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.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
US President Donald Trump has described the coronavirus pandemic as the “worst attack” ever on the United States, pointing the finger at China.
Mr Trump said the outbreak had hit the US harder than the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War Two, or the 9/11 attacks two decades ago.
His administration is weighing punitive actions against China over its early handling of the global emergency.
Beijing says the US wants to distract from its own response to the pandemic.
Since emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, the coronavirus is confirmed to have infected 1.2 million Americans, killing more than 73,000.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump said: “We went through the worst attack we’ve ever had on our country, this is worst attack we’ve ever had.
“This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this.
“And it should have never happened. Could’ve been stopped at the source. Could’ve been stopped in China. It should’ve been stopped right at the source. And it wasn’t.”
Media caption Life for asylum seekers in lockdown on the US-Mexico border
Asked later by a reporter if he saw the pandemic as an actual act of war, Mr Trump indicated the outbreak was America’s foe, rather than China.
“I view the invisible enemy [coronavirus] as a war,” he said. “I don’t like how it got here, because it could have been stopped, but no, I view the invisible enemy like a war.”
Media caption US shopping centres re-open: ‘This is the best day ever’
Who else in Trump’s team is criticising China?
The deepening rift between Washington and Beijing was further underscored on Wednesday as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed his rhetoric against China, accusing it of covering up the outbreak.
He stuck by his so far unsubstantiated charge that there is “enormous evidence” the coronavirus hatched in a Chinese laboratory, even while acknowledging there is still uncertainty about its origins.
“Those statements are both true,” America’s top diplomat told the BBC. “We don’t have certainty and there is significant evidence that it came from a lab.”
One of the most trusted US public health experts has said the best evidence indicates the virus was not made in a lab.
Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of Mr Trump’s coronavirus task force, said on Monday the illness appeared to have “evolved in nature and then jumped species”.
Why is the US blaming China?
President Trump faces a tough re-election campaign in November, but the once humming US economy – which had been his main selling point – is currently in a coronavirus-induced coma.
As Mr Trump found his management of the crisis under scrutiny, he began labelling the outbreak “the China virus”, but dropped that term last month days before speaking by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Both Mr Trump and his likely Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, appear to be fastening on to China’s unpopularity as an election issue, with each accusing the other of being a patsy for America’s primary economic competitor.
As the coronavirus began spreading in the US back in January, Mr Trump signed phase one of a trade deal with China that called a truce in their tariff war. The US president’s hopes of sealing a more comprehensive phase two deal are now in limbo because of the pandemic.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he believes China’s handling of the coronavirus is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November.
In an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office, Trump talked tough on China and said he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said.
Trump has been heaping blame on China for a global pandemic that has killed at least 60,000 people in the United States according to a Reuters tally, and thrown the U.S. economy into a deep recession, putting in jeopardy his hopes for another four-year term.
The Republican president, often accused of not acting early enough to prepare the United States for the spread of the virus, said he believed China should have been more active in letting the world know about the coronavirus much sooner.
Asked whether he was considering the use of tariffs or even debt write-offs for China, Trump would not offer specifics. “There are many things I can do,” he said. “We’re looking for what happened.”
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China says it has no interest in meddling in U.S. election
“China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” said Trump. He said he believes Beijing wants his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure Trump has placed on China over trade and other issues.
“They’re constantly using public relations to try to make it like they’re innocent parties,” he said of Chinese officials.
He said the trade deal that he concluded with Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at reducing chronic U.S. trade deficits with China had been “upset very badly” by the economic fallout from the virus.
A senior Trump administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that an informal “truce” in the war of words that Trump and Xi essentially agreed to in a phone call in late March now appeared to be over.
The two leaders had promised that their governments would do everything possible to cooperate to contain the coronavirus. In recent days, Washington and Beijing have traded increasingly bitter recriminations over the origin of the virus and the response to it.
However, Trump and his top aides, while stepping up their anti-China rhetoric, have stopped short of directly criticizing Xi, who the U.S. president has repeatedly called his “friend.”
Trump also said South Korea has agreed to pay the United States more money for a defense cooperation agreement but would not be drawn out on how much.
“We can make a deal. They want to make a deal,” Trump said. “They’ve agreed to pay a lot of money. They’re paying a lot more money than they did when I got here” in January 2017.
The United States stations roughly 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice, rather than a peace treaty.
Trump is leading a triage effort to try to keep the U.S. economy afloat through stimulus payments to individuals and companies while nudging state governors to carefully reopen their states as new infections decline.
Trump sounded wistful about the strong economy that he had enjoyed compared with now, when millions of people have lost their jobs and GDP is faltering.
