Entry bans to public places, racist comments and death threats: For many foreigners in China, xenophobia has been a growing phenomenon during the pandemic. For a foreigner who is also a person of colour, the situation can be particularly bad. Our Observer, a student in Shanghai from the US, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team about her experience being a target of discrimination.
In early 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, China was accused of imposing racist restrictions on its African expat community.
More than two years have passed, and while the world has gradually learned to adapt to Covid-19, foreigners and people of colour (POC) in China are still experiencing xenophobia and racism.
‘In these past few days, I haven’t gone outside’
In late August, a POC student attending New York University in Shanghai posted a series of viral TikTok videos showing racist comments she received from Chinese internet users.
After uploading a video of her dancing to her TikTok, she had been shocked to read through all the racist insults in the comments.
The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to Yuqian, the TikToker who posted these videos.
I got literally thousands of harmful messages, telling me to kill myself, telling me to go to Africa and to get my hands cut off, things like that.
If something is so viral, if I go outside, someone can definitely recognize me since I’m a tall, dark-skinned, and very colourful-all-the-time hair person. So I do worry about my safety.
In these past few days, I haven’t gone outside.
Some internet users even sent Yuqian messages using the N-word.
In fact, anti-Black racism is nothing new on Chinese social media. A project that looked into anti-Black sentiments on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed that words related to violence, invasion and barbarianism were frequently used in topics related to Black people.
The situation deteriorated during the pandemic, particularly because the Black community in China was blamed for spreading the virus.
‘I was kicked out of a restaurant just because they did not allow foreigners’
More than two years into the pandemic, China’s strict Covid policies, along with the closures of businesses, have driven many expats out of the country.
Recalling her first visit to China at the age of 14, Yuqian said the experience was rather positive, and the hospitality she received from her friends there made her feel like part of the society. But her experience after the pandemic began was different.
I’ve been here before, like pre-Covid, so I expected things to kind of be the same, more or less. But then after arriving, even though the first two months were okay, when you started having a life here, that’s when you start seeing all the little parts.
After Covid, the scariness of foreigners just skyrocketed, and this is the sentiment deriving from my daily life.
Every time that Covid gets worse, like back in March when there was a surge that put Shanghai into a lockdown – I remember in February and March, they wouldn’t even allow me to enter many places. So I’ve been kicked out of karaoke with friends. I was kicked out of a restaurant just because they did not allow foreigners, and I got stopped at places specifically since they wanted to check my passport simply because I was a foreigner.
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Foreigners being banned from entering such places as restaurants and nightclubs over concerns about Covid-19 have also occurred in other countries in Asia, such as South Korea.
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‘Before racial discrimination, it’s xenophobia’
The whole Covid thing, I think, is not just against people of colour, but all foreigners.
Therefore, I think before racial discrimination, it’s xenophobia. It’s like, being scared of foreigners in general. The racial discrimination comes a little bit after.
However, people of colour do experience those little microaggressions. For me, I’m a part-time model, and so there is an obvious preference for white people over Black people. Sometimes, they say ‘No, that’s not good looking, that’s ugly’ or ‘We want pretty girls’, when they just mean they want white girls.
Whenever people here seem to be positive towards Black people, most of the time it’s only about hip-hop or other forms of stereotypical Black culture.
Even though people send me negative things, I know that not everyone is like that. I didn’t imagine things to be this bad, but it gives me the chance to share, like, how people actually comment on people of darker skin, what people actually think of this, and what people may not be saying out loud, but are actually thinking and typing to others.
