Opinion | Naked racism aimed at the Chinese spreads further than the coronavirus, into print in Spain

A recent column published by an English-language newspaper in Spain takes aim at China’s supposed substandard hygiene standards. The diatribe is ill-informed and racist

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Mark Footer

Published: 10:15am, 23 Feb 2020Updated: 2:39pm, 24 Feb 2020

Dear readers, I’m sorry to tell you that naked racism is alive and kicking in the pages of the Euro Weekly News, a newspaper published in Spain but aimed firmly at British migrants.

A recent column by regular contributor Leapy Lee, himself a Brit, takes aim at the coronavirus outbreak and the supposed substandard hygiene standards in China that led to it. Below the headline “Diet Needs Changing” and a picture that is clearly of Manila schoolgirls (at least they’re Asian, right?), our Leapy displays a grudging respect for Beijing’s ability to get cities locked down and hospitals built before giving in to his baser instincts.

“Mind you, that of course is how a dictatorship works; heaven forbid the democratic countries of the world being taken over by despots of this nature. And frankly, that’s why the Chinese leaders worry me. If they have this sort of hold over so many people and decided to galvanise them onto a war footing, we could have half a billion on the doorstep before you could say Chicken Chow Mein.”

Perhaps best not to tell Leapy that Beijing has moved on from the 18th century and now has aircraft carriers with which to invade the Costa Blanca, if it so chooses.

A screenshot showing the image of Manila schoolgirls chosen to illustrate Lee’s column about China.

Leapy then touches on Huawei’s bid for contracts in Britain: “If their inscrutable leaders don’t take the opportunity to insert some form of ‘bug’ into the Huawei project, I’ll eat my bat soup,” using that as a segue into some of his finest mouthfrothing: “have you seen the recent videos on social media showing what these people actually do eat!? Dogs, cats, monkeys, live mice, living fish, rats, fried excretion and human fetuses – to name but a few.”