Hostile theories and racist hoaxes require government and media intervention
Ethnic Chinese children play behind the barbed wire encircling their Catholic school in Jember, pictured in February 1998: Indonesia has a long history of prejudice against its ethnic Chinese population. © AP
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a senior lecturer at Universitas Islam Indonesia.
As well as the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak, it has also given rise to xenophobic sentiments toward China and people of Chinese descent around the world.
