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Letters | Racism against Chinese: could arrogance have a role to play?

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Chinese tourists take souvenir photos with the national flag on Quanfu, one of the Paracel Islands, in Sansha prefecture of Hainan province in the South China Sea, in September 2014. Photo: AP
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I am responding to the article by Alex Lo titled “No Chinese should be surprised by coronavirus-inspired racism” (February 20).

As a result of the coronavirus outbreak being first recorded in China, many Chinese faced discrimination across the world. Being Chinese, I definitely feel nervous about that but, meanwhile, I have strong reservations about what Mr Lo has claimed – that it is all about “schadenfreude”.

In fact, discrimination against Chinese could also be attributed to Chinese arrogance.

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Take the Chinese government’s attitude towards the other nations during the coronavirus outbreak, for example. Even though China was an infected area with tens of hundreds of deaths, they demanded that other countries keep their borders open for Chinese travellers. Because China makes large contributions to the economy of numerous countries, it thinks other countries ought to listen to it, even putting the Chinese before their own citizens.

We also often encounter negative news about the poor behaviour of Chinese tourists. That they do not like to follow the rules and disrespect the local culture. Perhaps this is partly what fuels dislike against the Chinese.
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