Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
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Image caption Mumbai is witnessing its worst storm in decades
A cyclone racing in from the Arabian Sea has struck India’s west coast after intensifying on its approach to the densely populated city of Mumbai.
Cyclone Nisarga began making landfall about 100km (60 miles) south of Mumbai. Tens of thousands of people along the coast have been moved to higher ground.
It’s the first major cyclone in decades to threaten the financial capital.
With 20 million people, Mumbai is India’s most populous city and has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
The cyclone began making landfall at about 13:00 local time (07:30GMT), packing winds of more than 100km/h.
It hit the coast around Alibaug, a favourite weekend destination for many, and often touted as “the Hamptons” of Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state. Gujarat to the north is also in Nisarga’s path.
Image caption Residents have been told to stay indoors, and some moved to higher ground
BBC Marathi’s Janhavee Moole says it has been raining since Tuesday and the skies are ominously dark in Mumbai.
“I can see the trees shaking violently. All beaches in the city are closed to the public and a police patrol van is making announcements, asking people to stay indoors. All safety precautions possible are being taken, but I do feel worried because the city is also in the grip of a pandemic,” our correspondent adds.
On Wednesday, the Indian Meteorological Department said the cyclone had intensified into a “severe cyclonic storm”. They later said the cyclone had speeded up, and was moving at around 13km/h.Skip Facebook post by India Meteorological Department
End of Facebook post by India Meteorological Department
With more than 40,000 confirmed virus cases, and almost 1,400 deaths, Mumbai is the city worst-affected by coronavirus in India.
The tens of thousands of people evacuated before the cyclone included 150 patients from a recently-built Covid-19 field hospital.
The local government said people living in flimsy homes near the shore were being moved. The coast guard said it had taken 109 fishermen in 18 boats to safety.
The government urged people to secure their homes, prepare an emergency kit, and keep documents and valuables in water-proof containers.
Unlike India’s eastern coast, cyclones are unusual on the country’s western shore. Nisarga comes barely two weeks after Cyclone Amphan struck, devastating parts of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) on the east coast.
More than 100 people were killed in the Indian states of West Bengal and Orissa, as well as neighbouring Bangladesh.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received an invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to attend the next Group of Seven summit, India’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday.FILE PHOTO: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to the media inside the parliament premises on the first day of the winter session in New Delhi, India, November 18, 2019. REUTERS/Altaf Hussain/File Photo
In a telephone call, Modi told Trump New Delhi would be happy to work with the United States and other countries to ensure the success of the next G7 summit, the ministry said in a statement.
Trump said on Saturday he was postponing until September the summit that had been scheduled for late June at Camp David, the U.S. president’s country retreat, and that he wanted to invite Australia, Russia, South Korea and India to the meeting.
Trump conveyed his desire to expand participation beyond the members of the group of the world’s most advanced economies.
“In this context, he extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to attend the next G7 Summit to be held in USA,” the ministry said.
The leaders exchanged views on the COVID-19 situation in the two countries, the India-China standoff at the border, and the need for reforms in the World Health Organization, it added.
A White House statement said Trump and Modi discussed the G7 meeting, the response to the coronavirus pandemic and regional security issues.
Trump told Modi the United States would ship the first tranche of 100 donated ventilators to India next week, the White House said.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a senior congressional leader have reprimanded China for bullying behaviour towards India during a military standoff on their disputed border.
During the call, Trump recalled his visit to India in February. Modi said the historic visit had added new dynamism to the bilateral relationship.
Image captionMumbai usually experiences heavy monsoon rains
“The sea was brought into the city by the wind; the waves roared fearfully; the tops of the churches were blown off and the immense stones were driven to vast distances; two thousand persons were killed.”
This was how a Portuguese historian described one of the earliest recorded powerful storms in Mumbai in May 1618. In the 17th and 19th Century, the western Indian city was hit by deadly storms and cyclones. Mumbai experienced severe floods in 2005, and more recently in 2017 and 2019, but none of them were due to cyclones.
The heaving city of 20 million people, which is India’s financial and entertainment capital, has been spared of cyclones in modern history. Mumbai hasn’t “experienced a serious cyclone landfall since 1891”, Adam Sobel, a professor of atmospheric science at Columbia University, told me.