“We were rocking before this happened. We had the greatest economy in history,” he said.
He said he is happy with the way many governors are operating under the strain of the virus but said some need to improve. He would not name names.
Trump’s handling of the virus has come under scrutiny. Forty-three percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll from April 27-28.
But there was some good coronavirus news, as Gilead Sciences Inc said its experimental antiviral drug remdesivir was showing progress in treating virus victims.
Trump has also seeking an accelerated timetable on development of a vaccine.
“I think things are moving along very nicely,” he said.
At the end of the half-hour interview, Trump offered lighthearted remarks about a newly released Navy video purportedly showing an unidentified flying object.
“I just wonder if it’s real,” he said. “That’s a hell of a video.”
The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed patterns of consumer psychology across the world, experts say
Complexity of the crisis, the number of variables and its magnitude make a consumer recovery unprecedented and difficult to predict
The coronavirus has caused panic buying around the world as consumers frantically stockpile of goods such as toilet paper, hand sanitisers and masks. Illustration: Brian Wang
Before the coronavirus crisis began rippling through the global economy, Susan Wang had big plans for 2020.
Not only was she going to buy a new Apple MacBook and iPad, plus a projector so she could host friends for movies at home, but she was set on making a career move.
“I was planning to change my job, but my headhunter told me that all recruitment has been postponed to the second quarter,” said the 27-year-old who works for a British company in Hong Kong.
“Our headquarters in London has a plan for redundancy, too. It is better to save some money in case I get laid off.”
As Covid-19 spreads across the world, sending stock markets reeling and prompting big companies to slash jobs, Wang has become increasingly frugal like scores of other consumers from China to the United States.
She has stopped eating at restaurants and now tries to keep her weekly food bill under HK$500 (US$64), whereas in the past she wouldn’t think twice about spending HK$100 per meal.
Amid mounting uncertainty, the coronavirus pandemic – which has claimed the lives of more than 41,000 people and infected at least 842,000 worldwide – is fundamentally changing consumer behaviour in Asia, Europe and North America.
Consumer experts said the 2009 global financial crisis, the Great Depression that started in 1929 and the September 11 terrorist attacks give some clues about how and when global consumption might recover. But the complexity of this crisis, the number of variables and its magnitude make this consumer recovery unprecedented and difficult to predict, they added.
Coronavirus: What impact will the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic have on you?
“The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed patterns of consumer behaviour all over the world. People are afraid, and when people are afraid, they go into survival mode,” said Jesse Garcia, a Los Angeles-based consumer psychologist, who is also the CEO of market consulting firm My Marketing Auditors.
plummeted a record 44 per cent in February and those figures are only expected to get worse, with sales forecast to slump between 30 and 40 per cent in the first half of the year, according to the Hong Kong Retail Management Association.
In the US, retail sales dropped by 0.5 per cent in February, even before many states had issued stay-at-home orders to protect the world’s largest economy. The decline was the biggest fall since December 2018.
Experts say non-essential products and services are set to be worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic, while goods and services that can be consumed at home will see a spike in sales.
The coronavirus pandemic has completely changed patterns of consumer behaviour all over the world. People are afraid, and when people are afraid, they go into survival mode – Jesse Garcia
“Online consumer behaviour is frenetic,” said Ross Steinman, a professor of psychology at Widener University in the US state of Pennsylvania. “Consumers are refreshing and refreshing and refreshing websites to secure grocery delivery times, purchase paper towels from their usual big box retailer and scavenge for rice and canned soup from third party sellers on Amazon.
“A pronounced spike in coronavirus cases will only amplify the freneticism.”
So far, one of the biggest shortages for consumers is toilet paper. Television stations across the globe have beamed images of empty supermarket shelves and huge queues as people hoard toilet paper rolls, masks and hand sanitiser.
The frantic stockpiling can be explained by a psychological concept called informational conformity, said Vicki Yeung, associate professor at the Department of Applied Psychology at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
A pronounced spike in coronavirus cases will only amplify the freneticism – Ross Steinman
“When people lack knowledge and are in an uncertain situation, they tend to follow the group’s behaviour and blindly conform, but once they obtain more information, and digest and process the situation, the panic gradually fades away,” she said.
“During this Covid-19 pandemic, people generally feel jittery and anxious because they feel their sense of control has disappeared.”
Unlike other recent global crises such as the September 11 attacks, the coronavirus is less a one-time sharp shock to the system and more of a rolling source of anxiety that could retreat and resurface repeatedly, consumer behaviour experts said.
This was the pattern with the Black Death plague that hit Europe in 1347 and returned episodically over many years, ultimately killing millions of people.
