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.
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.
Cathay Pacific is latest to wield axe, while Taiwan’s new restrictions on visitors from Hong Kong is another blow
More cancellations expected in the coming days as spread of deadly virus continues
The air industry in Hong Kong and beyond has been thrown into disarray by the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Reuters
Hundreds more Hong Kong flights are set to be dropped as the floodgates open on airlines cancelling services during the city’s fight against the coronavirus.
Carriers based in Asia, Australia, South Africa and Middle East revealed on Friday morning and the previous night they would cut all or some of their flights to the city.
Cathay Pacific is the latest to wield the axe, announcing on Friday afternoon new suspensions of major Hong Kong routes to London, New York and across mainland China because of the virus.
Flights running on the busy route between Hong Kong and Taiwan’s capital Taipei are subject to major cuts. Photo: Shutterstock
The contagion, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected more than 31,400 people, mostly in mainland China, killing more than 635. In Hong Kong, 24 people have been infected, one of those fatally, as of Friday afternoon.
Passengers abandoning travel plans en masse have been compounded by the introduction of entry restrictions across the world against recent visitors to mainland China, some targeting those who had been to Hong Kong.
Destinations suspended by Cathay Pacific until March 28 include London Gatwick, Rome, Washington DC, Newark, Male, Davao, Clark, Jeju and Taichung.
All mainland cities with the exception of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xiamen would also be dropped over that period. The company said the decision was made “in view of the novel coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent drop in market demand”.
Hong Kong airport to segregate all flights to and from mainland China
7 Feb 2020
It followed Cathay Pacific Group revealing earlier this week there would be a 30 per cent reduction of flights across its worldwide schedule, as well as a 90% cut of mainland flights.
Budget carrier HK Express, controlled by Cathay, said on Thursday it would scrap 82 flights between February 12 and March 26, mostly to destinations such as Seoul and Osaka.
Hong Kong Airlines (HKA) at the same time revealed it would gradually impose even deeper cuts to flights it operated in mainland China and the rest of Asia until March 28.
The ailing carrier will suspend 10 routes and reduce flights on a further 15, amounting to an estimated 128 flights a week being axed. HKA has already cut 214 mainland Chinese flights between January 30 until February 11.
As Taiwan’s new restrictions took effect on Friday – ordering the home or hotel quarantine of anyone entering the self-ruled island who had visited Hong Kong or Macau within the previous 14 days – carriers based there slashed their schedules.
China Airlines would go from running 18 daily Hong Kong flights to just two from next week until March 28, according to Airline Route data published on Thursday.
Eva Air would switch from more than 11 daily flights to fewer than four a day for the rest of the month.
As health professionals treat coronavirus patients, global search for cures and vaccines accelerates
Eighty flights operate between Hong Kong and Taipei every week, a journey that regularly tops tables ranking the world’s busiest. But under the cuts to come more than half have already been scrapped.
Outside Asia, two airlines on Thursday cut ties with Hong Kong. The struggling Virgin Australia blamed the coronavirus and the anti-government protests that have gripped Hong Kong since June.
It concluded that “current circumstances demonstrate that Hong Kong is no longer a commercially viable route”.
The near-bankrupt South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled its route from Johannesburg amid a wholesale restructuring of the state-owned business. SAA had suspended flying to Hong Kong after November 21 last year amid the city’s civil unrest.
Hong Kong Airlines to axe 400 jobs as coronavirus adds to carrier’s cash woes
7 Feb 2020
Meanwhile, American Airlines said on Thursday it would restart flights between Dallas Fort Worth and Hong Kong on February 21, while Hong Kong’s Airport Authority extended the cancellation of its Los Angeles flight to the city until March 27.
The US carrier warned its schedules were subject to an ongoing “review”. Currently there is no US carrier flying to Hong Kong International Airport after United Airlines also withdrew all services until February 20.
Among the Middle East carriers, Emirates was halving its four daily Airbus A380 flights to Hong Kong from next week until March 28. Etihad is also making minor adjustments, Airline Route data showed on Thursday.
