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Outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher on one travel site within half an hour of Beijing relaxing quarantine requirements on the city
The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country emerges from a pandemic which saw widespread travel restrictions
Passengers arrive from a domestic flight at Beijing Capital Airport on March 27, 2020. Photo: AFP
Within an hour of Beijing downgrading its emergency response level, relaxing quarantine requirements for some arrivals to the Chinese capital city, travel bookings on some sites surged up to 15 times.
Thirty minutes after the announcement on Wednesday, bookings for outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher than before the announcement on Qunar, one of the biggest online travel service providers in China. Searches for travel packages and hotel bookings on the platform also increased three-fold, according to a Qunar report.
On Alibaba Group Holding‘s Fliggy travel platform, bookings for flight and trains heading in and out of Beijing increased 500 per cent and 300 per cent respectively one hour after the announcement, compared to the same time a day ago, according to a Fliggy report. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Bookings for flight and train tickets in Beijing for the upcoming Labour Day long weekend also increased more than 300 per cent and 160 per cent respectively on Chinese group buying site Meituan Dianping on Wednesday after the announcement compared to the day before, while searches for the attractions in the Beijing area on the platform increased almost three times from a week ago, according to Meituan.
“The surge in searches for travel in Beijing was because the lockdown measures in the city were the strictest in the country after work resumed,” said Jiang Xinwei, senior analyst with Analysys. “Consumption among residents was suppressed [during the lockdowns], so there is now a rebound in bookings.”
China’s online travel sites prepare for surge in domestic tourism
21 Mar 2020
The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country gradually emerges from a pandemic which the Chinese government responded to by implementing strict quarantine measures, shutting down tourist attractions and suspending group tours.
Beijing-based consultancy Analysys estimates that China’s national tourism economy lost at least 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) a day on average during the outbreak, with travel service providers like Qunar and Ctrip overloaded with millions of booking changes as well as cancellation and refund requests.
The relaxation of travel restrictions in and out of Beijing also comes ahead of a
, which starts on Friday and is the first extended public holiday after Lunar New Year in late January.
In November, the Chinese government lengthened the holiday from the original three days to five to stimulate consumption and encourage travelling amid a slowing economy weighed down by the US-China trade war.
Some cities, such as Huzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province and Kunming in southwestern province Yunnan, have issued travel vouchers to stimulate consumption for the tourist industry, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Ctrip estimated that there would be more than 86 million domestic tourists during the long weekend – more than double the number of travellers seen during the Ching Ming Festival in April, which recorded 43 million tourists, according to the China Tourism Academy.
However, Jiang said the rebound this week does not mean the Chinese travel industry is out of the red. “The travel industry will recover partially during the public holiday, but this will not be more than 60 per cent [of levels before the pandemic],” he said. “The government needs to do more to signal that travelling is safe and encourage residents to do so.”
The richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.
“One world, one fight!” Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. “Together, we can do this!” he cheered in another.
The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment.
But Ma’s critics and even some of his supporters aren’t sure what he’s getting himself into. Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China’s Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes? He appears to be following China’s diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China’s political pyramid.
Other tech billionaires have pledged more money to fight the effects of the virus – Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is giving $1bn (£0.8bn) to the cause. Candid, a US-based philanthropy watchdog that tracks private charitable donations, puts Alibaba 12th on a list of private Covid-19 donors. But that list doesn’t include shipments of vital supplies, which some countries might consider to be more important than money at this stage in the global outbreak.
The world’s top coronavirus financial donors
How Alibaba compares to the top five. No one else other than the effervescent Ma is capable of dispatching supplies directly to those who need them. Starting in March, the Jack Ma foundation and the related Alibaba foundation began airlifting supplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas including Iran, Israel, Russia and the US.
Ma has also donated millions to coronavirus vaccine research and a handbook of medical expertise from doctors in his native Zhejiang province has been translated from Chinese into 16 languages. But it’s the medical shipments that have been making headlines, setting Ma apart.
“He has the ability and the money and the lifting power to get a Chinese supply plane out of Hangzhou to land in Addis Ababa, or wherever it needs to go,” explains Ma’s biographer, Duncan Clark. “This is logistics; this is what his company, his people and his province are all about.”
A friendly face
Jack Ma is famous for being the charismatic English teacher who went on to create China’s biggest technology company. Alibaba is now known as the “Amazon of the East”. Ma started the company inside his tiny apartment in the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, in the centre of China’s factory belt, back in 1999. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the dominant players in the world’s second largest economy, with key stakes in China’s online, banking and entertainment worlds. Ma himself is worth more than $40bn.