During this Covid-19 pandemic, people generally feel jittery and anxious because they feel their sense of control has disappeared – Vicki Yeung
“It may be we’ll have to shut down things again in October or August. And this could go on for years,” said Charley Ballard, an economist with Michigan State University in the US. “The more that happens, the more damage it does to buoyant consumer psychology.”
Furthermore, relative to the 2009 financial crisis and even the Great Depression, when much of the damage was concentrated at least initially in the financial sector, this crisis has seen virtually the entire economy grind to a halt all at the same time, devastating employment and consumption.
Last week, a record 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits within one week, as restaurants, hotels, barber shops, gyms and retail outlets shut down in a nationwide bid to stem the pandemic. The previous record of 695,000 was set in 1982.
On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs predicted the US jobless rate will hit 15 per cent in the second quarter of this year from the coronavirus economic freeze, and could rise further beyond that to near the historic peak of 24.9 per cent seen in 1933 during the Great Depression. Economists at the St. Louis district of the US Federal Reserve projected unemployment could cost as many as 47 million jobs in the US this year, sending the unemployment rate past 32 per cent before making a sharp recovery.
US now has world’s most coronavirus cases, surpassing China
China’s unemployment rate jumped to 6.2 per cent for January and February from 5.2 per cent in December and 5.3 per cent a year earlier. It was the highest level since records began in 2016, but did not include China’s estimated 291 million migrant workers.
Consumer spending accounts for more than 60 per cent of the Chinese economy and drives 70 per cent of the US economy. But with the pandemic causing many people to go into hibernation and likely to lead to cycles of job cuts, economists have predicted a consumer-led global recession by the second quarter of this year.
Just how long it will take for consumer behaviour to return to normal depends on each person’s psychological resilience, including how quickly they can adapt to change, how optimistic they are and whether they can adopt strategies to regain a sense of control, Yeung said.
Anirban Mukhopadhyay, chair professor of marketing at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said as long as the coronavirus threat was still present, people would remain fearful to some extent. But he added that people were resilient.
Satellite images show world sites deserted amid coronavirus pandemic
“Human beings adapt to events and stimuli over time,” Mukhopadhyay said. “Research has shown that even people who win lotteries tend to return to their earlier levels of life satisfaction after some months, as do people who have to have amputations.
“So even if the source of the fear does not go away, we learn to live with it.”
Ballard, from Michigan State University, estimated it could take upwards of two years for American consumers to feel secure enough in their jobs and gain enough confidence to fully open their wallets. A longer and more episodic duration for the disease could push that higher, he added.
Further complicating the consumer picture, he said, is that many supply chains are at risk of breaking. And consumers will be wary of spending for a while in many traditional areas, including crowded sporting events and concerts, restaurants and flights.
A new phase of coronavirus blame game: what is the legacy of Covid-19 on global supply chains?
Some experts have even suggested that consumer behaviour may be permanently changed as a result of the pandemic.
“It seems very unlikely that people will get back to life as it was before, once the coronavirus is over,” said Andreas Kappes, a lecturer in psychology at City University of London.
“People’s behaviour is extremely orthodox, often referred to as the status quo bias and captured in expressions like ‘past behaviour best predicts future behaviour.’ Now, the crisis forces us to change our behaviour, radically, and we might discover that new way suits us better.”
Image copyright EPAImage caption Wuhan has been sealed off since mid-January
The lockdown in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the global coronavirus outbreak began, will be partially lifted on 8 April, officials say.
Travel restrictions in the rest of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, will be lifted from midnight on Tuesday – for residents who are healthy.
A single new case of the virus was reported in Wuhan on Tuesday following almost a week of no reported new cases.
Countries around the world have gone into lockdown or imposed severe curbs.
The UK is getting to grips with sweeping new measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus, including a ban on public gatherings of more than two people and the immediate closure of shops selling non-essential goods.
Image copyright AFPImage caption The WHO has urged the G20 group of nations to boost production of protective equipment
Meanwhile, health experts say Americans must limit their social interactions or the number of infections will overwhelm the health care system in the US.
Spanish soldiers helping to fight the coronavirus pandemic have found elderly patients in retirement homes abandoned and, in some cases, dead in their beds, the defence ministry has said.
An ice rink in Madrid is to be used as a temporary mortuary for Covid-19 victims.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the pandemic is accelerating, with more than 300,000 cases now confirmed. It is urging countries to adopt rigorous testing and contact-tracing strategies.
Wuhan has been shut off from the rest of the world since the middle of January. But officials now say anyone who has a “green” code on a widely used smartphone health app will be allowed to leave the city from 8 April.
Earlier, the authorities reported a new case of coronavirus in Wuhan, ending a five-day run of no reported new cases in the city.
