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Beijing. A property developer in China is inviting only “Western-looking” foreigners to live in a new development, sparking comparisons with the controversial concession areas in the 1800s, state media said on Friday.

Ethnic Chinese, even foreign passport holders, will not be welcome to rent apartments in the Tianfu International Community in the city of Chengdu, the Global Times reported.

The ban on Chinese tenants was necessary to maintain the “purity” of the international community, an employee surnamed Wang in the marketing department of the Chengdu Hi-Tech Investment Group was quoted as saying.

Chengdu Hi-Tech Investment is the parent of Chengdu Hi-Tech Properties, one of the developers involved in the project.

“The foreigners we are talking about are those Western-looking people. We want to ensure that the international community is pure,” Wang said. “Others may be welcomed later.”

The first phase of the development will be finished in October. Once completed, it will be able to accommodate 5,000 people and will have a church, schools, hospital and playgrounds, the paper said.

Zheng Xiaoming, head of the planning and construction bureau of the Chengdu National Hi-Tech Zone, told the China Daily the foreigners-only rule was to ensure the community was “truly international.”

“No residences will be sold to locals. Instead, they will be rented out exclusively to people from overseas,” Zheng said.

The development has been criticized by Chinese residents in Chengdu and Internet users. They say it is racist and reminiscent of the foreign concession territories created in several Chinese cities after it lost the Opium Wars in the mid-1800s.

“I think they are practicing racial segregation by keeping out Chinese,” Gao Song was quoted by the Global Times as saying.



Agence France-Presse