Tianyu M. Fang

Opinion | As the coronavirus pandemic rages, Chinese returnees find a hostile welcome at home

Affected by campus shutdowns overseas, many of the 600,000-plus students are returning home because they have nowhere else to go. Yet, they and other returnees have been criticised on social media for bringing the virus back to China

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Workers wear protective masks and suits at the New China International Exhibition Centre, which was converted into a transfer centre for inbound passengers, close to Beijing Capital International Airport. Photo: EPA-EFE

Tianyu M. Fang

Published: 9:00am, 25 Mar 2020Updated: 9:00am, 25 Mar 2020

As coronavirus cases overseas outnumber those in China, many Chinese abroad – mostly students, but also tourists and émigrés – are returning to the mainland, where the epidemic now seems mostly under control.

But at the end of the long journey, they may not be welcomed by their neighbours at home. In a country that has combated the coronavirus since January, international travellers are now potential carriers. While local infections have ebbed, imported cases are surging, just like across Asia.

To many Chinese returnees, the heightened fear that they are bringing back the coronavirus feels personal. Jasmin Zheng, an undergraduate who was studying in Britain, said her fellow returnees who went home for self-quarantine were criticised by their neighbours. “Some residents pressured neighbourhood officials to reveal their personal information, so that they could take turns to monitor them,” Zheng said.

Her classes had moved online, and she had decided to return to China largely because of a distrust of the British government’s response to the epidemic. Since flying back to Beijing on Tuesday from Edinburgh, Zheng has been under a 14-day quarantine in a government-designated hotel.

When I returned to Beijing from Toronto earlier this month, I was among over 200 overseas Chinese on the flight. Next to me was a college student who didn’t have a home in Canada other than student housing, and behind me was a Chinese mother who had been visiting her son in Ontario but needed to return home to work – all of us were wearing face masks, a rare scene in North America.

The Chinese government has stepped up its measures to prevent inbound passengers from transporting the coronavirus into the country. At a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang last Thursday, containment measures such as managing airport arrival areas and carrying out health checks were called for.