Commitment to fair and equal treatment

There has been a rising number of confirmed coronavirus infections among Guangzhou’s sizable African community and reports of some being unwilling to comply with epidemic control measures and assaults on local health workers have alarmed local residents.

Some US media and politicians have seized on these as an opportunity to smear China by making sensational allegations about the Guangzhou authorities and local residents discriminating against Africans. Due to such sensational reports and remarks, the situation of Africans in the city has drawn both domestic and international attention.

Yet Chinese and African people should not be hoodwinked by such reports and remarks as the United States simply wants to drive a wedge between China and African countries. Official responses from the Foreign Ministry and Guangzhou municipal government on Sunday reiterating China’s commitment to equal treatment to both Chinese and foreigners in domestic disease prevention work provide a more objective lens with which to view the matter.

China has implemented stricter quarantine measures and more stringent contact tracing and screening to contain the disease, which may trigger some misunderstanding and even displeasure; nevertheless, such measures must apply to foreigners as well as Chinese to be effective. It is by resolutely implementing these measures that the country has suppressed the spread of the virus in a short time.

China has attached equal importance to protecting its own nationals and foreigners in the country from the novel coronavirus since the very beginning. Expats should abide by Chinese laws and regulations and follow instructions from health departments on virus prevention. The warm Chinese hospitality should not encourage some expats to defy China’s laws and regulations.

At present, with few new domestic infections, China is facing increasing challenges from imported novel coronavirus cases, which is especially true of Guangzhou, where the rising number of confirmed cases involving foreigners has resulted in community transmission this month.

Any lack of compliance with China’s control and prevention measures among members of the foreign community in Guangzhou will no doubt undercut the city’s efforts in preventing the backlash of imported infections. For their own and other people’s health, all residents in Guangzhou, regardless of their nationalities, and including those undocumented Africans in Guangzhou, whose presence adds to the difficulties of local disease control work, should fully comply with the local authorities’ virus control arrangements to play their part in the national and global war against the pandemic.

In the meantime, the authorities attach great importance to the concerns voiced by African countries and are working to ensure more communication with foreign consulates-general in Guangzhou to keep them up to date with the prevention and control work, and assure them that the life and health of African nationals in the country will be protected to the best of the country’s ability.