Officially, he stepped down as Alibaba’s chairman in 2018. He said he was going to focus on philanthropy. But Ma retained a permanent seat on Alibaba’s board. Coupled with his wealth and fame, he remains one of the most powerful men in China.
Media caption The BBC’s Secunder Kermani and Anne Soy compare how prepared Asian and African countries are
It appears that Ma’s donations are following Party guidelines: there is no evidence that any of the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation donations have gone to countries that have formal ties with Taiwan, China’s neighbour and diplomatic rival. Ma announced on Twitter that he was donating to 22 countries in Latin America. States that side with Taiwan but who have also called for medical supplies – from Honduras to Haiti – are among the few dozen countries that do not appear to be on the list of 150 countries. The foundations repeatedly refused to provide a detailed list of countries that have received donations, explaining that “at this moment in time, we are not sharing this level of detail”.
However, the donations that have been delivered have certainly generated a lot of goodwill. With the exception of problematic deliveries to Cuba and Eritrea, all of the foundations’ shipments dispatched from China appear to have been gratefully received. That success is giving Ma even more positive attention than usual. China’s state media has been mentioning Ma almost as often as the country’s autocratic leader, Xi Jinping.
AFP
So far…
Over 150 countries have received donations from Jack Ma, including about:
120.4mface masks
4,105,000testing kits
3,704ventilators
Source: Alizila
It’s an uncomfortable comparison. As Ma soaks up praise, Xi faces persistent questions about how he handled the early stages of the virus and where, exactly, the outbreak began.
The Chinese government has dispatched medical teams and donations of supplies to a large number of hard-hit countries, particularly in Europe and South-East Asia.
However, those efforts have sometimes fallen flat. China’s been accused of sending faulty supplies to several countries. In some cases, the tests it sent were being misused but in others, low-quality supplies went unused and the donations backfired.
In contrast, Jack Ma’s shipments have only boosted his reputation.
“It’s fair to say that Ma’s donation was universally celebrated across Africa,” says Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project website and podcast. Ma pledged to visit all countries in Africa and has been a frequent visitor since his retirement.
“What happens to the materials once they land in a country is up to the host government, so any complaints about how Nigeria’s materials were distributed are indeed a domestic Nigerian issue,” Olander adds. “But with respect to the donation itself, the Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame, called it a “shot in the arm” and pretty much everyone saw it for what it was which was: delivering badly-needed materials to a region of the world that nobody else is either willing or capable of helping at that scale.”
Walking the tightrope
But is Ma risking a backlash from Beijing? Xi Jinping isn’t known as someone who likes to share the spotlight and his government has certainly targeted famous faces before. In recent years, the country’s top actress, a celebrated news anchor and several other billionaire entrepreneurs have all “disappeared” for long periods. Some, including the news anchor, end up serving prison sentences. Others re-emerge from detention, chastened and pledging their allegiance to the Party.
“There’s a rumour that [Jack Ma] stepped down in 2018 from being the chairman of the Alibaba Group because he was seen as a homegrown entrepreneur whose popularity would eclipse that of the Communist Party,” explains Ashley Feng, research associate at the Centre for New American Security in Washington DC. Indeed, Ma surprised many when he suddenly announced his retirement in 2018. He has denied persistent rumours that Beijing forced him out of his position.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Ma discussed trade with then-President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017
Duncan Clark, Ma’s biographer, is also aware of reports that Ma was nudged away from Alibaba following a key incident in January 2017. The Chinese billionaire met with then-President-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, ostensibly to discuss Sino-US trade. The Chinese president didn’t meet with Trump until months later.
“There was a lot of speculation of time that Jack Ma had moved too fast,” Clark says. “So, I think there’s lessons learned from both sides on the need to try to coordinate.”
“Jack Ma represents a sort of entrepreneurial soft power,” Clark adds. “That also creates challenges though, because the government is quite jealous or nervous of non-Party actors taking that kind of role.”
Technically, Ma isn’t a Communist outsider: China’s wealthiest capitalist has actually been a member of the Communist Party since the 1980s, when he was a university student.
But Ma’s always had a tricky relationship with the Party, famously saying that Alibaba’s attitude towards the Party was to “be in love with it but not to marry it”.
Even if Ma and the foundations connected to him are making decisions without Beijing’s advance blessing, the Chinese government has certainly done what it can to capitalise on Ma’s generosity. Chinese ambassadors are frequently on hand at airport ceremonies to receive the medical supplies shipped over by Ma, from Sierra Leone to Cambodia.
China has also used Ma’s largesse in its critiques of the United States. “The State Department said Taiwan is a true friend as it donated 2 million masks,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeted in early April. “Wonder if @StateDept has any comment on Jack Ma’s donation of 1 million masks and 500k testing kits as well as Chinese companies’ and provinces’ assistance?”
