Nearly 98% Chinese say no to China accepting refugees: report

Nearly 98 per cent of Chinese netizens have given their verdict against the idea of China accepting refugees from other countries and hit out at the US saying it should play a leading role and stop being a "quitter" as it caused the turmoil, the country's state-run Global Times reported.

In an online poll on China's Sina Weibo platform which started on Wednesday, June 20, 97.7 per cent of 8,600 users said they were not game to their country welcoming foreign refugees, the Global Times report said, adding that an equally overwhelming 97.3 per cent of over 210,000 respondents had given the same verdict in a week-long polling last June.

The latest polling took place after the official Weibo account of the UN said on the occasion of the World Refugee Day on Wednesday that the world should show compassion for over 68 million people who were displaced because of war and persecution, the Times report added.

Over 25.4 million people were forcibly displaced by the end of 2017, a number which is nearly 3 million more than that of 2016, the UN Refugee Agency said on Wednesday, the report added.

"Why should China clean up the mess of other countries such as the US? Most of the refugees are coming from places threatened by religious extremists and taking them might damage the peace in China," the Global Times report quoted a Weibo user "Qidanxiaobian" as saying.

"China did not implement the family planning policy for decades to make room for refugees," said another user "Hou Meng'en", the report added.

One expert viewed that the refugee problem is created by irresponsible moves by the US and some western countries and China should not be "morally hijacked" to play a leading role in accepting refugees, the Chinese news portal said.