They appear to have been spotted by a Chinese journalist, Haze Fan, who tweeted a picture to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, adding that her Londoner fiance found it “rather insulting.”

Khan has yet to reply on his Twitter feed, but the Evening Standard reported that some British politicians are already demanding an apology and that the phrase be removed from the magazine, where it appears in both English and Mandarin.

Rosena Allin-Khan, member of Parliament for the London constituency of Tooting, which has a significant population of ethnic Indians and Pakistanis, called the comments "outrageous" and offensive to all Londoners, not just members of ethnic minorities, the Standard reported.

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Indeed, as Allin-Khan noted, many Londoners are proud of the capital city's diversity.

Florence Eshalomi, a local government representative for the London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark told the paper, "You couldn't make up these outdated and near-racist views."

"I keep thinking, 'Is this 2016?'" she said.

The row follows on the heels of what WorldViews colleague Ishaan Tharoor described as a “shockingly racist” and "callous" Chinese detergent ad, which caused a storm of protest online in May. That video showed a Chinese woman luring a paint-stained African man toward her, only to shove a detergent capsule into his mouth and bundle him into a washing machine. Out of the machine emerged a fresh-faced Chinese man.

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As Tharoor also noted, Africans across China have often been subjected to attack and abuse.

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Meanwhile, popular distrust between Indians and Chinese people is also widespread and mutual and has become something of a barrier to closer relations.

Around that time, Simon Shen, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and former visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, carried out a study of online comments from Chinese netizens and found that the vast majority were “filled with hostility and contempt for India.”

Air China could not be immediately reached for comment.