By Stanley Widianto and Khanh VU
JAKARTA/HANOI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The coronavirus outbreak
has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from
shops barring entry to Chinese tourists, online vitriol mocking
the country's exotic meat trade and surprise health checks on
foreign workers.
The virus, which originated in China, has spread to more
than a dozen countries, many of them in Southeast Asia which has
sensitive relations with China amid concerns about Beijing's
vast infrastructure spending and political clout in the region
and sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.
But as far away as France, a newspaper has come under fire
for its "Yellow Alert" headline, echoing a historic Western
racist term "Yellow Peril" used to sow fear of Asian influence,
while authorities and schools in Toronto, Canada, have warned
against discrimination against Chinese Canadians. "Orientalist assumptions plus political distrust plus health
concerns are a pretty powerful combination," said Charlotte
Setijadi, and anthropologist who teaches at Singapore Management
University.
Chinese authorities have said the virus emerged from a
market selling illegally traded wildlife, giving rise to
widespread social media mocking of China's demand for exotic
delicacies and ingredients for traditional medicine.
"Stop eating bats," said one Twitter user in Thailand, the
top destination for Chinese tourists. "Not surprising that the
Chinese are making new diseases," another Thai user posted
alongside a video clip that showed a man eating raw meat.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a
faxed request for comment. China has said the virus outbreak
should not be politicised.
"Because your country is beginning (to) spread disease...we
do not accept to serve the guest from China," read a sign in
English outside the Danang Riverside hotel in the central
Vietnamese city of the same name. Authorities later told the
hotel to remove the sign, its manager said in a Facebook post.
Vietnam, which was under Chinese occupation centuries ago
and contests Beijing's sweeping maritime claims in the South
China Sea, has particularly fraught relations with China.
But it is not alone in the region.
Over 60% of respondents to a poll of Southeast Asian
officials, academics and other professionals said in a survey
this month that they distrusted China. Nearly 40% said they
thought China was "a revisionist power and intends to turn
Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence". The survey did not
mention the virus. BANS
Many countries have imposed visa restrictions on travellers
from Hubei province - the epicentre of the virus - while some
airlines have suspended all direct flights to mainland China.
But this is not enough for hundreds of thousands of people
in South Korea and Malaysia who have signed online petitions
urging authorities to ban Chinese from visiting their countries.
In an unusual move, Samal Island in the southern Philippines
on Thursday banned not just tourists from China but from all
countries affected by the coronavirus to the popular beach spot.
China's boom in outbound tourism has created a pattern of
international travel unprecedented in human history and driven
the growth of businesses to serve Chinese travellers around the
world. From a trickle in the 1980s, Chinese tourist numbers grew
to estimates of more than 160 million in 2019.
But earlier this week, a group of Chinese tourists in
Padang, in Indonesia's West Sumatra, were met by locals holding
a banner that read: "We, the West Sumatran Communities, reject
the visit of Chinese tourists."
In Myanmar, officials launched surprise health checks on
Chinese workers in the northwestern Sagaing region after a local
lawmaker accused them of spreading the virus.
Aung May Yee, a regional MP, posted on Facebook that five
cars filled with Chinese workers had arrived at a copper mining
project near Letpadaung town from across the border and it was
her "national duty" to alert authorities.
"At first, I suspected that they are coming illegally and
hiding in there because of the virus," she told Reuters by
phone, adding that checks had found they were travelling on
legitimate documentation and had no symptoms of illness.