The new coronavirus has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, as the outbreak continues to spread outside China.
“The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China but what is happening in other countries,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The concern is that it could spread to countries with weaker health systems.
Meanwhile, the US has told its citizens not to travel to China.
The state department issued a level four warning – having previously urged Americans to “reconsider” travel to China – and said any citizens in China “should consider departing using commercial means”.
China has said it will send charter plans to bring back Hubei province residents who are overseas “as soon as possible”.
A foreign ministry spokesman said this was because of the “practical difficulties” Chinese citizens have faced abroad. Hubei is where the virus emerged.
At least 213 people in the China have died from the virus, mostly in Hubei, with almost 10,000 cases nationally.
The WHO said there had been 98 cases in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
Most international cases are in people who had been to Wuhan in Hubei.
However in eight cases – in Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the United States – patients were infected by people who had travelled to China.
Getty Coronavirus outbreak outside China
18 The number of countries with cases
14 Cases in Thailand and Japan
13 Singapore
11 South Korea
8 Australia and Malaysia
5 France and USA
Source: WHO and local authorities
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, Dr Tedros described the virus as an “unprecedented outbreak” that has been met with an “unprecedented response”.
He praised the “extraordinary measures” Chinese authorities had taken, and said there was no reason to limit trade or travel to China.
The US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, has said the outbreak could “accelerate the return of jobs to North America”.
Preparing other countries
What happens if this virus finds its way into a country that cannot cope?
Many low- and middle-income countries simply lack the tools to spot or contain it. The fear is it could spread uncontrollably and that it may go unnoticed for some time.
Remember this is a disease which emerged only last month – and yet there are already almost 10,000 confirmed cases in China.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa – the largest in human history – showed how easily poorer countries can be overwhelmed by such outbreaks.
And if novel coronavirus gets a significant foothold in such places, then it would be incredibly difficult to contain.
We are not at that stage yet – 99% of cases are in China and the WHO is convinced the country can control the outbreak there.
But declaring a global emergency allows the WHO to support lower- and middle-income countries to strengthen their disease surveillance – and prepare them for cases.
How unusual is this declaration?
The WHO declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern when there is “an extraordinary event which is determined… to constitute a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease”.
It has previously declared five global public health emergencies:
Swine flu, 2009 – The H1N1 virus spread across the world in 2009, with death toll estimates ranging from 123,000 to 575,400
Polio, 2014 – Although closer than ever to eradication in 2012, polio numbers rose in 2013
Zika, 2016 – The WHO declared Zika a public health emergency in 2016 after the disease spread rapidly through the Americas
Ebola, 2014 and 2019 – The first emergency over the virus lasted from August 2014 to March 2016 as almost 30,000 people were infected and more than 11,000 died in West Africa. A second emergency was declared last year as an outbreak spread in DR Congo
Media caption Inside the US laboratory developing a coronavirus vaccine
How is China handling the outbreak?
A confirmed case in Tibet means the virus has reached every region in mainland China. According to the country’s National Health Commission, 9,692 cases have tested positive.
The central province of Hubei, where nearly all deaths have occurred, is in a state of lockdown. The province of 60 million people is home to Wuhan, the heart of the outbreak.
The city has effectively been sealed off and China has put numerous transport restrictions in place to curb the spread of the virus.
People who have been in Hubei are also being told to work from home until it is considered safe for them to return.
The virus is affecting China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, with a growing number of countries advising their citizens to avoid all non-essential travel to the country.
How is the world responding?
Voluntary evacuations of hundreds of foreign nationals from Wuhan are under way.
The UK, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand are expected to quarantine all evacuees for two weeks to monitor them for symptoms and avoid contagion.
Australia plans to quarantine its evacuees on Christmas Island, 2,000km (1,200 miles) from the mainland in a detention centre that has been used to house asylum seekers.
