Africans hounded in Beijing, Nigeria extremely concerned

Reports emerged from Africans in China that the crackdown on Africans is wider than southern Guangzhou, CNN reports.

One Ghanaian family in Beijing, with no recent travel history or contact with coronavirus, reported that police came to their apartment in the early hours of Thursday morning and ordered them to leave. The Ghanaian embassy in Beijing confirmed that two Ghanaian nationals were currently seeking refuge there, but declined to comment. Africans in Chengdu and Fujian province also told CNN they had been visited by community officials.

"Why are we being discriminated against like this? Are there no Chinese in Africa?" one African is heard asking a Chinese policemen on the street in Guangzhou, in a video shot on Thursday evening, as many faced another night sleeping rough on the streets of the city.

It is a question that speaks to the implications a crackdown on Africans in China could have on Beijing's bilateral relations with governments on the continent, which they have courted with investments for decades and where anti-Chinese sentiment is already rumbling. About 1 million Chinese are estimated to be living in Africa.

On Twitter, one user noted that Kenya allowed a plane of Chinese nationals to land in Nairobi, at the height of China's crisis, but when the virus reached Africa the same compassion had not been shown in Guangzhou.

On late Thursday night, local time in Abuja, Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama tweeted that he had invited the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria Zhou Pingjian to communicate his government's "extreme concern at allegations of maltreatment of Nigerians in Guangzhou."

China has been trying to position itself as a friend to African states, as they battle the virus. Li Mingzhu, an official at the National Health Commission, said earlier this month that China has been sending medical teams to African countries for 57 years and would continue to offer help to African countries to improve their ability in combating the novel coronavirus outbreak.

But not all African nations are satisfied with that.

Ghana's finance minister called on China to ease African countries' debt burden earlier this month, while on March 31, Blessings Ramoba, President of Mining Forum of South Africa, tweeted that the coronavirus had caused the South African economy to lose "billions of rand." "The Chinese govt (sic) must cancel the debt owed by South Africa as a sign of remorse," he said.

Zhao Lijian, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, addressed the matter of debt earlier this week, saying: "I believe China will resolve these countries' difficulties via consultation through diplomatic channels."

Roberto Castillo, an assistant professor at Lingnan University, who has researched the African community in Guangzhou for nearly a decade, said one reason the Chinese might be cracking down on Africans in Guangzhou is because they don't trust the low numbers being reported by various nations. But to acknowledge that could be diplomatically awkward.

"It's already a PR mess for China," said Castillo. "When they're doing this to foreigners, it's just exacerbating the negativity."