Media caption Coronavirus: People in Beijing begin to head outdoors
It comes after health officials there confirmed that they were not counting cases of people who were positive but had not been admitted to hospital or did not show any symptoms of the disease.
Official government figures say there have been 78 new cases reported on the Chinese mainland in the last 24 hours. All but four of them were caused by infected travellers arriving from abroad.
This so-called “second wave” of imported infections is also affecting countries like South Korea and Singapore, which had been successful in stopping the spread of disease in recent weeks.
South Korea has been seeing a drop in its daily tally of new cases. On Tuesday it reported its lowest number since 29 February.
China looks to repair its reputation
By Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai
China considers itself to be – very nearly – a “post corona” country.
In the last week we’ve heard Wuhan medics warning the UK and others that they need to do more to protect frontline health workers, citing the mistakes they made early on when some treated patients without wearing proper protective clothing.
But there’s also been reporting in state media of the reported death toll in Italy surpassing that in China. This has been combined with some commentary from prominent media figures that has appeared distasteful, almost triumphalist.
At the same time there is a panic about the threat of a second wave from imported cases – travellers arriving from abroad. This has fuelled the view – right or wrong – that some other countries aren’t taking the threat seriously because they aren’t doing what China did. (Almost all the cases in Beijing that have been made public are of Chinese nationals returning home).
Meanwhile, well away from senior leaders, there are some high-profile diplomatic figures using international-facing social media to spread theories that the US may have weaponised and dumped the virus in China. Or that Italy had cases that may have been Covid-19 earlier than China. China is sowing seeds of doubt and questioning assumed truths as it looks to repair its reputation.
Almost all of India with its 1.3bn people is under lockdown. Buses, trains and other forms of public transport are suspended. On Monday, the authorities said domestic flights would also stopped. The country has reported 485 cases and nine people have died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation again this evening.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Mumbai’s suburban train network carries eight million passengers a day
Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions.
Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South-East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday.
In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive.
Talks between the Japanese PM and the International Olympic Committee are expected this evening.
The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases.
Europe’s battle against virus intensifies
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday night that, with immediate effect, “people will only be allowed to leave their home…for very limited purposes”. They include shopping for basic necessities, taking one form of exercise per day, fulfilling any medical need, or travelling to work if working from home is impossible.
Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online
The number of people who have died in the UK rose to 335 on Monday.
In Italy, the worst-hit country in the world, the authorities said 602 people with Covid-19 had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll there to 6,077.
But the daily increase in cases was the smallest since Thursday, raising hope that the stringent restrictions imposed by the government were starting to have an effect.
Spain, however, said on Tuesday that its death toll had risen by 514 to 2,696. Nearly 40,000 are infected, about 5,400 of them healthcare workers.
SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – With more employees working from home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, demand is surging for laptops and network peripherals as well as components along the supply chain such as chips, as companies rush to build virtual offices.
Many firms have withdrawn earnings forecasts, anticipating a drop in consumer demand and economic slump, but performance at electronics retailers and chipmakers is hinting at benefits from the shift in work culture.
Over the past month, governments and companies globally have been advising people to stay safe indoors. Over roughly the same period, South Korea – home of the world’s biggest memory chip maker, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd – on Monday reported a 20% jump in semiconductor exports.
Pointing to further demand, nearly one in three Americans have been ordered to stay home, while Italy – where deaths have hit 5,476 – has banned internal travel. Worldwide, the flu-like virus has infected over 300,000 people and led to almost 15,000 deaths since China first reported the outbreak in December.
“With more people working and learning from home during the outbreak, there has been rising demand for internet services … meaning data centres need bigger pipes to carry the traffic,” said analyst Park Sung-soon at Cape Investment & Securities.
A South Korean trade ministry official told Reuters that cloud computing has boosted sales of server chips, “while an increase in telecommuting in the United States and China has also been a main driver of huge server demand.”
In Japan, laptop maker Dynabook reported brisk demand which it partly attributed to companies encouraging teleworking. Rival NEC Corp said it has responded to demand with telework-friendly features such as more powerful embedded speakers.
Australian electronics retailer JB Hifi Ltd also said it saw demand “acceleration” in recent weeks from both commercial and retail customers for “essential products they need to respond to and prepare” for the virus, such as devices that support remote working as well as home appliances.
CHINA LEAD
China is leading chip demand, analysts said, as cloud service providers such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd and Baidu Inc quickly responded to the government’s effort to contain the virus.
“Cloud companies opened their platforms, allowing new and existing customers to use more resources for free to help maintain operations,” said analyst Yih Khai Wong at Canalys.