In other recent developments:
Italy suspended flights to China after two Chinese tourists in Rome were diagnosed with the virus; earlier 6,000 people on board a cruise ship were temporarily barred from disembarking
In the US, Chicago health officials have reported the first US case of human-to-human transmission. Around 200 US citizens have been flown out of Wuhan and are being isolated at a Californian military base for at least 72 hours
Russia has decided to close its 4,300km (2,670-mile) far-eastern border with China
Two flights to Japan have already landed in Tokyo. Japan has now raised its infectious disease advisory level for China
Some 250 French nationals have been evacuated from Wuhan
India has confirmed its first case of the virus – a student in the southern state of Kerala who was studying in Wuhan
Israel has barred all flight connections with China
Papua New Guinea has banned all visitors from “Asian ports”
BEIJING (Reuters) – The death toll from China’s coronavirus outbreak jumped on Saturday to 41 as the Lunar New Year got off to a gloomy start, with Hong Kong declaring a virus emergency, scrapping celebrations, and restricting links to mainland China.
Australia on Saturday confirmed its first four cases, Malaysia confirmed three and France reported Europe’s first cases on Friday, as health authorities around the world scrambled to prevent a pandemic.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Saturday declared a virus emergency in the Asian financial hub, with five confirmed cases, immediately halting official visits to mainland China and scrapping official Lunar New Year celebrations.
Inbound and outbound flights and high speed rail trips between Hong Kong and Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, would be halted, and schools, now on Lunar New Year holidays, would remain shut until Feb. 17. The territory was also treating 122 people suspected of having the disease.
RELATED COVERAGE
U.S. to evacuate its citizens from Wuhan, China – WSJ
China’s President Xi holds politburo meeting on curbing virus outbreak – state TV
The death toll in China rose to 41 on Saturday from 26 a day earlier and more than 1,300 people have been infected globally with a virus traced to a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife.
Hu Yinghai, deputy director-general of the Civil Affairs Department in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, made an appeal on Saturday for masks and protective suits. Hospitals in the city have made similar pleas.
“We are steadily pushing forward the disease control and prevention … But right now we are facing an extremely severe public health crisis,” he told a news briefing.
Vehicles carrying emergency supplies and medical staff for Wuhan would be exempted from tolls and given traffic priority, China’s transportation ministry said on Saturday.
Wuhan said it would ban non-essential vehicles from its downtown starting Sunday to control the spread of the virus, further paralysing a city of 11 million that has been on virtual lockdown since Thursday, with nearly all flights cancelled and checkpoints blocking the main roads leading out of town.
Authorities have since imposed transport restrictions on nearly all of Hubei province, which has a population of 59 million.
In Australia, three men, aged 53, 43 and 35 in New South Wales were in stable condition after they were confirmed to have the virus after returning from Wuhan earlier this month.
A Chinese national in his 50s, who had been in Wuhan, was also in stable condition in a Melbourne hospital after arriving from China on Jan. 19, Victoria Health officials said.
State-run China Global Television Network reported in a tweet on Saturday that a doctor who had been treating patients in Wuhan, 62-year-old Liang Wudong, had died from the virus.
Police officers stand guard in front of the closed gate of Lama Temple where a notice saying that the temple is closed for the safety concern following the outbreak of a new coronavirus is seen, in Beijing, China January 25, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
It was not immediately clear if his death was already counted in the official toll of 41, of which 39 were in the central province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located.
U.S. coffee chain Starbucks said on Saturday that it was closing all its outlets in Hubei province for the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, following a similar move by McDonald’s in five Hubei cities.
PROTECTIVE SUITS
In Beijing on Saturday, workers in white protective suits checked temperatures of passengers entering the subway at the central railway station, while some train services in eastern China’s Yangtze River Delta region were suspended, the local railway operator said.
The number of confirmed cases in China stands at 1,287. The virus has also been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Nepal, and the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it had 63 patients under investigation, with two confirmed cases. While China has called for transparency in managing the crisis, after cover-up of the 2002/2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome spread, officials in Wuhan have come in for criticism over their handling of the current outbreak.