Perhaps Ma can rise above what’s happened to so many others who ran afoul of the Party. China might just need a popular global Chinese figure so much that Ma has done what no one else can: make himself indispensable.
“Here’s the one key takeaway from all that happened with Jack Ma and Africa: he said he would do something and it got done,” explains Eric Olander. “That is an incredibly powerful optic in a place where foreigners often come, make big promises and often fail to deliver. So, the huge Covid-19 donation that he did fit within that pattern. He said he would do it and mere weeks later, those masks were in the hands of healthcare workers.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Ma at an Electronic World Trade Platform event with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year
Duncan Clark argues that Ma already had a seat at China’s high table because of Alibaba’s economic heft. However, his first-name familiarity with world leaders makes him even more valuable to Beijing as China tries to repair its battered image.
“He has demonstrated the ability, with multiple IPOs under his belt, and multiple friendships overseas, to win friends and influence people. He’s the Dale Carnegie of China and that certainly, we’ve seen that that’s irritated some in the Chinese government but now it’s almost an all hands on deck situation,” Clark says.
There’s no doubt that China’s wider reputation is benefiting from the charitable work of Ma and other wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. Andrew Grabois from Candid, the philanthropic watchdog that’s been measuring global donations in relation to Covid-19, says that the private donations coming from China are impossible to ignore.
“They’re taking a leadership role, the kind of thing that used to be done by the United States,” he says. “The most obvious past example is the response to Ebola, the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The US sent in doctors and everything to West Africa to help contain that virus before it left West Africa.”
Chinese donors are taking on that role with this virus.
“They are projecting soft power beyond their borders, going into areas, providing aid, monetary aid and expertise,” Grabois adds.
So, it’s not the right time for Beijing to stand in Jack Ma’s way.
“You know, this is a major crisis for the world right now,” Duncan Clark concludes. “But obviously, it’s also a crisis for China’s relationship with the rest of the world. So they need anybody who can help dampen down some of these those pressures.”
Test in Xiong’an, the new city being built south of Beijing, will focus on everyday goods and services for the first time
American food outlets to be included in the digital currency tests, conducting small transactions with local firms
American chains Starbucks, McDonald’s and Subway were named on the People’s Bank of China’s list of firms that will test the digital currency in small transactions with 19 local businesses. Photo: Bloomberg
China’s central bank has accelerated the testing of its new sovereign digital currency and, for the first time, will include some foreign consumer brands in the programme.
American chains Starbucks, McDonald’s and Subway were named on the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)’s list of firms that will test the digital currency in small transactions with 19 local businesses.
The global names will be joined by local hotels, convenience stores, a stuffed bun shop, a bakery, a bookstore and a gym, according to details revealed at a promotional event in the Xiong’an New Area, a city being built south of Beijing, news portal Sina.com reported.
The inclusion of businesses providing everyday goods and services marks an expansion of the PBOC’s testing. It follows a previous disclosure that last week in Suzhou the digital currency was used to pay half public sector workers’ travel subsidies for May.
Is China a currency manipulator?
Wednesday’s promotional event was organised by the local branch of the National Development and Reform Commission, the powerful planning agency, and attended by representatives of the Big Four state-owned banks and two of the country’s internet giants – Alibaba and Tencent.
China has not released a timetable for launching the digital yuan, but last week’s reports on new testing have fanned speculation that it could be imminent.
The tests were reportedly accelerated after Facebook launched its Libra project in June last year, an attempt to create a global digital currency pegged to a basket of currencies and backed by global commercial giants.
The Libra Association, the consortium managing the project, announced changes last week in an attempt to win regulatory approval and pave the way for an official launch sometime later this year. The consortium said it would create multiple digital units tied to existing currencies such as the US dollar or the euro, rather than a single token based on a basket of currencies.
China’s official digital currency, known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), came into the public spotlight last week when a screenshot of a test version of an app developed by the Agricultural Bank of China circulated online.
The digital currency app has several basic functions, similarly to other Chinese online payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay – the country’s two most popular online payment tools – allowing users to make and receive payments, and transfer money.
“It’s certain that the DCEP is now in its final testing stage and should be officially launched,” BlockVC, an investment firm, said in a research note.
The PBOC’s digital currency research institute confirmed last Friday that testing was being conducted in four cities: Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an and Chengdu. In addition, venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and Zhangjiakou will join the testing programme in the future.
What is the Hong Kong Dollar Peg?
The institute, which was inaugurated in 2017, said that the test versions and applications of the currency had not been finalised.
The project testing is based on two principles: the central bank issues the virtual money to commercial banks who then pass it on to consumers, and that is aimed at replacing cash in all transactions.
