Arrest and expulsion for Chinese businessman: 'The Kenyans, including the president are all monkeys'

Liu Jiaqi was in Kenya just because "money is important". The many cases of contempt. China defends itself: It is not the sentiment of all the Chinese people. The relations between China and Africa have "entered into a golden age".


Nairobi (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Kenyan police have arrested a Chinese businessman guilty of a series of racist insults to his collaborators, as is evident from a video that has been released on social media.

Liu Jiaqi, this is his name,  was tried and expelled late last night.

In the two-and-a-half minute video, Liu is seen arguing with his employees and launching racist insults against them: "Everyone, all Kenyans ... like monkeys, even Uhuru Kenyatta [the president of Kenya]. All of them".

And when his employees tell him to go back to China, he adds: " I don’t belong to here. I don’t like here, like monkey people, I don’t like talk with them, it smells bad, and poor, and foolish, and black. I don’t like them. Why not [like] the white people, like the American?" And he concludes that he is in Kenya only because "money is important".

Zhang Gang, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Nairobi, said the video was recorded last June and that since then Liu "had been punished by his company for his mistakes and apologized to his Chinese colleagues." "The personal talk and personal feeling of this young man does not represent the views of the vast majority of Chinese people,” he said, adding Chinese nationals were urged to make “positive contributions to the friendship and cooperation between China and Kenya".

In reality there are several episodes of racism: Chinese restaurants closed "to the blacks"; imprecations for the Kenyan work style, slower than that of the Chinese; 'Injustices' in salary payments.

Liu Jiaqi's story emerged just as Beijing held a China-Africa Cooperation Forum, where President Xi Jinping pledged $ 60 billion in aid, loans, development support and African exports. Among the 53 African leaders present, there was also the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

Afflicted by underdevelopment and misery, many African countries see Chinese aid and investment on the continent as a boon, even if it creates dependence, debts and the destruction of the local economy. In an interview that appeared yesterday on Caixin, at the conclusion of the China-Africa Forum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that relations between China and Africa "have now entered a golden age".