In rare public dissent, a senior journalist at a Hubei provincial newspaper run by the ruling Communist Party on Friday called for a “immediate” change of leadership in Wuhan on the Twitter-like Weibo. The post was later removed.
REINFORCEMENTS TO WUHAN
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new coronavirus an “emergency in China” this week but stopped short of declaring it of international concern.
Human-to-human transmission has been observed in the virus.
China’s National Health Commission said it had formed six medical teams totalling 1,230 medical staff to help Wuhan.
Hubei province, where authorities are rushing to build a 1,000 bed hospital in six days to treat patients, announced on Saturday that there were 658 patients affected by the virus in treatment, 57 of whom were critically ill.
The newly-identified coronavirus has created alarm because there are still many unknowns surrounding it, such as how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between people. It can cause pneumonia, which has been deadly in some cases.
Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing and coughing. Most of the fatalities have been in elderly patients, many with pre-existing conditions, the WHO said.
NEW YEAR DISRUPTIONS
Airports around the world have stepped up screening of passengers from China, though some health officials and experts have questioned the effectiveness of such screenings.
There are fears the transmission could accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which began on Saturday, although many have cancelled their plans, with airlines and railways in China providing free refunds.
The virus outbreak and efforts to contain it have put a dampener on what is ordinarily a festive time of year.
Sanya, a popular resort destination on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, announced that it was shutting all tourist sites, while the island’s capital city, Haikou, said visitors from Wuhan would be placed under 14-day quarantine in a hotel.
Shanghai Disneyland was closed from Saturday. The theme park has a 100,000 daily capacity and sold out during last year’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Beijing’s Lama Temple, where people traditionally make offerings for the new year, has also closed, as have some other temples.
BEIJING (Reuters) – With millions of Asians travelling on Tuesday for the Lunar New Year holiday, authorities in China confirmed that a new virus could be spread through human contact, reporting 15 medical staff had been infected and a fourth person had died.
The chilling update on the coronavirus outbreak that began in the central city of Wuhan sent shivers through financial markets, as the World Health Organisation called a meeting for Wednesday to consider declaring an international health emergency.
By the end of Monday the number of confirmed cases in China had climbed to 291, the National Health Commission said. Some 270 were in Hubei province. Wuhan, a city of 11 million people is the provincial capital.
The outbreak was also spreading to other cities, with 15 cases in southern province of Guangdong, five in the capital Beijing and two in Shanghai.
RELATED COVERAGE
WHO says expects further spread of new coronavirus in China
Death toll from coronavirus outbreak in China’s Wuhan rises to six – state TV
“Information about newly reported infections suggest there may now be sustained human to human transmission,” WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Takeshi Kasai said in an email statement.
The scare brought back bad memories of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that broke out in China in 2002/2003, resulting in the death of nearly 800 people in global pandemic.
Health authorities around the world have begun to step up screening of travellers arriving from China. Two cases have already been identified in Thailand, one in Japan and one in South Korea, while the Philippines reported on Tuesday its first suspected case.
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission confirmed a fourth fatality on Tuesday, disclosing that an 89-year-old man who had underlying health issues, including heart disease, died on Jan. 19.
Chinese authorities also confirmed for the first time that the virus could spread through human contact and said 15 medical staff had been infected.
The mounting anxiety was transmitted to regional markets. China’s onshore yuan CNY= fell 0.6%, its biggest daily drop since Aug. 26, 2019, while airline and travel stocks fell across the region.
European shares also slipped on mounting concerns about the impact of the outbreak, with luxury goods firms particularly hard-hit on worries about weaker demand from Chinese consumers.
The virus can cause pneumonia, with symptoms including fever and difficulty in breathing. As those symptoms are similar to many other respiratory diseases, extra screening is needed.
AIRPORT SCREENING
The origin of the virus has yet to be identified, but the primary source is most likely animal, according to WHO. Chinese officials have linked the outbreak to a seafood market in Wuhan.