“This set the precedent for technology companies around the world that offer cloud-based services in their response to helping organisations affected by coronavirus.”
China’s cloud infrastructure build-up has helped push up chip prices, with spot prices of DRAM chips rising more than 6% since Feb. 20, showed data from price tracker DRAMeXchange.
UBS last week forecast average contract prices of DRAM chips to rise as much as 10% in the second quarter from the first, led by a more than 20% jump in server chips.
It said it expects DRAM chips to be modestly under supplied until the third quarter of 2021, with demand from server customers rising 31% both in 2020 and 2021.
SUPPLY DISRUPTION
Concerns over supply disruption has also contributed to a price rise.
“You’ve got lots of OEMs and systems integrators in the global market who have intense demand for memory now,” said Andrew Perlmutter, chief strategy officer at ITRenew, a company that buys and reworks used data centre equipment for resale.
“Nobody is shutting down their factories – it is still production as normal – but people worry about memory supply in particular, so they want to get out ahead of production.”
About 69% of electronics manufacturers have flagged possible supplier delays averaging three weeks, showed a poll on March 13 by industry trade group IPC International.
Half of those polled expected business to normalise by July, and nearly three-quarters pointed to at least October.
Experts to visit Beijing, Guangdong and Sichuan but no word on whether Hubei is on the itinerary
Specialists say visit must include a trip to the outbreak’s epicentre to get a full picture
A nurse cares for a 14-month-old baby infected with the novel coronavirus in an ICU isolation ward of Wuhan Children’s Hospital in Wuhan, at the epicentre of the outbreak. Photo: Xinhua
A team of medical experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), including specialists from the US, will visit Beijing and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan from Monday to assess the country’s efforts to contain the spread of a deadly coronavirus, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The death toll from the coronavirus had risen to 1,770 on mainland China as of Sunday, infecting 70,548 people, including more than 1,700 medical workers. Most of those confirmed with the disease, now known as Covid-19, are in Wuhan.
On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the WHO delegation would include Americans, but gave no further details.
The announcement came as a commentary in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily accused Washington of dragging its feet on a funding pledge to help with the epidemic, saying it had a “dark mentality and taken dangerous action” during the outbreak.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that the mission to China included 12 international medical specialists, and they would, with 12 Chinese experts, learn more about the transmission of the virus and the effectiveness of the measures in a bid to work out the next containment steps for China and the world.
An advance team of WHO medical experts arrived in Beijing last Monday, led by Canadian emergency expert Bruce Aylward, Tedros said.
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said all of the delegation’s members arrived in Beijing over the weekend, and held talks with Chinese medical experts, public health officials and other government departments.
They exchanged views on virus containment, wildlife management and vaccine development, the NHC said.
Experts said the international team would be left with an “incomplete picture” of the outbreak if it did not go to Wuhan or Hubei.
“Unfortunately, this feeds into a narrative that China is trying to hide the true nature of the outbreak, so it would seem to be shortsighted and counterproductive to China’s efforts to say to the world that it is doing everything it can to contain this outbreak,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a specialist in global health security and international relations at the University of Sydney.
“We have seen in the past when we have external teams, they are often able to identify areas for improvement or to make recommendations for measures that national authorities may not have thought of – we’ve seen that through other examples where external expertise can be valuable in times of crisis.”
He said any impression of a cover-up would likely further strengthen the resolve of countries that had taken strict measures, including travel bans, to keep them in place or tighten them further.
“China has got a public relations campaign that it also needs to be mindful of in engaging with the international community, so there are the actual measures that the government needs to take in order to control the outbreak, but the government also needs to be seen to be doing everything that it can,” he said.
Media caption Americans are taken from the docked ship to Haneda airport in Tokyo
Two planes carrying hundreds of US citizens from a coronavirus-hit cruise ship have left Japan, officials say.
One plane has landed at a US Air Force air base in California, and its passengers will be isolated at military facilities for 14 days.
There were some 400 Americans on board the Diamond Princess. The ship with some 3,700 passengers and crew has been in quarantine since 3 February.
Meanwhile, China reported a total of 2,048 new cases on Monday.
Of those new cases, 1,933 were from Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
More than 70,500 people across China have been infected by the virus. In Hubei alone, the official number of cases stands at 58,182, with 1,692 deaths. Most new cases and deaths have been reported in Wuhan, Hubei’s largest city.