China is the first major economy to publicly announce plans for a sovereign digital currency, aiming to better control the rapid rise of digital payments worldwide.
The PBOC has, however, cracked down on the trading of other digital currencies and banned banks from accepting cryptocurrencies, which it views as a risk to financial stability.
Wuhan, where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were detected, is ending a 76-day lockdown
A day before the lockdown was fully lifted, Tencent announces a slew of initiatives focused on helping to revive the digital industry in the city
Passengers leaving Wuhan city are pictured at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan city, central China’s Hubei province, on Wednesday morning, April 08, 2020. Photo: SCMP/Simon Song
A day before China lifted a months-long lockdown of Wuhan city, the initial epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings pledged to invest in digital government, online education and artificial intelligence (AI) in the city, among other fields.
“During the epidemic, Tencent has been supporting Hubei and Wuhan’s fight against the virus through funds and technology,” the company best known for its gaming business said in a statement posted on Tuesday on WeChat. “In the future, we will also fully support Wuhan’s post-pandemic reconstruction and continue to support the development of Wuhan’s digital industry.”
China’s major tech companies have played a big role in the fight against the coronavirus, and are now playing their part in the economic recovery of Wuhan and other areas that have suffered under extended travel restrictions and business closures.
and Pinduoduo each announced their own initiatives to help revive sales of farm goods from Hubei as the province emerges from its months-long lockdown.
Popular mobile payments app Alipay also created a dedicated section for Wuhan merchants to allow users to buy from merchants in the city, and offered loans to small local merchants in need of financial support, according to an Alipay statement. Alipay is operated by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
How tech has helped China in its public health battle with coronavirus
23 Mar 2020
Wuhan, an industrial powerhouse for the steel, semiconductors and automotive sectors, is emerging from an unprecedented lockdown which began on January 23 and prevented people from moving in and out of the city.
Since restrictions began easing gradually in late March, business activity has shown signs of recovery: Tencent’s mobile payment platform WeChat Pay recorded a 162 per cent increase in offline transactions in a 10-day period from March 25, compared to the same period the previous month, according to a separate statement by Tencent on Wednesday.
Searches for “work resumption certificates” – which businesses need to submit to local authorities to prove their staff can safely restart work – also increased 320 per cent on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, in the past month, Baidu said in a report on Wednesday.
Tencent declined to provide specific details regarding the size of its latest investment in Wuhan or a timeline for its implementation, but said in the statement that it will involve closer cooperation with city authorities in the areas of digital government, education, smart mobility, AI and cybersecurity to help the city with its digital industries.
Among these initiatives, it will push ahead with a plan to build a headquarters focusing on digital industries in Wuhan, specifically digitalisation for the government and smart city initiatives.
It will also establish a base in Wuhan for its online education initiatives, set up an AI lab and cybersecurity academy and build a school focusing on smart mobility in collaboration with Chinese carmaker Dongfeng Motor Corporation, the company said in the statement.
Buying and paying for meals and supplies online was already second nature for many Chinese before the Covid-19 lockdown
The supply and delivery networks that were already in place were able to work with the authorities in cities like Wuhan
China’s established home delivery system played an important role in getting food and other necessities to residents during the Wuhan lockdown. Photo: EPA-EFE
When Liu Yilin, a retired middle schoolteacher in Wuhan, first heard rumours of a
and shoppers flooded to the markets and malls to snap up supplies.
But as time went on and with residents banned from leaving their homes, he became increasingly concerned about getting hold of fresh supplies of vegetables, fruit and meat until the nation’s vast network of delivery drivers came to the rescue.
“It was such a relief that several necessity purchasing groups organised by community workers and volunteers suddenly emerged on WeChat [a leading social media app] days after the lockdown,” Liu said. “China’s powerful home delivery service makes life much easier at a time of crisis.”
Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based independent political economist said: “Home delivery played a very important role amid the coronavirus outbreak. To some extent, it prevented people from starving especially in cases when local governments took extreme measures to isolate people.”
According to Liu, people in Wuhan during the lockdown had to stay within their residential communities, with community workers guarding the exits.
Human contact was limited to the internet. Residents placed orders online with farmers, small merchants or supermarkets to buy daily necessities, and community workers helped distribute the goods from deliverymen.
Every morning, Liu passed a piece of paper with his name, phone number and order number to a community worker who would collect the items from a courier at the gate of the residential area.
Thanks to a high population density in urban areas, affluent labour force and people’s openness to digital life, China has built a well-developed home delivery network.
Extensive funding from technology companies has been invested in hardware infrastructure, software to improve logistics and big data and cloud computing to help predict consumers’ behaviour.
