A restaurant in China displayed a large banner upfront to celebrate the outbreak of COVID-19 in the US and Japan.
The banner, made of red fabric, read: “Huge congratulations to the American epidemic and long live the epidemic in little Japan.” It was displayed in Shenyang, north-eastern China.
The person responsible for displaying the hateful banner has been removed from his job by the restaurant franchise because of the backlash the restaurant chain faced on social media.
The franchise owner of the restaurant in Shenyang is only known by surname Hui.
The restaurant chain, Mama Yang, made it clear that Hui installed the banner on his own in an attempt to attract customers and he did not contact the higher offices about it.
The food chain also said in their statement that the banner was taken down within two hours of being displayed and Hui was arrested by police soon after.
“We are deeply sorry for the negative societal effect it has caused,” the statement said.
After the Japanese media reported the incident, social media users in China took exception to the issue. “This is so, so embarrassing,” someone said on Weibo, the Chinese replica of Twitter.
Someone else wrote: “It represents a large number of Chinese people with narrow-minded nationalism.”
Anti-Japan statements are common among Chinese nationalists because of the territorial disputes and the encounter of the two countries in the second World War.
In fact, the relationship between China and Japan has never been a pleasant one.
The Japanese Imperial Army carried out the Nanjing Massacre in 1937 that consisted of murdering, raping and looting Chinese citizens. This campaign claimed 300,000 civilian lives.
During WWII, the Japanese Imperial Army carried out several bombings on China killing at least 32,000 civilians in Chongqing alone.
The US provided funds and military support to the Chinese Nationalist Party during the war against Japan as well as in WWII.
But after the victory of Mao Zedong and his communist party against the Chinese Nationalist Party in the civil war, the relations between the two countries deteriorated.
The disturbing past of China and Japan might be an excuse for why someone displayed the banner but such behavior cannot be tolerated in these times when we need humanity and love more than ever.
Replaced!