“The outbreak of a SARS-like coronavirus in Wuhan is developing into a major potential economic risk to the Asia-Pacific region now that there is medical evidence of human-to-human transmission,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific Chief Economist for IHS Markit, in an email statement.
So far, the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions but such measures could be discussed at Wednesday’s emergency meeting.
China’s National Health Commission will also give an update on the outbreak at a press briefing at 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Wednesday.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China will attend the WHO meeting and share relevant information.
“China is willing to deepen its global cooperation and work with the international community to work together to deal with the epidemic,” Geng told reporters at a regular daily briefing.
Airport authorities in the United States as well as most Asian nations also are screening passengers from Wuhan.
Australia on Tuesday said it would screen passengers on flights from Wuhan, while Singapore announced it would quarantine individuals with pneumonia and a history of travel to Wuhan within 14 days prior to the onset of symptoms.
QUEUES FOR MASKS
Wuhan officials have been using infrared thermometers to screen passengers at airports, railway stations and other passenger terminals since Jan. 14.
Zhong Nanshan, head of the National Health Commission’s team of experts investigating the outbreak, said in footage shown by state television on Monday there was no danger of a repeat of the SARS epidemic so long as precautions were taken.
Images of long lines of people queuing to buy face masks were circulating widely on Chinese social media, where the outbreak was one of the top trending topics.
Some online vendors were limiting sales of masks and hand sanitizers as demand surged.
And Shanghai’s market regulator warned on Tuesday that it will punish speculators who hoard masks and other products used for preventing diseases, according to the Shanghai Observer – a web publication backed by a Communist Party newspaper.
Trip.com, China’s top online travel booking platform, said it would refund customers who cancel bookings in Wuhan this month, or whose travel plans are disrupted by quarantines or other regulatory efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.
A push to connect Pacific nations highlights a submarine struggle for dominance over the world’s technology infrastructure
The ambitions of Chinese tech giants like Huawei, which have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, are of increasing concern to Washington
The ambitions of Chinese tech giants like Huawei, which have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, are of increasing concern to Washington. Photo: Reuters
While the US has been upping the pressure on its allies not to include equipment made by Chinese telecom giants like Huawei and ZTE in their 5G systems, Chinese companies have gained a foothold in some of the world’s most essential communications infrastructure – undersea internet cables.
Smart telecom cables: climate change hope or submarine spying tech?
14 Dec 2019
Almost all global data communications flow through cables under the ocean – just one per cent travels by satellite – and Chinese companies have quietly been eroding US, European and Japanese dominance over the backbone of the internet, the undersea cable market. Now, they have trained their sights on connecting one of the most virtually remote parts of the globe, the Pacific Island countries.
Of the 378 cables currently operating worldwide, 23 are under the Pacific. But many of these cables run right by Pacific Island nations on their paths between hubs in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Singapore.
An electric submarine cable and optical fibre. File photo
Despite the volume of data flowing under the Pacific Ocean, just half a million of the 11 million people living in Pacific Island countries and Papua New Guinea – less than five per cent – have access to a wired internet connection and only 1.5 million to a mobile connection, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UNESCAP), compared with 53 per cent of people in Thailand and 60 per cent in the Philippines.
More than US$4 billion worth of cables are to come into service by 2021, continuing a trend in which US$2 billion worth of cables have come online every year since 2016, and six of these cables will connect Pacific Island countries.
The push to connect Pacific Island nations to the latest generation of internet infrastructure has received extra scrutiny from the US and its allies like Australia
over the involvement of Chinese tech companies.
Choose Beijing over Taipei, Solomon Islands task force recommends
13 Sep 2019
SECURITY CONCERNS
While the US has moved to block Huawei from supplying equipment to its allies’ 5G networks, experts say Chinese tech companies could contest the US, EU and
long-standing dominance over global data traffic through investments in subsea cables.
