On xenophobia and administrative overreach

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to light and exacerbated tensions and inequalities that already existed all over the world. Among its many side-effects it has engendered fear and suspicion towards foreigners and minorities, or sometimes even people from elsewhere in a country, as possible carriers of a dangerous virus. Initially it was the Chinese, or those who looked like they might be Chinese, who found themselves under suspicion around the world, but later on many other groups started feeling the heat.

In China too, the possibility that foreigners might carry the virus with them from abroad has turned into a driving factor, and an excuse, for xenophobia. The EU Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai recently surveyed its member companies, and found that discrimination on the basis of foreign nationality or appearance had been experienced by 39% of respondents or their colleagues. And this is in Mainland China's most cosmopolitan city, known to be far more friendly to outsiders than the rest of the country. Over half of respondents felt that reports in the local media portraying the virus as "imported" are fuelling xenophobia.

The phenomenon began in earnest towards the middle of March, when it became clear that the pandemic was mostly under control within China and exploding in the rest of the world. At this point the big concern in China became new cases of Covid-19 imported from abroad. Very quickly, levels of fear and discrimination towards foreigners living in the country skyrocketed. 

In cities across China, people who do not look Chinese started having unpleasant experiences: locals very obviously refusing to sit next to them on public transport; being refused entry into shops, restaurants and shopping malls based solely on their features and skin colour; being barred from entering xiaoqu (gated neighbourhoods) for being foreign, while Chinese people entered quite happily; taxi drivers refusing to pick them up; being monitored by their neighbourhood committees and local officials to a greater extent than their neighbours; and in the worst cases, being yelled at or berated on the streets, even in spite of wearing a mask. Hotels started rejecting foreign guests to an even greater extent than usual, very often citing directives from local officials. In most such situations, being able to show a green code on Alipay's Health App made no difference: no foreigners meant no foreigners, green code or not.

Never mind that the great majority of "imported cases" of Covid-19 actually belonged to Chinese citizens returning from abroad, of whom there was a much bigger number than there were foreigners entering the country. Never mind that the only person guilty of flying to China while purposefully concealing that she had coronavirus symptoms was a Chinese lady living in Massachusetts, who returned home because in the US she had been repeatedly denied both a test for the virus and hospitalisation (she got into serious trouble when the Chinese authorities understood what she had done). In spite of all this, foreigners suddenly became a prime target both of the people's anxiety and of official measures.

Of course, foreigners in China are not all equal. Wealthy foreign executives living in Shanghai may have felt almost no inconvenience at all. Others have been less fortunate. The worst of it, by far, has been experienced by Guangzhou's African community. The city has China's only real African enclave, an area where traders from all over the continent reside and do business. Although the community has been dwindling for years, partly due to greater strictness in the enforcement of visa regulations, it still exists. 

Towards the end of March, numerous personal reports emerged of Africans who had not travelled outside of China for months being locked into their flats by the authorities and tested repeatedly for the virus. Others were kicked out of their homes by their landlords, while the police refused to help. Those kicked out often spent days wandering the streets, unable to find hotels that would welcome them or even restaurants and shops that would let them in. Groups of volunteers, mostly Chinese, helped bring them food and find them places to stay.

This wave of xenophobia quickly gained attention in the international media. The Guardian and the New York Times both ran features on the general animosity towards foreigners that was sweeping over the country, while numerous outlets reported on the plight of the Africans in Guangzhou. Coverage wasn't limited to English-language media either, as this Italian report can testify.

The mistreatment of Africans led to a real diplomatic crisis. The reports, corroborated by video evidence, sparked a wave of indignation across the continent, and led to Chinese ambassadors being read the riot act in Nigeria and various other countries. Photos of a sign outside a McDonalds in Guangzhou stating that the establishment could not accept black customers further inflamed the public. Unsurprisingly the Chinese authorities denied anything was wrong and blamed the foreign media for slandering their country, but it seems they also quietly took some action to rein in the discrimination. Perhaps they realised what an own-goal the whole thing has been for the country that is the biggest creditor and trading partner for the African continent as a whole.

