Reports: Chinese Bigotry Against Locals from Coronavirus Origin Province Growing

Since the Chinese coronavirus first emerged last year in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province, residents of Hubei have faced discrimination from authorities and fellow countrymen alike as “virus carriers.”

Bitter Winter, a human rights magazine, reported this week that Hubei residents continue to suffer from the stigma surrounding the deadly virus, even months after Wuhan’s initial outbreak.

On April 8, Chinese authorities lifted a 76-day lockdown of Wuhan, implemented to curb the spread of coronavirus from the city to the rest of the province and country. Despite the nearly three-month quarantine, many residents of Hubei still find themselves the subject of abuse and mistreatment from people who view them as contagious virus spreaders. The blanket discrimination against people from Hubei has reportedly occurred even against those who may not have contracted the virus and pose no health risk to others.

A woman from Hubei told Bitter Winter that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to track and limit the movements of Hubei residents even after the lockdown in Wuhan was officially lifted on April 8. The woman said she and her fellow Hubei residents must show an ID or scan an individual health code when visiting a pharmacy or market.

“Being a resident of Hubei now means constant struggle,” she lamented. Other residents of Hubei tell the magazine they have been forced to register with local “epidemic prevention staff” in their community every time they leave their residence, providing detailed information about their “destinations and plans.”

A man from Hubei working in southeastern China’s Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, told Bitter Winter that he was evicted from his home in Guangzhou after his local neighborhood officials told him that “the central government issued an order to purge all Hubei residents.”

The man, who said he had not lived in Wuhan for five years, was also fired from his job in Guangzhou in late January. The man’s boss reportedly told him that the government had ordered companies to “take particular care of people from Hubei,” meaning that they should be singled out and discharged from work.

In April, the Epoch Times reported that CCP authorities have been issuing official orders to provincial governments since as early as February requiring them to “monitor” people from Wuhan and Hubei. The CCP ordinances have greatly contributed to the continued targeting of Hubei residents for discrimination throughout China.

In March, the Chinese government lifted some travel restrictions on Hubei province, ostensibly allowing residents to leave Hubei for other provinces. The regime’s decision triggered a riot on a bridge linking Hubei to neighboring Jiangxi province when a group of Hubei residents attempted to enter Jiangxi but were denied entry by Jiangxi police.

Thousands of people from Hubei expressed palpable anger at security authorities for blocking their path following an extensive and draconian lockdown in which many Wuhan residents suspected of having coronavirus were sealed inside of their homes. Jiangxi police reportedly did not trust Beijing’s claim that Hubei residents were largely free of the virus and safe to allow entry to.

Video footage of the riot posted online by Radio Free Asia and to the Twitter account “Things China Doesn’t Want You to Know” shows people from Hubei joining together to overturn police vehicles, striking Jiangxi police officers with their own shields, and marching in solidarity shouting, “Go Hubei!”

In the following days, the CCP removed much of the video footage of the riot from Chinese social media and begrudgingly acknowledged the protest through the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily as a “regrettable” incident. The newspaper also admitted that people from Hubei suffered from deliberate prejudice, saying, “People from all sectors of society have also been calling for the acceptance of Hubei’s migrant workers. However, it’s undeniable that some individuals of some regions have intentionally or unintentionally discriminated against Hubei people, set up obstacles for them to return to work.”