Time for Solidarity

China and Africa need to stay united in combating COVID-19

- Ehizuelen Michael Mitchell Omoruyi

As someone who has studied, stayed, and now working in China for the past 10 years and has had close interactions with the Chinese at different levels, I want to highlight the need for preserving the shared goals that have existed between Africa and China, and treating the coronavirus pandemic as a common threat to mankind.

Misled reports

However, to my regret, there have been numerous reports from diverse social and mainstream media outlets about discrimination against Africans living in Guangzhou, capital city of south China’s Guangdong Province. The social media reports claim that Nigerians and other African nationals were ejected from their hotels in the middle of the night while some students are being told to take COVID-19 and other medical tests, and go into quarantine. The social media reports added that Chinese landlords were ejecting some Africans from their apartments as part of the efforts to “curb the spread of coronavirus.” The outcries from African nationals in Guangzhou prompted African ambassadors in Beijing to release a joint complaint statement addressed to the Chinese authorities on April 10.

While the reported actions display a resemblance of discrimination, we strongly believe that they neither mirror the general attitudes of the Chinese people toward African citizens nor are an official policy of the Chinese Government toward African people in the fight against a common enemy - the coronavirus. In reality, African and Chinese people have offered each other great support in combating the epidemic.