Mark Greeven, professor of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said: “Whether it is delivery of products, air parcels or fresh food or even medicine or materials for medical use, China has a very well developed system. Much better developed than I think almost any other places in the world.
“Well before the crisis, China had started to embrace digital technology in daily life whether it is in consumption, business, government and smart cities and use of third party payments. All of these things have been in place for a long time and the crisis tested its agility and capability to deal with peak demand.”
China’s e-commerce giants help revive sales of farm goods from Hubei
3 Apr 2020
According to e-commerce giant JD.com, demands for e-commerce and delivery services spiked during the outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
It sold around 220 million items between January 20 and February 28, mainly grains and dairy products with the value of beef orders trebling and chicken deliveries quadrupling compared with a year ago.
Tang Yishen, head of JD Fresh, its fresh foods subsidiary, said: “The surge of online demand for fresh merchandise shows the pandemic helped e-commerce providers further penetrate into the life of customers. It also helped upstream farm producers to know and trust us.”
Meituan Dianping, a leading e-commerce platform, said its grocery retail service Meituan Instashopping reported a 400 per cent growth in sales from a year ago in February from local supermarkets.
The most popular items ordered between January 26 and February 8 were face masks, disinfectant, tangerines, packed fresh-cut fruits and potatoes.
The food delivery service Ele.me said that, between January 21 and February 8, deliveries of frozen food surged more than 600 per cent year on year, followed by a nearly 500 per cent growth in delivery of pet-care products. Fresh food deliveries rose by 181 per cent while drink and snack deliveries climbed by 101 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively. Ele.me is owned by Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Chinese hotpot restaurant chain adapts as coronavirus fears push communal meals off the menu
E-commerce providers used the opportunity to show goodwill and improve their relationship with customers and partners, analysts say.
Sofya Bakhta, marketing strategy analyst at the Shanghai-based Daxue Consulting, said the food delivery sector had made significant headway in reducing physical contact during the outbreak.
Delivery staff left orders in front of buildings, in lifts or temporary shelters as instructed by the clients as most properties no longer allowed them inside.
Some companies also adopted more hi-tech strategies.
In Beijing, Meituan used self-driving vehicles to deliver meals to contactless pickup stations. It also offered cardboard boxes to be used as shields aimed at preventing the spread of droplets among its clients while they ate in their workplaces. In Shanghai, Ele.me employed delivery drones to serve people under quarantine in the most affected regions.
Some companies even “shared” employees to meet the growing labour demand in the food delivery industry that could not be satisfied with their ordinary workforce, Bakhta said.
More employees from restaurants, general retail and other service businesses were “loaned” to food delivery companies, which faced manpower shortages during the outbreak, according to Sandy Shen, senior research director at global consultancy Gartner.
“These arrangements not only ensured the continuity of the delivery service but also helped businesses to retain employees during the shutdown,” she said.
A delivery man takes a break between orders in Wuhan, central China, during the lockdown. Photo: AFP
Mo Xinsheng became one such “on-loan” worker after customers stopped coming to the Beijing restaurant where he worked as a kitchen assistant.
“I wanted to earn some money and meanwhile help people who are trapped at home,” said Mo, who was hired as a delivery man.
But before he could start work he had to go through lengthy health checks before he was allowed into residential compounds.
He also had to work long hours battling the wind and cold of a Beijing winter and carrying heavy loads.
“I work about 10 hours every day just to earn several thousand yuan [several hundred US dollars] a month,” he said.
“Sometimes I almost couldn’t breathe while my hands were fully loaded with packages of rice, oil and other things.
“But I know I’m doing an important job, especially at a time of crisis,” Mo said, “It was not until then that I realised people have become so reliant on the home delivery system.”
Woman uses remote control car to buy steamed buns amid coronavirus outbreak in China
The delivery system has been improved by an effective combination of private sector innovation and public sector coordination, said Li Chen, assistant professor at the Centre for China Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“[In China,] government units and the Communist Party grass roots organisations have maintained fairly strong mobilisation capabilities to cope with emergencies, which has worked well in the crisis,” he said.
However, Liu, the Wuhan resident, said prices had gone up and vegetables were three times more expensive than they had been over Lunar New Year in 2019.
“There were few varieties that we could choose from, apart from potatoes, cabbage and carrots,” he said.
“But I’m not complaining. It’s good we can still get fresh vegetables at a difficult time. Isn’t it? After all, we are just ordinary people,” he said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The Netherlands has been among the countries reporting faulty Chinese-made equipment
A number of European governments have rejected Chinese-made equipment designed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
Thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective, according to authorities in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.