Chinese tech giants like Huawei have entire divisions devoted to undersea connectivity that have laid thousands of kilometres of cable, and Chinese state telecommunication companies such as China Unicom have access to many of the existing trans-Pacific cables.
But a panel led by the US Department of Justice has held up a nearly complete trans-Pacific cable project over concerns about its Chinese investor, Beijing-based Dr Peng Telecom & Media Group.
The project, the Pacific Light Cable Network, could be the first cable rejected by the panel on the grounds of national security – despite being backed by American tech giants Google and Facebook – setting a precedent for a tougher US stance on Chinese involvement in subsea cables.
Chinese tech giants like Huawei have entire divisions devoted to undersea connectivity that have laid thousands of kilometres of cable. Photo: AP
Craige Sloots, director of sales at Southern Cross Cable Network, which operates the largest existing sets of trans-Pacific cables, said for any new cable, regulators were likely to scrutinise the ownership of the companies involved and the maker of the project’s equipment.
These two factors, said Sloots, “pragmatically limit some of the providers you can use if you want to connect through the US”.
Experts say that Hong Kong, where the stalled Pacific Light Cable would land, was previously considered a more secure shore landing point than mainland China. But people close to the project say the recent unrest in the city has made this distinction less relevant, according to The Wall Street Journal.
If these nations want to be part of the international economy, they need reliable communications: Bruce Howe, University of Hawaii
Similar concerns caused a proposed Huawei-backed cable linking Vanuatu with Papua New Guinea to be called off last year after Australia stepped in to fund its own cable instead.
Just months after the government-owned Solomon Islands Submarine Cable Company agreed to the project with Huawei in mid-2017, Canberra put up US$67 million to connect Sydney with the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea with cables laid under the Coral Sea by Nokia’s Alcatel Submarine Networks.
Simon Fletcher, CEO of Vanuatu company Interchange, which had been planning another cable in the neighbourhood connecting Vanuatu with the Solomon Islands, said the Coral Sea project undercut the viability for small private businesses to operate in the fledgling market, where services had historically been provided by international organisations like development banks. His company’s cable has been on pause since the announcement of the Coral Sea project, though Fletcher said it would go forward next year.
US-China battle for dominance extends across Pacific, above and below the sea
22 Jul 2019
VIRTUALLY REMOTE
For years, as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore became global hubs of high-speed internet data traffic, the cables criss-crossing the ocean floor passed by just off the shores of Pacific Island countries en route between hubs on either side of the ocean.
Tiziana Bonapace, director of UNESCAP’s information technology and disaster risk-reduction division, said the Pacific Islands remain one of the most disconnected areas in the world, where “a vast proportion of the population has no access to the internet”.
Over the past five years, international organisations like UNESCAP, the Asia Development Bank and the World Bank have been pushing for better connectivity in the region. The World Bank’s Pacific Regional Connectivity Programme has invested more than US$90 million into broadband infrastructure for Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Samoa and Tuvalu.
Internet cables in the Pacific Ocean.
But the business case had never been good, said Bonapace.
“A cable has to travel thousands of kilometres just to connect a population smaller than one of Asia’s megacities,” she said. “As everything we do is somehow connected to the internet, the prospects for the Pacific to become virtually more remote are even higher.”
Even nations which are connected have tenuous infrastructure. In January, Tonga experienced a total internet blackout for two weeks after damage to its single cable. Most parts of the world were linked by multiple cables to prevent this type of outage, said Bruce Howe, professor of ocean and resources engineering at University of Hawaii.
“If these nations want to be part of the international economy, they need reliable communications,” Howe said.
Is Chinese support for Pacific nations shaping their stance on West Papua?
26 Aug 2019
DRAWING NEW LINES
In Papua New Guinea, where mobile internet currently reaches less than a third of the population, a partnership between local telecoms company GoPNG and the Export-Import Bank of China funded the new Huawei-built Kumul Domestic cable system, which came online this year.