All that could change on Wednesday when a severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds from 100 to 120 kmph (60 to 75 mph) could hit the city and India’s western coast. India’s meteorological department is predicting heavy rainfall, squally winds, very rough seas and storm surges inundating low lying areas of the city. It is monitoring whether it will be as intense as Cyclone Amphan which devastated parts of West Bengal and took more than 90 lives last fortnight.
On Monday evening, Prof Sobel, who has researched Mumbai’s cyclone preparedness, told me that the latest track of what is likely to be named Cyclone Nisarga “takes it right over Mumbai as a severe cyclonic storm with maximum wind speeds of 110 kmph”. In the US system, he says, this would be “a strong tropical storm, not quite a hurricane”. (Tropical storms in North Atlantic Ocean and Northeast Pacific are called hurricanes.)
“The track forecast is bad for Mumbai, but the intensity forecast is good relative to what it was 12 hours ago when some models were predicting it could become much more powerful,” he said.
Image captionMumbai is a low lying, sea facing city
“So the chance of a worst case scenario is now greatly reduced. However, a severe cyclonic storm can still be dangerous, so people should be prepared. And there is still time for things to change, so everyone in the area should monitor the forecast completely,” he added. Mumbai has been put on “orange” alert with the “possibility of extremely heavy rain to a very heavy rainfall at a few places”.
What makes Mumbai vulnerable, say experts, is that it is a densely packed, low lying city completely exposed to the sea. The low lying areas can easily experience flooding in the event of a bad storm surge or very heavy rains. This time, the city is also battling a Covid-19 outbreak – the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, accounts for more than a third of India’s reported infections.
Amitav Ghosh, a leading novelist who has written extensively on climate change, says there has been an increase in cyclonic activity in the Arabian sea in the last couple of decades. A 2012 paper predicts a 46% increase in tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea by the end of the century. And between 1998 and 2001, three cyclones hit the subcontinent north of Mumbai, claiming over 17,000 lives, he notes.
In his book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Ghosh wonders what would happen if a Category 4 or 5 storm, with wind speeds 240 kmph or higher, barrels into Mumbai?
“Mumbai’s previous encounters with powerful cyclones occurred at a time when the city had considerably less than a million inhabitants. Today, it is the second-largest municipality in the world with a population of over 20 million,” he writes.
“With the growth of the city, its built environment has also changed so that weather, that is by no means exceptional, often has severe effects: monsoon downpours, for instance, often lead to flooding nowadays.
“With an exceptional event, the results can be catastrophic.”
It has already happened once, and the city didn’t even experience a cyclone.
Image captionMumbai is home to 20 million people
In July 2005, Mumbai received one of the highest rainfall totals ever recorded in a single day anywhere in the world – 94.4 cm in 14 hours.
The deluge submerged roads, shut down communication networks and electricity, stranded a couple of million people, and knocked out public transport. More than 500 people were killed, washed away, buried in landslides, electrocuted or simply suffocated in their drowning cars. Residents will be praying that the nightmare doesn’t return.
Children from Hejiazhuang primary school paint in Hejiazhuang Village of Wangba Township in Kangxian County, northwest China’s Gansu Province, May 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Bin)
BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has greeted children of all ethnic groups across the country on International Children’s Day, which falls on June 1.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called on children to study hard, firm up their ideals and convictions and develop strong bodies and minds to prepare for realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
Xi noted that children nationwide have experienced a special period during the country’s fight against COVID-19 as all Chinese people stand united.
Children paint elephants at the Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, May 27, 2020. Two female Asian elephants gave birth to two babies respectively on April 30 and May 12 in the Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, adding the total number of the Asian elephants here to 27. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)
Witnessing the great feats of Chinese people working together and rising to challenges, the children have followed the call of the Party and the government to support the anti-epidemic battle with their concrete actions, demonstrating the fine spirit of the country’s children, Xi said.
He stressed that China’s children today are not only undergoing and witnessing the realization of the country’s first centenary goal, they are also a new force for achieving the second centenary goal and building China into a great modern socialist country.
Xi urged Party committees and governments at all levels as well as the society to care for children and create favorable conditions for their growth.