Europe has reported hundreds of thousands of cases of coronavirus.
More than 10,000 people have died in Italy since the outbreak began.
The virus was first detected in China at the end of 2019. The government implemented strict lockdown measures to bring it under control.
What’s wrong with the equipment?
On Saturday, the Dutch health ministry announced it had recalled 600,000 face masks. The equipment had arrived from a Chinese manufacturer on 21 March, and had already been distributed to front-line medical teams.
Dutch officials said that the masks did not fit and that their filters did not work as intended, even though they had a quality certificate,
“The rest of the shipment was immediately put on hold and has not been distributed,” a statement read. “Now it has been decided not to use any of this shipment.”
Spain’s government encountered similar problems with testing kits ordered from a Chinese company.
It announced it had bought hundreds of thousands of tests to combat the virus, but revealed in the following days that nearly 60,000 could not accurately determine if a patient had the virus.
The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the company behind the kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products.
It clarified that separate material donated by the Chinese government and technology and retail group Alibaba did not include products from Shenzhen Bioeasy.
Turkey also announced that it had found some testing kits ordered from Chinese companies were not sufficiently accurate, although it said that some 350,000 of the tests worked well.
Allegations of defective equipment come after critics warned China could be using the coronavirus outbreak to further its influence.
“China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner,” he wrote. “Armed with facts, we need to defend Europe against its detractors.”
What’s the situation in Europe?
On Monday, Spain reported 812 new deaths in the space of 24 hours – bringing its total death toll to 7,340. It now has more than 85,000 infections – surpassing the number of cases reported in China.
Media caption Spanish doctor “scared and exhausted” by pandemic
New measures have also come into force in Spain banning all non-essential workers from going to their jobs. The restrictions will be in place for at least two weeks.
Italy remains the worst affected country worldwide. More than 10,000 people have died from the virus there, and it has recorded nearly 100,000 infections. Only the US has more confirmed cases, although the death toll there is far lower.
For many small factories and service businesses, the process of returning to normal operations after disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic has been harder
Chinese authorities have been pushing for SMEs to make use of technologies such as remote working and smart manufacturing platforms to resume operations quickly
Workers pack instant river snail rice noodles at a factory in Liuzhou, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Jan. 2, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
(SMEs) in China have been resuming work at a faster rate since March with the help of government measures to promote their adoption of technology, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT) said in a news conference on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday, 71.7 per cent of SMEs using cloud-based platforms had resumed production, up from 29.6 per cent a month earlier, said Qin Zhihui, deputy director of MIIT’s SME bureau.
Industrial internet platforms, which help to “coordinate production and prevent risks, ensure the integrity and safety of supply chains and give support to key areas which may experience potential work disruptions”, have helped some businesses resume operations, MIIT spokesman Xie Shaofeng said at the same news conference.
“Others used cloud-based computing to help enterprises move their business operations online, promoting remote working, teleconferencing, online training, co-researching and e-commerce,” he added.
For many small factories and service businesses, which account for most employment in China, the process of returning to normal operations has been more difficult than for larger firms. The smaller firms, for example, are often unable to meet virus prevention conditions set by local governments, including having enough facial masks for employees.
Workers at 60 per cent of Chinese firms still telecommuting under lockdown
27 Feb 2020
In a notice last week, MIIT encouraged SMEs to make use of digital tools such as
and smart manufacturing platforms to resume operations as soon as possible, and urged cloud services providers to open up services for SMEs in both services and manufacturing sectors.
The ministry also said in the notice that it had rolled out more than 370 online training courses for SMEs to stay informed about government policies and access opportunities to learn managerial and technological skills. It said the courses had been viewed more than 8 million times.
China’s cloud infrastructure, which enables remote working and online learning among other applications, has grown rapidly over the past few years. The market grew 66.9 per cent to US$3.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a Canalys report last week, with Alibaba Group Holding’s Alibaba Cloud accounting for 46.6 per cent of the market, followed by Tencent Cloud with 18 per cent and Baidu’s AI Cloud with 8.8 per cent.
Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
‘What we are seeing here is reciprocity,’ the German leader says, referencing the EU’s aiding stricken China earlier this year
But critics dismissed China’s show of largesse as propaganda designed to deflect US claims that the contagion originated in China
The colours of the Italian flag are projected onto the Palazzo Senatorio building on Capitoline Hill in Rome on Tuesday as a “sign of hope in this difficult and delicate moment”, Rome’s mayor stated. Photo: AFP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has downplayed concerns over China’s provision of medical supplies to European countries hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic, calling the move a gesture of reciprocity.
The European Union continued to face criticism over its slow reaction to calls for medical supplies from Italy and Spain, amid the encouraging news that new cases in Italy were seeing their slowest rate of increase since the contagion came to light in late February.
