visiting China to downplay the problem.
Although the strategy may temporarily diffuse the situation, it just postpones or continues aggravations especially if things won’t change on the ground. Because those affected will continue raising complaints or correct any diversions since it was their voices that brought the issue into attention in the first place.
Secondly; the formal platform ignores the role of the common people of both sides in the sense that it is much centered on leaders (elites) and hailing more of historical friendship rather than focusing on today's realities.
The fact is that anyone who has lived in China and mingled with Chinese realises that there is a misunderstanding of the significance of Africa and Africans among them in particular the younger generation.
There is a general wrong and negative view of the African continent and its people. This is evident with plenty of internet contents that are sometimes extremely hateful with less interventions. This and other reasons is because of their lack of accurate information from right sources.
At one point I tried to ask some Chinese youths if they understand the role of Africa in China’s reclamation status to the United Nations in 1971 after a voting between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China which saw today's ‘One China Policy’.
Of the five young people none of them got it. This may be slightly different to Africans whose memories of Africa's liberation from colonialism and China's contribution are still vivid. But this doesn’t also undermine the fact that there are many Africans who wrongly or negatively perceive China for similar reasons.
Surprisingly, the question was coincidently asked at a time when China was marking 70 anniversary of its founding last October, 2019. The event saw President Xi Jinping awarding a friendship medal to then Tanzanian permanent ambassador to the UN and Prime Minister Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim for his role in mobilizing almost all African countries and the rest of the world to back China.
The reality is that both parties have neglected emphasizing the historical, mutual understanding and interests but also the importance of accommodating existing differences as a basis of building strong bonds between their people. Instead, the relationship is more about leaders and few aspects of people to people exchanges and learning.
If there is something China and Africa need to do right away before it is too late is translating the existing relations from elitism and economies structured to the minds and hearts of ordinary people.
This needs turning into permanent agenda social issues and cultural exchanges. Further to build working institutions to manage and develop clear people to people channels of communications and understanding but above all tolerating differences.
The fact is with the growing engagements between China and Africa, there are already a lot in common than differences. This cannot easily be decoupled. However the COVID19 pandemic, discrimination acts, and tensions surrounding it, is a ringing bell that it is the ordinary citizens especially the young people who hold this historic relationship between Africa and China.
The author is a Postgraduate Student (PhD) in Media Communication Studies at the Communications University of China. He is also an analyst on China-Africa Relations. [email protected]