In other developments:
In Japan, a public gathering to celebrate the birthday of new Emperor Naruhito later this week has been cancelled, due to concerns over the spread of the virus while organisers of the Tokyo marathon due to take place on 1 March are considering whether to cancel the amateur part of the race, reports say
In China, the National People’s Congress standing committee said it would meet next week to discuss a delay of this year’s Congress – the Communist Party’s most important annual gathering – because of the outbreak
At the weekend, an American woman tested positive for the virus in Malaysia after leaving a cruise liner docked off the coast of Cambodia
A Russian court has ordered a woman who escaped from a quarantine facility to go back and stay there until she is confirmed to be disease-free, Fontanka news agency reports. Alla Ilyina has until Wednesday to return
What’s happening on the Diamond Princess?
The cruise ship was put in quarantine in Japan’s port of Yokohama after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.
On Monday, Japanese officials said there were 99 new cases of infections on board the ship, bringing the total to 454 confirmed cases. It is the largest cluster of cases outside China.
A Russian woman who was on board and tested positive is thought to be the first Russian national to contract the virus after the two previous cases found in Russia were Chinese nationals, Reuters news agency reports.
She will be taken to a hospital for treatment, the Russian embassy in Japan said.
At least 40 US citizens who were on board are infected and will be treated in Japan, Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told US broadcaster CBS.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Those bound for the US left from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport
The two aircraft chartered by the US government left Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the early hours of Monday. The second flight was due to land at another base in Texas.
More than 300 passengers are being repatriated voluntarily, the US state department said. Fourteen of them were reported during transit to have tested positive for the virus and were being kept separate from the other passengers, it said.
we would like to just finish the quarantine on the ship as planned, decompress in a non-quarantine environment in Japan for a few days, then fly back to the U.S. pursuant to our own arrangements. What’s wrong with that?
The smartphones were distributed so people could use an app, created by Japan’s health ministry, which links users with doctors, pharmacists and mental health counsellors. Phones registered outside of Japan are unable to access the app.
Other evacuation flights have been arranged to repatriate residents of Israel, Hong Kong and Canada. On Monday, Australia announced that it would evacuate 200 of its citizens too.
What is happening in China?
According to official figures for 16 February, 100 people died from the virus in Hubei, down from 139 on Saturday.
The Chinese authorities are tightening curbs on movement to combat the outbreak. People in Hubei province, which has 60 million people, have been ordered to stay at home, though they will be allowed to leave in an emergency.
In addition, a single person from each household will be allowed to leave the building or compound they live in every three days to buy food and essential items.
On housing estates, one entrance will be kept open. It will be guarded to ensure that only residents can enter or leave.
All businesses will stay closed, except chemists, hotels, food shops and medical services.
“The effects of epidemic prevention and control in various parts of the country can already be seen.”
The proportion of infected patients considered to be in a “serious condition” has dropped nationwide from more than 15% to just over 7%, according to China’s State Council.
Taiwan has reported a death from the illness – a taxi driver, 61, who had not travelled abroad recently but had diabetes and hepatitis B, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said.
The minister said many of his passengers had come from China.
Outside China, there have been more than 500 cases in nearly 30 countries. Four others have died outside mainland China – in France, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan.
Meanwhile, a plane carrying 175 evacuated Nepalis, mostly students, has arrived in Kathmandu from Wuhan.
The US has charged four Chinese military officers over the huge cyber-attack on credit rating giant Equifax.
More than 147 million Americans were affected in 2017 when hackers stole sensitive personal data including names and addresses.
Some UK and Canadian customers were also affected.
China has denied the allegations and insisted it does not engage in cyber-theft.
Announcing the indictments on Monday, Attorney General William Barr called the hack “one of the largest data breaches in history”.
According to court documents, the four – Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei – are allegedly members of the People’s Liberation Army’s 54th Research Institute, a component of the Chinese military.
They spent weeks in the company’s system, breaking into security networks and stealing personal data, the documents said.
The nine-count indictment also accuses the group of stealing trade secrets including data compilation and database designs.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang denied the allegations on Tuesday and said China’s government, military and their personnel “never engage in cyber theft of trade secrets”.
He said China was itself a victim of cyber-crime, surveillance and monitoring by the US, Reuters reported.
The whereabouts of the four suspects is unknown and it is highly unlikely that they will stand trial in the US.
FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said: “We can’t take them into custody, try them in a court of law, and lock them up – not today, anyway.”
What happened in 2017?
Equifax said hackers accessed the information between mid-May and the end of July 2017 when the company discovered the breach.
The accused allegedly routed traffic through 34 servers in nearly 20 countries to try to hide their true location.
Image copyright FBIImage caption The FBI released this wanted picture of the suspects
The credit rating firm holds data on more than 820 million consumers as well as information on 91 million businesses.
Mr Bowdich said there was no evidence so far of the data being used to hijack a person’s bank account or credit card.
Equifax CEO Mark Begor said in a statement that the company was grateful for the investigation.