“The European Union sent medical equipment to China [when] China asked for help at that time,” Merkel said at a Tuesday press conference, referring to the outbreak’s start earlier this year. “What we are seeing here is reciprocity.”
“As we are having a crisis at this time, we cannot expect everything to be provided in the framework of the EU. We are very pleased about [China’s provision],” Merkel said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has guaranteed that China will provide Italy and Spain – the two most severely hit European countries – with medical equipment such as face masks, ventilators and protective equipment for medical professionals.
Critics, however, called China’s action part of a propaganda campaign designed to deflect US claims that the coronavirus originated in China.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reached out to Xi for help obtaining medical supplies in a phone call on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters, Sanchez confirmed that the matter had come up during the call, just days after the Spanish government had ordered an unprecedented national lockdown to halt the virus’ spread.
Chinese state media reported that Xi had told Sanchez that “China is willing to respond to the urgent needs of Spain and spare no effort to provide support and assistance, and share experience in prevention, control and treatment.”
Workers loading boxes of surgical masks donated by China’s BYD, bound for the United States. Photo: Jack Ma Foundation
On Tuesday, a plane from Shanghai landed in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza, carrying 500,000 masks donated by e-commerce giant Alibaba, AFP reported. (Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.)
According to a statement, the delivery was part of a donation of 2 million masks and coronavirus test kits to certain countries from Alibaba’s Chinese billionaire founder Jack Ma.
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Xi’s call with Sanchez came a day after one with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, in which the Chinese leader similarly pledged to provide Italy with medical support, including teams with expertise in treating Covid-19.
On Tuesday, Italy reported 345 new coronavirus deaths in 24 hours, taking its overall death toll to 2,503.
Spain registered 183 deaths, 53 per cent more than in the previous 24 hours, driving the total number of deaths to 524. More than 2,000 newly infected cases were reported, pushing the total to 11,681.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, France entered a national shutdown, while Belgium, where the EU is headquartered, announced a similar halt to public activities starting on Wednesday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said all 27 member states have agreed to ban non-EU citizens from visiting the region for the next 30 days. The method of enforcement will be determined by the individual countries, she said.
SAO PAULO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) — Though separated by oceans and continents, China and Brazil have fostered deepening bilateral cooperation over the years, especially in investment, trade and finance.
With the upcoming 11th BRICS summit in Brazil’s capital Brasilia, expectations are high for the development of closer ties between the two countries.
STRENGTHENING INVESTMENT
China and Brazil have bolstered investment ties in recent years, and the Asian country has become Brazil’s largest source of foreign investment.
The two countries are not only deepening cooperation in the traditional areas of agriculture, electricity, mining and infrastructure, but also fostering growth in new areas such as technology innovation and the digital economy.
Last month, Brazilian telecommunications giant Oi put Chinese company Huawei’s 5G technology to the test during a local music festival — the largest trial of the 5G technology in Brazil.
Chinese Internet giant Alibaba’s website AliExpress has become one of Brazil’s most popular cross-border e-commerce platforms. Chinese Internet company Tencent and mobile ride-hailing platform DiDi have also invested in Brazilian companies.
Finally, the participation of Latin American countries — including Brazil — in jointly building the Belt and Road will provide a great opportunity for these countries to enhance investment cooperation with China, said Oliver Stuenkel, an expert of international relations at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation.
INCREASING TRADE
Although the global economy is facing downward pressure, bilateral trade between China and Brazil has continuously climbed, as both countries are committed to opening up their markets.
China has been Brazil’s largest trading partner and largest export market for a decade. In 2018, bilateral trade hit a record 100 billion U.S. dollars, official data showed.
Cheese bread, Brazil’s favorite breakfast and snack food, is now available at cafeterias in China, thanks to the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai last year.
In May, Brazil’s leading cheese bread maker Forno de Minas shipped its first container of 10 tons of cheese bread to China, supplying cafeterias in Shanghai. Two months later, the bakery shipped a second batch of 18 tons to China.
Brazil is also dedicated to opening up by optimizing its business environment. Li Tie, general manager of the Brazilian branch of BYD, a leading Chinese manufacturer of electric vehicles and batteries, said that the Brazilian government has actively promoted pension and labor law reforms and is planning to carry out tax reforms.
China and Brazil should further enhance their economic and trade relations, which have been fruitful and mutually beneficial, said Sergio Segovia, president of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency.
FINANCIAL COOPERATION
The two countries have enhanced cooperation in the financial sector.
