As a Chinese person who’s traveled around the world, including many parts of Africa, I can clearly see just how provincial most of my fellow Chinese are about the outside world. And, regrettably, that is partially to blame for many of the current difficulties we’re facing.

Regarding the recent well-documented instances of racism and discrimination against Africans in Guangzhou, a lot of people, especially in Africa, are still very angry that there’s been no official apology from China about what happened. But here in China, the reality is that very few people have a full understanding of what happened in Guangzhou, why people are so angry and why a formal apology would even be necessary. Most people don’t really spend that much time thinking about it and largely agree with the government’s sentiment that Africans and Chinese “are brothers.”