China warns against travelling to Australia after ‘sudden rise’ in violent attacks
- Tourists should ‘raise their awareness of safety precautions’ after increase in ‘discriminatory actions’ linked to Covid-19 pandemic, culture ministry says
- Canberra refutes allegations, saying Australia is a ‘safe, welcoming and amazing destination’
“There has been a sudden rise in discriminatory and violent actions against Chinese and Asian nationals due to the coronavirus outbreak recently,” the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a statement issued on Friday night.
“The ministry reminds Chinese tourists to raise their awareness of safety precautions and avoid travelling to Australia,” it said.
The Australian government on Saturday refuted the charges.
“Millions of tourists from all corners of the world demonstrate their confidence in Australia as a safe, welcoming and amazing destination by visiting each year, often returning multiple times,” Canberra said.
“We reject China’s assertions in this statement, which have no basis in fact. Our rejection of these claims, which have been falsely made by Chinese officials previously, is well known to them.”
In May, the Australian Human Rights Commission reported that one in four people who had lodged complaints about racial discrimination over the past two months said they were targeted because of Covid-19.
In April, Australian media reported that police were on the hunt for two white women believed to have been part of a gang that attacked two Chinese students in Melbourne, after footage of the incident was shared online.
And in March, an Australian man was jailed after pleading guilty to assaulting a Hong Kong studentin Hobart, capital of the island state of Tasmania, whom he accused of having Covid-19 after seeing him wearing a medical face mask.
China hits out at Australia’s claims of vindication over coronavirus inquiry
Osmond Chiu, a research fellow at the Per Capita think tank in Australia, said the coronavirus-related attacks had echoes of the distant past.
“It mirrors the 19th century anti-Chinese rhetoric in Australia that focused on the ‘strange ways’ identified with the Chinese, citing them as the source of various diseases and representing them as unclean, sick, contagious ‘aliens’,” he said in a blog entry in April.
Relations between China and Australia have worsened since the outbreak of the global health crisis.
Chinese social media users mostly made light of Beijing’s travel advisory.
“Please rest assured, my motherland, as I have difficulties even to leave my province,” one person said.
“To travel to foreign countries equals seeking death at this pandemic time,” said another.