In September, the Brazil government relaxed restrictions on the establishment of financial institutions. Bank XCMG, affiliated to China’s Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group, has become the first foreign bank that was approved by Brazil’s central bank after the release of the new regulation, and the bank’s foreign shareholding ratio is as high as 100 percent.
Wang Yansong, XCMG’s vice president, said that Bank XCMG will carry out financial leasing and other services in Brazil and help companies reduce exchange rate risks and financing costs.
As cross-border trade grows, fin-tech companies from both countries have carried out in-depth cooperation, such as that between Brazilian financial payment company Ebanx and AliExpress, in providing consumers with cross-border payment solutions.
In 2018, Ebanx handled 35 million cross-border transactions related to Chinese merchants, said its co-founder and CFO Wagner Ruiz. He expressed the hope that the company can help Chinese merchants sell more in Latin America in the future.
The BRICS leaders’ meeting is an excellent opportunity for Brazil to deepen business, investment and financial cooperation with China and other BRICS countries, said Marcos Trojan, special secretary for foreign trade and international affairs of Brazil’s Ministry of Economy.
Shanghai AI conference has attracted executives from nearly 300 companies including US firms Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm
Ma is mainly an AI optimist, whereas Musk has sounded several warnings on the topic
Elon Musk and Jack Ma face off over AI at the 2019 Shanghai WAIC. Photo: SCMP
Billionaire techpreneurs Jack Ma and Elon Musk faced off over AI in a much-anticipated morning session at the Shanghai World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Thursday, and although sparks didn’t actually fly it was clear to the packed audience that they each have a different vision of the future.
“AI will open a new chapter so that humans will know themselves better,” said Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding founder. “Most of the projections about AI are wrong … people who are street-smart about AI are not scared by it.”
The conference has attracted executives from nearly 300 companies including US firms Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm as well as scientists and scholars from across the world. Both men had to condense their visions of the future into a compact 45-minute session, which also included answering a series of pre-prepared questions from Chinese netizens.
“Due to AI, people will have more time to enjoy themselves as a human being … forget long days, we could end up with 12-hour work weeks,” said Ma. “I don’t worry too much about the impact of AI on jobs … in the future we will not need a lot of jobs.”
Musk, who has founded a string of tech ventures including SpaceX, Boring Company and Neuralink aside from his role as co-founder and CEO of Tesla, said he had heard that “AI sounds like love in Chinese” but in a more cautious tone described AI as “much more than just a smart human”.
“Humans may become too slow. A millisecond is an eternity to a computer today,” said Musk, who has championed everything from electric cars to Mars colonies. “Computers are already smarter than human beings in many aspects,” he said, adding that while humans write AI software today, in the end the machine will do this itself.
Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma speaks at the 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos. Photo: Xinhua
The comments from the two executives, who are both engaged in industries [e-commerce and autonomous driving] where AI is essential – were largely in line with what they have said before on the topic. Ma is mainly an optimist, seeing AI as an inevitable agent of change in a digital world, whereas Musk has sounded several warnings.
In 2017, Musk – along with 100 robotics and AI leaders – urged the United Nations to take action against the dangers of autonomous weapons, known as “killer robots”. He has also described AI as humanity’s “biggest existential threat”, comparing it to “summoning the demon”.
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Earlier in the week, Ma said that amid an escalating trade and technology war between the US and China, both countries needed to make a concerted effort to work together on technology for the world to benefit from the digital era.
“In the smart era, it is almost impossible for anyone to strike out on their own,” Ma said in a speech at the Smart China Expo in Chongqing on Monday. “Only if China and the US work together on technology, can we enter the digital era together.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, 2019. Photo: AP
Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He, Beijing’s top trade negotiator said on Monday at a conference that an escalation of the trade war was not in anyone’s interests. US tariffs on some US$300 billion worth of Chinese imports – mostly consumer goods – are expected to increase from 10 to 15 per cent later this year, in retaliation to China’s decision last week to impose tariffs of between 5 to 10 per cent on US$75 billion worth of American products including soybeans, pork and crude oil.
Automobiles is one of the most high-profile sectors to be affected by the trade war, and US President Donald Trump has highlighted the tariff gap between the US and China on imported cars in earlier comments.
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Founded in 2003, Tesla is currently building its first overseas factory in Shanghai, which is nearing completion and expected to start production by the year end with an initial annual output of 250,000 vehicles.
China is Tesla’s second largest market after the US. The California-based electric car-maker reported an over 40 per cent year-on-year surge in sales generated in the country to nearly US$1.5 billion in the first six months of the year.
Musk is expected to visit the US$5 billion production facility in Lingang, part of Shanghai’s free-trade zone, amid his China trip and launch a China unit for his infrastructure start-up Boring, as announced earlier on Twitter.
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