Students attend a class at a primary school in Dahua Yao Autonomous County, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, May 29, 2020. Guangxi, one of the major battlefields in China’s poverty alleviation campaign, has been making painstaking efforts to improve education for poverty-stricken children, as schooling is believed to be the best way to empower the youngsters to lift their families out of poverty. The region has taken various measures in this regard, including granting students stipends, improving school facilities and nutritional conditions of rural students, and helping more students from rural and impoverished areas have access to higher education. As many households from inhospitable areas have moved into relocation sites built for poverty alleviation in the county seats, relocated children can study in schools in and near resettlements, instead of trekking hours back and forth in mountains for schooling. The faculty is a key to education. The regional government has called in capable teachers to help schools in rural areas, and has been committed to guaranteeing payment to teachers and filling vacancies of teachers in rural areas through special programs. Reducing poverty must begin with reducing ignorance. Therefore, giving rural children a good education is an important task in poverty relief, and also a crucial means to stop poverty being passed on through generations.
Photos showing Indian soldiers purportedly brought down by PLA soldiers at a fist and stick fight circulated among Chinese military websites
WeChat and YouTube become new fighting arenas for soldiers but their governments are playing down Himalayan clashes
A photo showing PLA troops after purportedly bringing down several Indian soldiers at a close-quarters fight at Pangong Lake border area with India, was circulated among Chinese military websites on Sunday. Photo: Handout
People’s Liberation Army soldiers and their Indian counterparts have moved
over border disputes in the Himalayas to social media platforms as both their governments try to play down the fights.
A post with photos showing several Indian soldiers purportedly brought down by PLA soldiers in a fist and stick fight at the Pangong Lake border area with India was circulated among Chinese military websites on Sunday.
On the Chinese social media site WeChat, a Chinese soldier posted photos showing a number of Indian soldiers lying on the ground with a group of PLA soldiers standing nearby with sticks in their hands. The photos were accompanied by a Chinese caption saying the Chinese side “had just one injury but dozens of Indian soldiers were wounded”.
A screen grab of YouTube video in which Indian troops claimed to have captured a Chinese officer, who appeared hurt after a brawl at Pangong Lake in the Himalayas. Photo: Handout
The report was published one day after the Indian side posted a video on YouTube showing that Indian troops had captured a Chinese officer, who appeared badly roughed up during the brawl at Pangong Lake, about 4,350 metres (14,300 feet) above sea level in the Himalayas.
The YouTube video posted by someone on the Indian side did not state the time or date of the incident. Photo: Handout
The crudely made video, which did not include the date of the incident, also showed a damaged PLA military vehicle amid cheering Indian troops.
Two independent sources close to the PLA said “the wounded Chinese officer was an interpreter who was taken in by the Indian troops but was later released with minor injuries after the Chinese side called for reinforcements”.
The sources said soldiers from both sides had turned to social media to give a positive spin to their “acts of bravery” while their commanders wanted to play down the disputes. One source pointed out that the pictures of injured Indian soldiers were posted by a Chinese soldier on his personal social media account and not on official channels.
“Beijing didn’t want its people to think that Chinese soldiers lost in the fight but at the same time it is mindful of not escalating the matter,” said the source, who requested anonymity because of sensitivity of the situation.
India denies that Trump spoke to Modi about border tensions with China
29 May 2020
Beijing-based military expert Zhou Chenming said the Chinese border troops had been told to be “restrained”.
“In border disputes, China always wants to keep the status quo, especially now when both sides should do all they can to avoid fighting,” Zhou said. “China is busy dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and other issues like Taiwan and Hong Kong, and India also faces a serious Covid-19 situation.”
Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, an international relations expert based in New Delhi, agreed with Zhou’s analysis, saying both China and India understood the seriousness and sensitivity of their border disputes.
“Civilian and military officials of both countries are already in discussion under existing mechanisms,” he said. “The stakes are too high for both countries and the probability of a war [between India and China] is low, in my view.
“Though, the situation is very serious and India is closely monitoring Chinese activities.”
Military and diplomacy analysts believe border skirmishes between China and India will not escalate to war because of a range of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: AP
Overseas media reported that both Chinese and Indian militaries had increased deployment to the border, with the PLA moving 5,000 personnel to the area.
Speaking last Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian did not deny the troop deployment reports but said the overall situation in the China-India border area remained “stable and under control, and the two countries were capable of resolving border issues through dialogue and negotiations”.
