(Updates with French material, Chinese statement)
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.
Authorities and schools in Toronto, Canada, were moved to
warn against discrimination towards Chinese Canadians, while in
Europe there was anecdotal evidence of Chinese residents facing
prejudice in the street, and hostile newspaper headlines.
"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.
"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. The Chinese government said it was determined to contain an
epidemic it called a "common challenge facing mankind".
"Prejudice and narrow-minded words are no good at all," the
Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
TRAVEL 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.
In France, whose capital Paris is a major draw for Chinese
visitors and which has a significant Chinese population, local
Asians created a Twitter hashtag #Jenesuispasunvirus ("I am not
a virus") to report abuse, especially in public transport.
Sun Lay Tan, a 41-year-old manager in the creative
industries sector, said the man seated next to him in his Paris
subway ride changed seat then put a scarf over his mouth.
"That was really shocking," said Tan, who was born in France
of Chinese and Cambodian origin. "I felt really stigmatised".