After the magazine contacted Airbnb, 15 of those listings were removed.

But bias such as this is far from unusual for ethnic minority groups in China; for the Uygurs of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, a Turkic people who in the main practise Islam, discrimination is a daily reality. A Human Rights Watch report published on May 1 details how a mobile app used by police and officials in the area is effectively being employed to ethnically profile residents. Speaking to the South China Morning Post about the technology, Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Chinese government is monitoring every aspect of people’s lives in Xinjiang, picking out those it mistrusts and subjecting them to extra scrutiny.”

Travel has been restricted for China’s Tibetan and Muslim populations for some time. In 2016, passports were taken from many Xinjiang residents by the police “for safekeeping”, and Uygurs wishing to explore the Middle Kingdom can expect to be of great interest to police wherever they lay their doppa.

Responding to Destinations Known, Wang explains that only “trusted” Uygurs can travel outside Xinjiang, but even they are closely monitored.

“What that means is that police would visit hostels and any landlords that rent out to them,” she says.

“In general, the process in China is that any hotel that hosts Uygurs would get an obligatory police visit,” Wang told Wired. “These facilities generally ban any Uygurs or any Xinjiang residents, which is of course highly discriminatory, to prevent them getting in trouble with the authorities.”

Presumably, China’s prejudiced Airbnb hosts expect the same to apply to them.

The home-sharing platform has been making “aggressive investments” in the country and, according to travel news and research company Skift, those efforts have been paying off – China is now Airbnb’s top destination market in Asia-Pacific.

To assert its presence in a market that is notoriously hostile to outsiders, Airbnb has cosied up to local lawmakers. Last year, that resulted in a much-maligned change in privacy policy; the details of foreign guests must now be registered with police, a practice already familiar to those using China’s hotels. This has allegedly put hosts off welcoming those who are not card-carrying Chinese citizens, but what about members of ethnic minority groups who are?

Article 4 of the Constitution states that “All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal.” And declares that “The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops a relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities.”

Recent events, however, suggest that some are “more equal than others” and by allowing discrimination in its listings, Airbnb appears to condone such bigotry, a stance that seems worlds away from its “two foundational principles […] inclusion and respect”.

There is a section of the company’s non-discrimination policy that relates specifically to hosts outside the European Union and the United States that notes: “some countries or communities may allow or even require people to make accommodation distinctions based on, for example, marital status, national origin, gender or sexual orientation, in violation of our general non-discrimination philosophy. In these cases, we do not require hosts to violate local laws.”

However, where no such laws are in place, to tolerate hosts who reject guests on the basis of their ethnicity is to tolerate racism and discrimination. If Airbnb really is committed to “allowing anyone to belong anywhere”, it might want to reconsider its approach in China.

Photographer pays homage to Hanoi’s soon-to-be banned motorcycles

Swarms of buzzing motorcycles have become emblematic of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, with countless blog posts dedicated to the art of crossing the road in front of them (assertively, apparently). But by 2030, Hanoi authorities plan to ban bikes from their inner city, in an effort to counter rising pollution and an increase in road accidents.

Upon hearing this news, British photographer Jon Enoch decided to turn his lens on Vietnam’s motorbike delivery drivers, who load their two-wheeled vehicles wide and high with all manner of materials, from mounds of ice to mountains of flowers.

“I had been planning this series of photographs for a really long time,” Enoch told the BBC. “So when I read that motorbikes would be banned within the next 10 years, I knew I had to fly over and finish this project as soon as possible.”

The results look wheely good.

Chinese tourists neutralise pickpocket in Bulgaria

A group of Chinese tourists were minding their own business in the medieval town of Veliko Tarnovo, in Bulgaria, when they were spotted by a “skilful robber”, according to a May 2 report by the Sofia News Agency. How skilful was quickly called into question, however, after the filching female was caught in the act and pinned to the ground until the police arrived, 20 minutes later.

Nothing was stolen and the accused was held for 24 hours for attempting to commit a theft.