Video claiming Chinese are not allowed in Australian supermarkets is misleading.
A video from an Australian supermarket, showing a Chinese man getting into a fight with an Australian man is doing the rounds on Twitter and Facebook.
Claim: The viral video claims that Chinese individuals are not allowed in Australian supermarkets anymore, on account of the novel coronavirus being of Chinese origin. The viral text says “Chinese not allowed in supermarkets in Australia”. Some shared instances have racist tones, implying that the rest of the world should also follow Australia’s example.
Facebook user Payal Payal’s post has been viewed over 9000 times and shared more than 350 times on the platform.
Roop Darak, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s spokesperson tweeted this video. His tweet was retweeted by roughly one thousand users and has over 24,000 views.
Rt if you think this should be followed in entire world 🌍
Chinese not allowed in
Supermarkets in Australia
So it’s started 👆👆 pic.twitter.com/hNdrysTyjS— Roop Darak (@iRupND) April 14, 2020
In China, Africans Are Not Allowed
In Australia, the Chinese are not allowed #COVID2019 pic.twitter.com/mbF2j57vzi
— World Updates (@Rntk____) April 14, 2020
Truth
The video is recent and is from an Australian supermarket, but the dispute in the video is not due to racism or xenophobia and especially not Coronavirus.
The text along with the video gives a wrong idea, that Australians hate Chinese thinking it as origin of the virus.
Facebook user Nikki Schoerie posted this video on April 11, 2020, on her profile.
The text states that the Chinese pair was apprehended by other shoppers for violating the store’s purchasing policy of two cans of baby formula per customer. The incident took place at Australian supermarket chain Big W’s Lilydale outlet in Victoria. The text, when searched on Facebook, returned only 4 results with its original context.
The aggression against Chinese shoppers comes after a history of previous instances where Chinese nationals have been known to purchase a brand of baby formula in bulk according to reports by The Daily Mail and MSN and selling it to China for a profit. The baby formula has a high demand in China because of its superior quality.
The shoppers, known as ‘daigou’ shoppers are a group of individuals that routinely purchase products that are manufactured outside China and resell it online in their country. This form of cross-border exporting creates a shortage of the product in the local market.
