Chinese Embassy Communications
Our attention has been drawn to an article published by the Night Watch Newspaper on June 15, 2021, titled China and its love for abusing Africans. The article made slanders at China by hyping up an isolated case sensationally and wantonly made accusations on other China-related issues. I would like to make the following statements.
First, the unfortunate physical conflict occurred on June 8, 2021 between a Chinese staff of China Railway Seventh Group and a Sierra Leonean staff of Kingho Mining Company was an individual and isolated case. Both sides reconciled and made peace on June 10, 2021.
This unexpected and unpleasant case happened mainly because of the inaptness of communication and misunderstanding of the Chinese staff and there was no such a thing of abuse as alleged by the above-mentioned report. The misrepresentation of the case by the author of the article would only serve to stir up trouble again, which should be opposed by all peace-loving and sober-minded people.
Meanwhile, the article claimed that Chinese enterprises have been mistreating local employees in many African countries, which is fictitious and exaggerating. China-Africa cooperation has been further deepened and expanded over the years. The overwhelming majority of the Chinese enterprises in Africa have been operating in full compliance with the local laws and regulations. While promoting local economic development and creating a large number of job opportunities, they have also been actively fulfilling their corporate social responsibilities and promoting common development. Some individual cases or incidences should not be used to label a country or a nation.
Second, what the article claimed that the Xinjiang Education and Training Centers in China are “concentration camps” and there exist “forced labor” and “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang is not only groundless but also of ill-intention. Xinjiang-related issues are in essence not about human rights, ethnicity or religion, but about fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, which has a bearing on China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security.
For a time, some western politicians, scholars and media have been playing the political trick of fabricating lies of “genocide,””forced labor,””forced birth control,””systematic sexual abuse and mistreatment” in Xinjiang and spreading these rumors vociferously with an attempt to disrupt and contain China. However, such accusations are apparently absurd. According to the results of the Seventh National Population Census in 2021, the Uygur population in Xinjiang increased by 1.623 million or 16.2 percent from 2010 to 2020.
During the same period, Xinjiang saw rapid economic and social development with people’s living standards continuously improved. The author of above-mentioned article, in total disregard of facts, chose to turn a blind eye to the tremendous development strides made in Xinjiang and repeated the fallacies gleaned from certain western media. This is totally in contravention of professional journalistic ethics.
Third, virus origin-tracing is a scientific issue as far as the Covid-19 pandemic is concerned and should not be politicized. China has always been open, transparent and cooperative and has invited WHO experts to China twice for origin-tracing cooperation. Certain anti-China forces have been sparing no efforts in using the pandemic to stigmatize China, which has severely disrupted and undermined international origin-tracing cooperation.
The place where the outbreak of a virus is first reported is not necessarily the place where the virus originated. More and more reports and researches indicate that COVID-19 pandemic could have occurred in some parts of Europe and America long before it was discovered in Wuhan, China.
China has made tremendous efforts, achieved strategic results and provided strong support to many other countries in fighting the pandemic and saving lives. Over a year, China has provided US$2 billion aid to developing countries in fighting the pandemic and restoring economic and social development including the anti-pandemic material assistance to more than 150 countries and 13 international organizations.
While vigorously promoting vaccination at home, China has donated vaccines to more than 80 countries, including Sierra Leone, and exported vaccines to 43 countries. Up to now, China has provided in different ways more than 300 million doses of vaccine to the world, more than any other country on the earth.
Going forward, China will continue to enhance solidarity and cooperation with the international community to jointly fight the virus, and contribute to stable global economic growth and the building of a community of health for all. Any attempt to defame China and sabotaging China-Africa cooperation is doomed to fail.
