“The Chinese people are united in the face of the pandemic and have shown impressive solidarity as a nation,” one person who opposed the new rules wrote on Weibo. “I wonder which of the permanent residents would serve China wholeheartedly.”

Another commenter also cited the coronavirus crisis, saying foreigners had a choice to leave the country while Chinese had to stay.

“Look at Wuhan – all 1.4 billion Chinese are standing with Wuhan, but how many foreigners have left?”

The negative reaction to the permanent residency proposal chimes with the state media narrative that many countries have turned their backs on China over the outbreak, with cases of racism against Chinese abroad played up.

On Wednesday, an article saying the United States owed the country an apology for “leading the isolation of China” by repatriating its citizens from Wuhan and limiting flights from the country was carried by several state-run outlets.

The justice ministry’s draft has also prompted discussion of the controversial one-child policy imposed on Chinese for more than three decades to control population growth.

Ren Zeping, chief economist at Evergrande Research Institute, weighed into the debate in a report published on Sina, saying China should scrap birth controls on its citizens before relaxing its immigration policy.

“It’s not that we do not welcome foreign talent … but why don’t we first relax birth controls on our own people before introducing foreign talent?” he wrote. “Is it because our own children are not good enough?”

Beijing has claimed success for having brought down the number of births by at least 400 million through the notorious policy introduced in 1979. China’s rapidly ageing population pushed Beijing to end the policy in 2015, and couples can now have two children.

Ren noted that the new permanent residency regulation set a higher bar for income and investment than many developed countries did, but said it could open the door to unequal rights.

According to a Chinese survey, some 7,356 foreigners obtained permanent residency in China from 2004 to 2013. The United States in comparison issued close to 1 million green cards in 2013 alone.

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The proposed regulation would slightly relax the conditions to apply – for example, by lowering the investment requirement from US$2 million to US$1.43 million.

It would allow foreigners to apply for permanent residency if they had a doctorate, worked in a government-designated priority sector – the draft did not name the sectors – or if they earned at least three times the average local salary. They should also have spent a certain amount of time in the country – ranging from three to eight years depending on the basis of their application.

Foreigners recognised for making “outstanding contributions” to China or those brought in to work in a “sector of urgent need” could also apply without having lived in the country.

As the debate continues to rage, Wang Jing, an anthropologist with New York University Shanghai, noted that the proposal had triggered a wave of racist comments online.

She said they had been fuelled by the global alt-right movement as well as China’s patriarchal nationalism, with some making remarks about not wanting Chinese women to marry foreigners.

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James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of law firm Perkins Coie, said the proposal could make the permanent residency process easier, but there was still a long way to go to lure foreign talent.

“Reform of the application process for permanent residence status is a helpful step towards alleviating the bureaucratic headache of the process,” said Zimmerman, former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

He added that the decision to apply for permanent residency often depended on a range of factors, including availability of health care, access to the arts and sporting events, and free flow of information and press freedom.

“Unfortunately, China has a long way to go before it can truly attract people from around the world to apply for permanent residency,” he said.

“Indeed, the Covid-19 outbreak is an unfortunate situation that will have people thinking twice about living in China, both temporarily and permanently,” he said, referring to the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Additional reporting by Viola Zhou