China’s Investment in Africa Cannot Buy the Silence of a Continent
By Deprose Muchena
“Among the general public in Africa, scenes of discrimination from Guangzhou prompted fury on a scale I have not witnessed before.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has at times brought out the best in humanity; at others it has exposed our flaws. Contrast, for instance, China’s mass donation of COVID-19-fighting equipment to Africa with the mistreatment African migrants have recently faced in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Social media footage showed the perceived coronavirus carriers being forcibly evicted from hotels and lodgings and forced to sleep on the streets. One clip showed a restaurant that apparently barred black people from entering.
The incidents were quickly “dealt with” by the authorities. China said it had “zero tolerance for discriminati...