Border conflicts between China and India have escalated since 2017, with Indian troops and the PLA staging the most serious confrontation in Doklam near a tri-junction border area – known as Donglang or Donglang Caochang, in Chinese – a territory which is claimed by both China and Bhutan, an ally of India.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Beijing’s proposed security law has sparked protests in Hong Kong
Seven former UK foreign secretaries have urged Boris Johnson to form a global alliance to coordinate the response to the China-Hong Kong crisis.
China is facing mounting criticism over a planned security law for Hong Kong which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK would not turn a blind eye.
Hong Kong was handed back to China from British control in 1997 but under a unique agreement.
The former British colony enjoys some freedoms not seen in mainland China – and these are set out in a mini-constitution called the Basic Law.
But there are fears the proposed law, which has sparked a mass of anti-mainland protests in Hong Kong, could compromise some of the freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law.
In their letter to the prime minister, the cross-party group of former cabinet ministers says the UK government must be seen to lead the international response, as many countries take their cue from Britain over its former colony.
Jeremy Hunt, David Miliband, Jack Straw, William Hague, Malcolm Rifkind, David Owen and Margaret Beckett all expressed their concern at what they call China’s “flagrant breach” of Sino-British agreements by imposing tough national security laws on Hong Kong.
They urged Mr Johnson to set up an “international contact group” of allies to coordinate any joint action, similar to that set up in 1994 to try to end the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
A Downing Street spokesman insisted the government was already playing a leading role with international partners in urging China to think again.
Mr Raab said the new security legislation “very clearly violates” the autonomy that is guaranteed under Chinese law as well as that in the 1997 agreement.
He confirmed the UK will allow those who hold British National (Overseas) passports to come to the UK and apply to study and work for an extendable 12-month period.
This will in turn “provide a path to citizenship”, he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
Mr Raab said up to three million people registered as a British national (overseas) in Hong Kong could be eligible for UK citizenship if China presses ahead with the law.
Meanwhile, the chairman of Commons foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat, said the government must realise that China has a “very, very authoritarian system of government” and should rethink the partnership between the two.
Image caption Passengers gathered outside Secundarabad station in Andhra Pradesh state
India has partially restored train services amid reports of chaos and overcrowding at some stations.
At least 145,000 people will travel in trains on Monday as the country starts to reopen after a prolonged lockdown.
Two hundred trains will now start operations – up from the existing 30 that are currently running.
But maintaining social distancing and cleanliness is proving to be a difficult task as huge crowds gathered outside some stations.
India’s mammoth railway network usually carries 25 million passengers every day.
The ministry of home affairs has issued specific guidelines for the smooth operation of train services. They say that all passengers will have to be screened, social distancing must be followed at the station and in trains and only passengers who have confirmed tickets will be allowed to travel.
Image caption Police struggled to enforce social distancing due to large crowds
But some stations reported chaotic scenes as officials struggled to enforce these guidelines. BBC Telugu reported that people were standing much too close to each other at Secunderabad railway station in the southern state of Telangana.
“Railway staff and police didn’t allow passengers to go inside the station until at least one hour before the scheduled departure, citing physical distancing measures. This led to some chaos outside the railway station as a large number of passengers had gathered and there was no physical distance maintained. Police later arrived and organised the queues,” BBC Telugu’s Sharath Behara says.
Reporting from Delhi, BBC Hindi’s Salman Ravi said strict social distancing was being followed when passengers boarded trains, and all of them wore masks.
Image caption Passengers waiting outside the train station in Delhi
“But the same was not observed at ticket booking counters. Many people who did not have tickets also turned up at the station and that caused crowding,” he added.
Train services came to a grinding halt when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown on 24 March to stop the spread of coronavirus.
This left millions of daily-wage workers stranded as they desperately tried to go back to their villages from cities. Many of them decided to walk long distances – in some cases more than 1,000 kilometres.
As pressure and criticism mounted, the government started running special trains to ferry migrants. Some 30 trains restarted on 12 May, since then there has been a consistent demand to reopen more routes.
Getting the train network going again is part of the government’s wider strategy to slowly reopen the economy. Millions have lost jobs and factories are struggling to reopen as demand is likely to be sluggish in the coming weeks.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has little choice but to stick with his Phase 1 China trade deal despite his anger at Beijing over the coronavirus pandemic, new Hong Kong security rules, and dwindling hopes China can meet U.S. goods purchase targets, people familiar with his administration’s deliberations say.
