Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

Foreigners have been presented with yet another chance to make a small fortune in China. Local residents want their help in reporting crimes on behalf of Chinese people so that police will take the cases more seriously.

The recent plea, advertised around town in Hefei, Anhui Province, has been widely circulated online, sparking heated debate over whether there is any truth behind the ad - or prank - which offers victims of petty theft a 100 percent success rate by police, if a foreign agent is paid 200 yuan ($16.43) to file a missing items report.

Net users could care less about Hefei police's ongoing efforts to verify the ad in question. But what has touched a raw nerve is the idea that foreigners receive special treatment from police.

Net users point to a recent case involving a German man who forgot his knapsack in a taxi when visiting Luoyang, Henan Province earlier this month. After reporting to police, his bag was returned within an hour.

And memories of Wuhan's police force, which worked tirelessly for three full days, just to find a bicycle stolen from a Japanese traveler last year, have yet to be forgotten, while the images of two officers in Beijing, who chased a horse some 12 miles after it had escaped from its American owner, aren't exactly helping to provide calm either.

That is, not to mention the police in Ningbo, who spent hours digging through tons of garbage to find the lost passport of a Russian visitor.

But before Chinese people continue to let their rage run wild, they should stop and ask themselves if they truly believe that police make no effort for them, the way that they do for foreigners.

Out of all the cases that police successfully handle, those involving only Chinese residents dwarf that of foreigners. But because they never make headlines with the same fervor or frequency, it's only natural for the general public to believe that their non-Chinese counterparts are given special treatment.

Awarding privileges to foreigners simply because they are foreigners is still an accepted rationale for some Chinese people today, even decades after the country has opened up and welcomed foreigners from around the world to events as notable as the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

At the same time, exposure to their non-Chinese counterparts over time - be it through business, trade or cultural exchanges - has helped Chinese people get to know others from outside the country, and the initial worshipping of foreigners, or feverish fawning over them that occurred early on, has in relative terms disappeared.

Of course, we should always strive to make that added gesture or go that extra mile when welcoming foreigners or helping them out when they are in trouble, for they are our guests here.

But, we most certainly do not need to return to the days when we treated them like royalty for no reason other than that they were foreigners.

We all know that it is wrong to treat a foreigner better than a fellow Chinese person simply because he or she is not Chinese. So why then are we so quick to judge police, assuming that our officers are so foolishly unaware of this obvious truth?

It was not long ago that foreigners were still being placed on pedestals by Chinese, which may explain why some Chinese people find it difficult to let go of such mentalities.

But the world has since changed - and so has China. We must look forward and put a little more trust and faith in our own people - especially our cops. Otherwise we will only hurt ourselves by wearing down some of our most trusted law enforcement officers by burying them beneath piles of unnecessary reports "from" foreigners.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. yujincui@globaltimes.com.cn