China’s reassurances initially appeared to work: Less than one week after his first statement, Nigerian Foreign Minister Onyeama backtracked, saying the situation in Guangzhou was not as bad as initially reported. 

But a few days later, Onyeama switched his response again. He said he had continued to receive reports from people on the ground about an “institutional attack on the rights and dignity of Nigerians and Africans there.”

The Nigerian government launched an evacuation process for affected citizens in Guangzhou and will ensure compensation for some 100 people evicted from their homes and hotels. “That clearly is the immediate solution here,” Onyeama said. 

In early May, Nigeria’s House of Representatives passed a measure to more closely monitor whether Chinese migrants are in the country legally. 

DISCRIMINATORY ATTACKS AGAINST AFRICANS are not new, said Omolade Adunbi, an associate professor of Afroamerican and African studies at the University of Michigan. Dating back to 1988, the Nanjing Anti-African protests pitted Chinese students against African students who, the Chinese claimed, received larger scholarships. Chinese students were also upset to see African students with Chinese women. 

In Guangzhou, riots flared in 2009 after two Nigerian men were injured when they jumped from a building to escape Chinese immigration authorities. Hundreds of Africans surrounded a local police station, thinking the men had died. More riots came in 2012, when an African man died in police custody after getting into a fight over a taxi fare. More than 100 Africans gathered at the police station to question his death and blocked traffic.

In 2016, a commercial for laundry detergent depicted a black man who transforms into a “clean” Chinese man after getting thrown into the wash. Then during the nationally televised Chinese New Year gala in 2018, a Chinese actress dressed up in blackface to play a stereotypical African woman while exclaiming how much she loves China. 

More recently, a political cartoon has spread on Chinese social media depicting a man in a hazmat suit sorting out foreign “trash” for breaking rules in China, including a black man who is thrown into a garbage bin. 

But the global attention on the coronavirus pandemic and African citizens’ outrage is forcing African leaders to respond to the recent discrimination. “A lot of African countries have not been paying attention because of the relationship they have with the government of China,” Adunbi said.

China keeps pumping money into the African continent. In 2000, China and African countries launched the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which occurs every three years with a focus on economic cooperation. During the 2018 summit with African leaders in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced $60 billion in financial aid for the continent. The funds included $15 billion in grants, interest-free loans, and concessional loans; $20 billion in credit lines; and $5 billion for buying imports from the continent. 

In Nigeria, China’s influence is visible in the growing number of free trade zones that allow Chinese businesses to operate, Adunbi said. The China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. is also working on a railway project between Ibadan and Lagos, the country’s commercial hub. 

African countries are even more reliant on China during the coronavirus pandemic, especially as Western nations struggle to contain the virus in their own countries. On April 6, an Air China Cargo aircraft touched down at the Kokota International Airport in Ghana with 37 tons of medical supplies, including personal protective equipment, ventilators, and N95 face masks. The items, packaged in boxes plastered with the “China Aid” logo, went to 18 West African countries. 

Two days later, a 15-member Chinese medical team, including doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians, arrived in Nigeria to assist the medical fight against the virus. In Algeria, the Chinese state construction company announced it will build a 4,000-bed hospital to help coronavirus patients.