The issue of China’s image, along with its soft power, gets featured prominently these days as debates flare up about whether a skit of the recent Spring Festival Gala on China’s friendship with Africa carries racial overtones.

The allegedly controversial skit focused on the completion of a fast railway in Africa. Choreographers came under fire for adorning an Asian actor in blackface makeup and for installing a comically fake large bottom of an unaccented Chinese woman in her role as an African woman as well as for asking someone to dress as a monkey.

European media accused Chinese of being politically incorrect, but most Africans seem not so sensitive so long as I am concerned. 

Is the show a big problem? Yes, this skit, as a wake-up call, does expose the tip of an iceberg. We do have racial ignorance, but no racial discrimination or hate, I am afraid.

Racism is based on deep and institutionalized bias against people of color and arose from slavery. The movement of civil liberty and independence of all African countries has put an end to open and visible racial discrimination. White supremacy is over in an age of globalization. 

But our subtle human bias is harder to get rid of. Look at the violence of white cops in New York and in other cities populated by African-Americans and the rise of the racist KKK on the platform of putting "America First".

China is not alone in racial ignorance towards some of who are actively involved in the construction of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In a country where 92 percent of the 1.3 billion are Han Chinese, we need to be more careful and to be educated about racial equality. In fact, politically, China has been supportive of anti-apartheid policies and we share the same bitter memories about colonialism. Hence the huge success of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 1955. 

But why did debates about the skit go viral, causing global consternation online? One major reason is a constant question mark about whether China stands ready to assume world leadership when President Xi Jinping calls for support of globalization and free trade and when US President Donald Trump pulls out of many global commitments.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has called for a trans-Atlantic unity against an alleged Chinese attempt to rebuild and perhaps replace the world order which he says is built under Western values of libertarianism. But won’t he take a second look at why populism rises so fast in their own backyard? 

China says it shows no interest in a competition for political institutions or superiority and that the BRI does not aim to replace the current world order. 

An uproar first took place inside China to reflect upon a reckless mistake  about the skin color. However, it is an increasingly skeptical Western media crusade that has triggered the online debate about China’s global ambition through the BRI.

The essence of the Belt and Road Initiative aims to build inter-connectivity through a far-flung infrastructure network and to be more inclusive in pursuing co-prosperity. Racism is an evil that will never get in the way. China does face an uphill battle for respecting cultural and political diversity in our execution of the BRI. 

Are we ready? I am not sure.

Thanks to the televised wake-up call, we need to be very careful to downplay nationalism and to eliminate signs of racism, a human vulnerability in general.