In any case, the worst of the paranoia about foreigners seems to be over for now, especially since foreign citizens have been unable to enter China for months except in special cases (not that most of the public is aware of this). Even the new outbreak of Covid-19 in Beijing in June does not seem to have led to a significant upturn in xenophobia, perhaps because the origin was clearly local (although they did their best to link it to imported salmon). In spite of this the problem still lingers, with occasional reports of foreigners being singled out for attention by the police and of bars not allowing foreigners in, particularly in Beijing. It is worth pointing out that in many of these cases "foreign" simply means non-Chinese looking, since it is features rather than nationality that cause people to be singled out. Many international students in China have also found themselves locked in their campuses for months on end, even as life outside goes back to normal.

For long-term foreign residents this turn of events will sadly not be too surprising (except for those who insist on remaining wilfully naive, of which there are many). Chinese society clearly has the potential to act like this, especially in times of crisis. Scapegoating of foreigners is a real problem, particularly for black people but also for other foreigners. The narrative that foreign citizens enjoy special privileges has long allowed the public to rationalise and justify any mistreatment they may face. 

Back in March cases of foreigners going out while they were supposed to be self-quarantining, behaving badly towards staff while under centralised quarantine, or picnicking in parks without masks (very often next to Chinese people doing exactly the same thing) were widely publicised by the media and pandered to the preconceived idea of "entitled" foreigners not respecting the rules, while cases of discrimination went unreported. There is no doubt that this media-driven sentiment helped to create the unfortunate situations described above, as well as an outpouring of online xenophobia (for an example, see this). 

There are those who have tried to minimise the issue, claiming that in the end anything suffered by foreigners in China is nothing compared to what Chinese and Asians have had to put up with in the rest of the world. And indeed, cases of verbal harassment and even violent assault against people of East Asian origin due to Covid-19 have been sadly numerous, particularly in Western countries. But then again, surely being kicked out of your flat and spending days on the street or being locked inside your home simply for being African should count as being subjected to a form of violence? 

Even if we take the less extreme forms of discrimination that have surfaced against other foreigners in China, we are still talking about things that would cause a riot in most of the world, including barring people from entering shopping malls and staying in hotels due to their foreign passports and/or appearance. It is true that this xenophobia has not, generally, descended into violence, but it has been institutionalised and accepted by society to an extent hardly seen elsewhere. 

Having said all of this, xenophobia and racism are probably not the only culprits here. It is undeniable that some foreigners, and especially Africans, have been subjected to real discrimination in China due to Covid-19. On the other hand, much of what they have been through is not different from what people from Hubei, and especially Wuhan, experienced at the start of the pandemic. After the Spring Festival, Chinese citizens with a Hubei ID living in other parts of China found themselves targeted by local officials and ostracised by the public. Hotels wouldn't let them stay. Neighbours shunned them, especially if they had got back from Hubei shortly before the province was sealed off. In some cases families literally had the doors to their flats chained shut by local officials, mirroring what would happen to Africans in Guangzhou a couple of months later. In another case, a county in Hebei offered a literal reward to anyone who could report people from Wuhan.

It is clear that in both cases, much of what has been driving this behaviour is the huge pressure on local governments to stop the virus from spreading in the areas under their watch. It is made clear to local officials that this should be their one and only priority. In order to achieve it, they are quite ready to subject any group considered "at risk" to unreasonably harsh measures, whether it's people from Hubei, Africans or foreigners in general. Sometimes the measures are so broad as to be absurd, and target people regardless of their travel history, evidence of being tested etc... I am sure it would be equally effective to target people in a more focused way, rather than treating entire groups as if they literally have the plague. But why not be on the safe side? The rights and comfort of the people in question aren't believed to matter, and almost nobody will step up to defend them in the current climate. In fact, much of society seems happy to pile on, driven by fear and latent resentment. 

China's system of governance has been highly effective at containing the pandemic within its own borders (notwithstanding the mistakes made right at the start, which deserve their own debate). It would be wrong to deny this just because official statistics are unreliable, as some have tried to do. Covid-19 outbreaks cannot easily be covered up, and there is good evidence that outside of Hubei the virus never really took much hold. Masks alone cannot account for this success. Mass testing, tracing, centralised quarantine, strict lockdowns and neighbourhood committees enforcing the rules all played a part. On the other hand, before heaping praise on China's response it is important to understand the inevitable side effects of a system where the "good of the nation" is put above the rights of individuals and of entire groups. How effective different countries and political systems have been in their response to Covid-19 is going to be a major talking point for years to come. That is why it is important to see the full picture, lest we fall prey to easy rhetoric.