“It is reassuring that our federal law enforcement agencies treat cybercrime – especially state-sponsored crime – with the seriousness it deserves.”
Critics have accused the company of failing to take proper steps to guard information and for waiting too long to inform the public about the hack.
Richard Smith, CEO of Equifax at the time of the hacking, resigned a month after the breach. He apologised for the firm’s failings, ahead of testifying in Congress.
Equifax was forced to pay a $700m (£541m) settlement to the Federal Trade Commission.
The US regulator alleged the Atlanta-based firm failed to take reasonable steps to secure its network. At least $300m of the settlement went towards paying for identity theft services and other related expenses run up by the victims.
In a statement Mr Barr said: “This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people.
“Today we hold PLA hackers accountable for their criminal actions, and we remind the Chinese government that we have the capability to remove the internet’s cloak of anonymity and find the hackers that nation repeatedly deploys against us.”
This is not the first time the US has charged members of the Chinese military with hacking US companies.
The first indictment came back in 2014 and helped lead to a deal the following year to try to restrain such activity.
But clearly the US feels that it needs to return to the weapon of public indictments to increase pressure again.
The US has become increasingly concerned not just at the alleged theft of economic secrets but also the intelligence risks.
Equifax was one of a series of large data breaches linked to China – others include health care providers and, most significantly, the theft of data from the Office of Personnel Management which carried sensitive records for almost all US federal employees.
One of the concerns for US security officials is how Chinese spies may be able to put together these vast databases about US citizens.
Officials say the information could be used to create “targeting packages”, establishing which individuals have access to sensitive information and potential vulnerabilities which would allow them to be approached. They add, though, that so far they have not seen the Equifax information being used for that purpose.
Image copyrigh tGETTY IMAGESImage caption Chandrayaan-2 is a three-in-one mission comprising an orbiter, a lander and a six-wheeled rover
India’s second Moon mission will see the country’s space agency attempt to land a rover on the lunar surface on 7 September. Science writer Pallava Bagla explains how it will reach the Moon and why it is significant.
Why is this mission unique?
Costing $150 million, Chandrayaan-2 will carry forward the achievements of its predecessor Chandrayaan-1 which was launched in 2008 and discovered the presence of water molecules on the parched lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-2 is a three-in-one mission comprising an orbiter, a lander named Vikram and a six-wheeled rover named Pragyaan.
It was launched on 22 July, a week after its scheduled blast-off, which was halted due to a technical snag.
It entered the Moon’s orbit nearly a month later in a tricky operation, completing a series of manoeuvres before its lander was cut loose on 2 September.
Media caption The successful launch of India’s Moon mission
Now, on 7 September, a little after midnight India local time (1800 GMT), the lander which contains the rover will be sent hurtling down to the lunar surface where it is expected to make a landing near the South Pole of the Moon.
The last 15 minutes of the mission, when the Vikram lander will attempt to autonomously guide itself down to the lunar surface with no support from ground control, has been described as “15 minutes of terror” by the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), Dr K Sivan.
If India does succeed in touching down with the Vikram lander intact, it will become the fourth country to do so after the US, Russia and China.
More importantly for Indians, it will mean the nation’s flag will reach the Moon intact.
How will it land on the Moon?
The Moon may be Earth’s closest neighbour, but landing on it is a very tricky operation.
It has no atmosphere worthy of the name, which means parachutes cannot be used to slow the lander’s descent to the surface. The only option therefore is to go in for what is called a “powered descent”.
This means that the velocity of the lander is steadily reduced with its own rocket engines.
The lander will be moving horizontally across the surface of the Moon as it descends. The rocket engines must bring that horizontal movement to a stop whilst at the same time controlling the rate of descent to near zero just before the moment of touchdown.
This is known as a “soft landing”.
Before the final approach, both the orbiter and lander would have surveyed the Moon to find a “sweet spot” with no craters and boulders where it can land.
If the lander does not function properly it could crash land on the Moon surface, like its predecessor Chandrayaan-1 – though this was an intentional crash landing as in 2008 India had not yet mastered how to perform a soft landing.
Media caption Is India a space superpower?
Either way, once the landing happens and the lunar dust that may have been kicked up settles, the ramp opens up and the rover is very gently wheeled out.
The rover will then “Moon walk” at the princely speed of one centimetre per minute. It can travel a maximum of 500m (1,640ft) from the lander.
Both the lander and rover are powered with solar batteries and carry three instruments apiece.
What will the lander do?
The lander will, among other things, measure Moon quakes in its vicinity and do a thermal profile of the lunar “soil”. Meanwhile, the rover will further analyse the lunar soil.
The rear wheels of the rover are imprinted with the national emblem – the Ashoka Chakra – and the Isro logo, which means a permanent mark of India’s visit will be left on the surface of the Moon.