The U.S.-China trade negotiations took more than two years, heaped tariffs on $370 billion of Chinese products, whipsawed financial markets and dimmed global growth prospects well before the coronavirus outbreak crushed them.
In recent weeks, suggestions that Trump may cancel the deal have emanated from the White House almost daily, and businesses, investors, and China trade watchers are hanging on to every word and tweet.
But on Friday, when Trump said the United States would start dismantling trade and travel privileges for Hong Kong, he did not mention the deal. Stock markets heaved a sigh of relief, with the S&P 500 .SPX reversing losses.
Talking tough on China and criticizing the Obama administration’s more measured approach is a key part of Trump’s re-election strategy. Sticking with the pact may mean accepting that China is likely to fall short of purchase commitments for U.S. agricultural goods, manufactured products, energy and services – goals that many said were unrealistic here even before the pandemic.
Canceling the deal, though, would reignite the nearly two-year U.S.-China trade war at a time U.S. unemployment is at its worst since the 1930s Great Depression.
The next U.S. step would likely be reviving previously planned but canceled tariffs on some $165 billion worth of Chinese consumer goods, including Apple (AAPL.O) cellphones and computers, toys and clothing – all ultimately paid by U.S. companies and passed on to consumers. Beijing would retaliate with tariffs on U.S. goods, fueling more market turmoil and delaying recovery.
“He’s stuck with a lemon. He gets an empty agreement if he sticks with it, and he gets more actions that create an economic drag and more volatility if he abandons it,” said one person briefed on the administration’s trade deliberations.
U.S. goods exports here to China in the first quarter were down $4 billion from the trade war-damaged levels a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The Peterson Institute of International Economics estimates here that during the first quarter, China made only about 40% of the purchases it needed to stay on target for a first-year increase of $77 billion over 2017 levels, implying an extremely steep climb in the second half.
Leaving the deal now would not buy a lasting political bounce for Trump in manufacturing-heavy swing states with five months to go before the presidential election, analysts say.
COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP
Trump blames China for failing to contain the coronavirus and has repeatedly said the deal, including its pledges to boost U.S. exports to China by $200 billion over two years, no longer means as much to him with U.S. coronavirus deaths now over 100,000 and job losses piling up.
Trump said on Friday that China was “absolutely smothering Hong Kong’s freedom,” but refrained from harsh sanctions that could put the trade deal in jeopardy, taking milder steps to revoke the territory’s separate travel and customs benefits from China.
Claire Reade, a former U.S. trade negotiator, said Trump’s “peripheral steps” would not deter Beijing from proceeding with the security law, as it regards Hong Kong as a core national security issue.
“Probably the most significant thing from the trade perspective is that the Phase 1 trade deal is – for now anyway – unaffected,” said Reade, senior counsel with Arnold and Porter law firm in Washington.
White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow criticized Beijing last week, but on trade told CNBC: “It’s a complex relationship. The China Phase 1 trade deal does continue to go on for the moment and we may be making progress there.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has recently cited here “continuing progress” in the deal, after China welcomed U.S. blueberries, barley, beef and dairy products. He has touted the deal’s dispute settlement mechanism, which provides for regular consultations on compliance with Beijing’s commitments on intellectual property protections, financial services, agriculture standards and purchases.
U.S.-China flashpoints on Hong Kong, Taiwan and other issues did not derail negotiations that resulted in new concessions from China, said Jamieson Greer, who served as Lighthizer’s chief of staff until April.
“Some of these security and human rights challenges have certainly complicated the atmosphere, but the trade agreement can still provide a set of rules governing important aspects of the trade relationship,” said Greer, now an international trade partner at the King and Spalding law firm.
Another person familiar with USTR thinking said the agency “needs to make Phase 1 look good. They want to show that progress is being made. The president looks at the China relationship much more broadly.”
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India is likely to receive 102% rainfall of a long-term average this year, the state-run weather office said on Monday, raising expectations for higher farm output in Asia’s third-biggest economy, which is reeling from the new coronavirus pandemic.
In July India could receive 103% rainfall of its long-term average and 97% in August, M. Rajeevan, secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, told a news conference.
The IMD defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96%and 104% of a 50-year average of 88 centimetres for the entire four-month season beginning in June.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 