False narratives cannot affect China-Africa relations
By People Reporter, May 29, 2020Hansen Owilla
The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented existential challenge to the global community and no single country can win the fight alone.
In the global village that we live in today, we have a presence of foreign nationals in all countries, which has been exacerbated by the ease of international travel and bilateral and multilateral engagements.
The threat an epidemic poses to one country or region is a threat to all countries and regions, a threat to humankind as a whole, and bilateral and multilateral efforts are needed to overcome this threat.
After Covid-19 was detected in Wuhan, China has become a lot more vigilant in its protocols to not only protect its own nationals and foreigners, but also to contain the pandemic in other parts of the world.
Unfortunately, this vigilance has placed China at the receiving end of a negative campaign in the wake of an abrupt rise in new coronavirus cases emanating from imported infections in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province.
True, China has largely contained the spread of the virus at home, but the onus to ensure life goes back to normal for everyone falls both on Chinese citizens and foreign nationals living in the country.
It is important therefore to put China’s fight against the coronavirus outbreak into perspective.
For instance, of the 4,553 Africans tested in Guangzhou for the virus by April 13, a total of 111 tested positive with 19 being confirmed as imported cases.
The importance of the Chinese authorities providing proper medical treatment for these Africans cannot be overstated.
We need to ask ourselves a few questions: To what extent are these protocols different from the standards in Kenya or other African countries? Has any Kenyan or other African living in China been frustrated after undergoing the due process?
These are critical questions that require attention. In fact, we have seen Asian-Americans face discrimination in their own country, the United States, and we have seen videos doing the rounds in Kenya of a few Kenyans harassing the Chinese.
Interestingly, what is happening in other parts of the world is not attracting attention as much as events in China, and it is not difficult to discern echoes of a systematic narrative orchestrated to create a wedge between China and Africa.
This narrative is based on a simplistic story that turns a blind eye to the bigger picture of how China is fighting the virus and protecting its citizens and foreigners.
In fact, the global media ought to focus on how the 111 Africans who tested positive for coronavirus are being treated, but since they are getting excellent treatment, the focus is on just one aspect of the story.
Indeed, there were some ugly scenes involving people from African countries in Guangzhou, but those happened because quite a few foreigners live in China without valid papers.
Such foreigners, mostly from Africa, could not present themselves for the nucleic acid tests and thus breached the protocols, and some of them were ill-treated by a few local people.
So it is incumbent upon China to appropriately deal with such cases and also bring to book those who ill-treated African people.
As Gabrielle Dalan, a Ugandan medical student in Wuhan, told Al Jazeera, all one needs is a health check and a certificate of clearance to resume normal life.
China’s resolve to deal with the perpetrators of the ugly scenes in Guangzhou will send a signal to all and deter people from sowing seeds of discord between China and Africa. — The writer is research associate, Graduate School of Media and Communications Aga Khan University