But the extreme temperatures on the Moon’s surface are a real challenge to the mission.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The rover will “Moon walk” at a speed of one centimetre per minute
When the Sun shines, the lunar temperature can cross 100C and when it sets the temperature can drop to -170C.
As their batteries must be recharged with sunlight, the nominal life of both the rover and lander is expected to be one lunar day, since Isro is not sure if they can survive the ultra-cold temperatures of the long cold lunar night which lasts 14 days.
Both will send back photos of each other so the first Indian “selfies” from the lunar surface are expected soon after they land.
Why is the South Pole of the Moon significant?
The South Pole of the Moon is still a largely unexplored area, and India is targeting a spot that no other landing craft has reached so far. The mission will attempt to soft land its rover and lander in a high plain between two craters – Manzinus C and Simpelius N – at a latitude of about 70° south.
Most earlier missions including the Apollo manned missions targeted the equatorial region of the Moon.
Isro says the lunar South Pole is especially interesting because the surface area that remains in shadow here is much larger than that of the Moon’s North Pole. This means that there is a possibility of water in areas that are permanently shadowed.
In addition, the South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.
This unexplored region is also especially important because in the near future, possibly by 2024, the US space agency Nasa aims to place boots back on the Moon through its Artemis Mission, and wants to target landing near the South Pole.
India’s mission will therefore give the Americans much needed data of this unchartered territory.
Why will the orbiter circle the Moon for a year?
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is expected to circle the Moon for a further year.
During that time, it will map lunar minerals, take high resolution photos and search for water on the lunar surface in the most detailed fashion till date by any lunar craft, using an infra-red imager and radars.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The imprints of India’s national emblem and the Isro logo will be left on the Moon by the rover
The high resolution camera will help make a digital terrain map of the moon
It will also analyse the thin lunar atmosphere.
There is also the possibility that the orbiter may last longer than a year, as Isro says it has made suitable savings in fuel. But once its fuel runs out, the orbiter will become a long-lasting Indian-made lunar satellite.
World’s third largest helicopter assault ship could be launched in a few months, military expert says
One of China’s previous generation amphibious vessels, the Type 071 Kunlun Shan, launched in 2016. Photo: Chow Chung-yan
Pictures taken by military enthusiasts earlier this week appear to show that construction of China’s first Type 075 amphibious helicopter assault ship is moving quickly.
The images, taken outside the dry dock at Shanghai’s Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard, were circulated on Chinese social media and showed scaffolding around two separate superstructures above the flight deck, suggesting the estimated 40,000 tonne ship may have two islands.
In June, commercial satellite images showed the vessel had a 32-metre wide beam, with bow and stern sections yet to be added. In the most recent pictures the bow of the vessel is clearly visible.
The status of the construction suggested the ship would probably be launched in the next few months, according to Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military affairs commentator.
An image of China’s first Type 075 amphibious helicopter assault ship suggests the vessel may be completed in the next few months. Photo: Weibo
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Song said large landing helicopter docks (LHDs) like the Type 075 could play an even more important role than aircraft carriers in the future, following last month’s defence white paper released in Beijing which named protecting China’s overseas interests as one of the key missions of its military forces.
“LHDs are a central part of a blue water navy, because an LHD has a full range of weapons with a lot more marine troops for potential ground operations, whereas an aircraft carrier is just a mobile airbase,” he said. “Each time the Americans deploy their forces overseas, LHDs always serve as the vanguard.”
The PLA Navy has ordered several LHDs in recent years, at the same time as Beijing’s claim to the disputed South China Sea has been challenged and the relationship with Taiwan strained
China claims almost all islands and reefs in the South China Sea, many of which are occupied by rival claimants, and reserves the right to use force to reunify Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province.
Five Type 071 25,000 tonne amphibious landing dock ships have been launched since 2016, of which three have been commissioned and two are on sea trials.
It is believed China’s first batch of Type 075 craft will consist of three ships. The Type 075 will be the world’s third largest amphibious assault ship, behind only the US Wasp-class (41,000 tonnes) and America-class (45,000 tonnes). It is significantly bigger than Japan’s Izumo-class (26,000 tonnes), and France’s Mistral-class (21,000 tonnes).
The Type 075 will be able to carry up to 30 helicopters, as well as a number of amphibious tanks, armoured vehicles, jet boats, and hundreds of marine troops.
Its massive flat deck could also accommodate vertical take-off and landing fighters such as the F-35B. This capability would enable the ship to operate as a light aircraft carrier, in a similar function to the way the US military uses LHDs. However, China currently does not yet have any vertical take-off jets.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 