Chinese smell 'racism'; United stock hammered
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Chinese smell 'racism'; United stock hammered

A man believed to be Dr David Dao of Kentucky was attacked, knocked down, given a bleeding lip and dragged by a Chicago policeman - who has been placed on administrative leave. (Photos via Twitter videos)
A man believed to be Dr David Dao of Kentucky was attacked, knocked down, given a bleeding lip and dragged by a Chicago policeman - who has been placed on administrative leave. (Photos via Twitter videos)

LOS ANGELES - Chinese internet users are calling for a boycott of United Airlines after videos showing an elderly Vietnamese-American passenger being brutally removed from its plane went viral on social media platforms across China.

Posts from official media accounts and from private citizens were quickly seen trending on platforms including Sina Weibo (akin to a Chinese version of Twitter) and on messaging platform WeChat, which has over 800 million users worldwide.

An April 9 flight from Chicago O'Hare to Louisville was overbooked and after a call for volunteers to leave the plane, the airline and local police forcibly removed a 69-year-old Vietnamese-American doctor. Videos show the man removed from his seat and dragged, bloodied along the aisle.

Many Chinese netizens pointed not only to United's ill-treatment of the passenger, but also charged the airline with racist treatment of Asians. Others said that the police and airline brutality exposed American lies about freedom and equality. The video surfaced the same day as Amnesty International criticised China for its high number of state executions.

A topic page on Sina Weibo had attracted more than 77 million views and 5.2 million discussion threads by early Tuesday afternoon. Official media, including People's Daily, and the Sina video channel have also been carrying the news. Shenzhen Airlines set up an online poll of Weibo users' seeking their views on the incident.

Many Weibo users said it was insulting and disrespectful, arguing that United Airlines deliberately targeted an Asian man because Asians are stereotyped as timid and unlikely to stand up for their rights.

Gao Dinyuan, a member of the Binzhou City Internet Culture Association, wrote in a Weibo post: "Where's the freedom and equality that (America) promised? Where's promise of the acceptance of people in different colours? Are these just political lies from American politicians?"

One of the WeChat posts by MetroChinese drew more than 100,000 views. Many users responded by calling for boycott of United Airlines. "What if all Asians boycott United Airlines? Will that airline collapse?," one of the users wrote.

"There is a long history of discrimination against Asians. I hope Chinese people realise this reality and support domestic products," another user opined. "Don't feed those who look down on us!"

"United began nonstop service to China in 1986 and today has twice as many routes between China and the mainland US as any other US airline, with 96 weekly departures," the airline claimed in May last year, before adding a new service connecting the high-tech hubs of San Francisco and Hangzhou.

The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment, but its CEO Oscar Munoz apologised for "having to re-accomodate" customers such as the Asian man, who was being contacted directly to resolve the situation.

"Asian American or not, as a consumer who paid for his ticket, he was treated like a prisoner," one Weibo commenter said. "Things are better here at home."

A spokesman for President Donald Trump said it was "troubling" to watch the video. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said it's unlikely the federal government will launch a separate investigation.

Spicer noted that local authorities and United are reviewing the incident

The man in the video was identified by local media as Dr David Dao, 69, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, who once was convicted and disbarred for prescribing illegal drugs to a patient. .

According to records from the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, Dao went to medical school at the University of Medicine of Saigon, graduating in 1974, the year before the communists captured the city and renamed it to Ho Chi Minh City. He was licensed in Kentucky with a speciality in pulmonary disease.

In 2003 his medical license was suspended after an undercover sting operation at a Louisville motel for allegedly writing fraudulent prescriptions for a man in exchange for sex.

He was convicted in late 2004 of several counts of obtaining drugs by fraud or deceit and was placed on five years of supervised probation and surrendered his medical licence. The licence was restored in 2015, when the licensing board allowed him to practice medicine again.

None of this history was likely known either to United Airlines or the police who assaulted him.

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