Seoul Protests Beijing Depicting Korean Clothes as Source of COVID-19

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed regret over Chinese state-run media depicting clothes imported from Korea as the possible source of COVID-19 infections in China.

"China has recently stepped up quarantine measures not only on clothes they import from South Korea but also for almost all imported goods from other countries," a ministry official told reporters, Thursday. "But some government offices or Chinese state-run media are failing to properly explain the whole context of the matter and, therefore, are making inappropriate and inconsiderate remarks, which is not desirable in terms of Korea-China relations."

The official said the Korean government has raised the issue with the Chinese central government and some state media which have made the inappropriate remarks to ask them to take sensible measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

China's state-run newspaper Global Times published an article on Monday titled, "COVID-19 cases in 3 regions in China linked to imported clothing from South Korea," which said, "The COVID-19 cases recently reported in at least three Chinese cities were found to be related to clothing imported from South Korea, raising concerns that the source of infection may be contaminated imported clothing."

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