At a time when two Communist states, China and Russia are both gloating over what they believe to be praiseworthy mechanisms followed by them for the containment of COVID-19, the people-to-people relations are being strained with each passing day between the two countries.
A week ago, Chinese Ambassador to Russia, Xhāng Hànuī, in a distasteful tone, called Chinese citizens stranded in Russia and trying to cross over to their country of origin, ‘disgusting’. “There are some Chinese people who, by some means, broke through the border to return to China. In fact, they brought the virus back. This is morally condemnable,” he said. The video where the ambassador is seen saying so was broadcast on Chinese social media by the state broadcaster, CCTV.
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Such stigmatization of Chinese nationals residing in Russia comes after the country where COVID-19 originated started experience a spike in the number of imported cases, mostly attributing the surge to Russia and its porous borders with the fellow-comrade nation.
Suifenhe, a port city in Heilongjiang Province on the Sino-Russian frontier, has recently seen a surge in imported cases, as 243 of them have been found among returning citizens from Russia as of April 13. Most of these citizens are not originally inhabitants of the neighbouring Primorsky Krai, which lies in Russia. They instead belong to major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Further, on Saturday alone, seven new imported cases of COVID-19 were reported from China’s north-western province of Shaanxi, all coming from Russia. This further shows how, despite stringent border measures employed by China, it is not being able to fully insulate itself from its own citizens wanting to return to their country.
What this also shows is an inhuman regime, refusing to take back its own citizens who are desperately in the lookout of an opportunity to return to their homeland. The Chinese Communist Party seems to not care about the lives of its people, since it is so caught up in feeding the world its propaganda via Chinese proxies, whether in the media, or in the WHO.
The statement by the Chinese Ambassador to Russia also goes on to portray the absolute disregard which the leadership has towards it own people, since it is preoccupied in showcasing itself as a country of victors which has ‘defeated’ COVID-19 like nobody else.
“I might sound cynical. But these are just ordinary people. They’re not like the daughter of (Chinese technology giant) Huawei’s founder. They’re mostly traders and students. Cynically speaking, the Russia-China strategic partnership can easily sacrifice the interests of a few hundred ordinary people,” said Artyom Lukin, international relations scholar at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.
China must be called out for the country of self-serving elitists that it has become, in complete contrast to what they were supposed to be, a country based on the welfare of peasants and downtrodden. Today, the same communist regime is turning a blind eye to its stranded citizens.