The Southern Cross Next system, owned by Spark, Verizon, Singtel Optus and Telstra – the same group of shareholders which operates the massive 30,500km (19,000 mile) set of twin cables connecting the US with Australia and New Zealand known as Southern Cross – is planned to come online in 2022, and will connect directly to Fiji, Samoa, Kiribati and Tokelau.
Chinese telecoms company China Unicom counts the existing Southern Cross cables among its network capabilities – meaning it is likely to have access to the cable through a leasing agreement with one of the other companies that uses the cable, according to Canberra think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
An undersea fibre optic cable. Photo: AFP
China Unicom and China Telecom also list the Asia America Gateway Cable System as one of their network capabilities, according to ASPI. The 20,000km (12,400-mile) cable came online in 2009 and connects the US, Guam, Hong Kong, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
It is owned by a consortium of carriers including AT&T, Telekom Malaysia, Telstra and Spark.
A cable backed by Google and the Australian Academic and Research Network connecting Japan and Australia through Guam is to come online early next year.
China: the real reason Australia’s pumping cash into the Pacific?
28 Jul 2018
WHAT’S NEXT
Natasha Beschorner, senior digital development specialist at the World Bank, said that while there were challenges ahead in terms of broadband access and affordability, increased connectivity was starting to bring new opportunities to the Pacific.
“Digital technologies can contribute to economic diversification, income generation and service delivery in the Pacific,” Beschorner said. “E-commerce and financial technologies are emerging and governments are considering how to roll out selected services online.”
Experts say the industry has recently seen a switch from cables being mostly funded by telecommunication carriers to being funded by content providers, like Google and Facebook. Members of the private cable industry say content companies can afford to invest in cable infrastructure to ensure the supply chain for their customers, but that the competition puts the squeeze on the research-and-development budgets of other types of companies.
Sloots at Southern Cross predicted that the nations which connected directly to the massive next-generation cable – Samoa, Kiribati and Tokelau – would be able to function as connecting points for intra-Pacific cables.
“There’s a blossoming effect in capability once certain islands are connected,” Sloots said.
There is also the push to locate an exchange point within the Pacific so that internet data no longer has to travel to a hub in Tokyo or Los Angeles and back to Pacific nations when processing – a move that could ultimately lower the cost of broadband internet service for consumers in the Pacific.
Perhaps the most effective outcome could be for Pacific nations to cut the cord and receive their internet by satellite.
The Asian Development Bank has agreed to give a US$50 million loan to Singapore’s Kacific Broadband Satellites International to provide up to two billion people across the Asia-Pacific region with affordable satellite-based internet.
The project is to be launched into orbit by SpaceX next week and aims to begin providing service by early next year.
SHANGHAI, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — Chinese tourists will travel to more overseas destinations during the Spring Festival holiday in 2020, said a report released by the country’s largest online travel agency Trip.com Group.
Chinese tourists have booked trips to 419 overseas cities in over 100 countries and regions during the seven-day holiday beginning Jan. 24, 2020, said Trip.com, adding that both figures are new highs for the group.
Boasting warm weather, Australia and New Zealand are among the most popular destinations for Chinese during the period. Trips to Italy, Britain, Spain, Russia, France and the United Arab Emirates are also bestsellers, according to the report.
Ninety percent of Trip.com Group’s users have chosen high-quality travel products and services. Private travel groups with tour guides and flexible schedules have also been favored by tourists.
The fact that Chinese are willing to spend more money and time on traveling shows their growing incomes and higher living standards, said Peng Liang, a researcher with the tourist data research center of Trip.com Group.
As more Chinese travel overseas for holidays, the world will also share the benefits of China’s development, said Peng.
Chinese made 6.3 million outbound trips during the Spring Festival holiday in 2019, up 12.48 percent year on year.
URUMQI, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — Rich in resources but remote, Xinjiang in China’s far west has become a magnet for investors for its unique position on the Silk Road.
In a workshop of the Amer International Group in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, workers are busy adjusting and packing laptops.
Recently, Amer sent the first batch of 2,000 laptops it produced for the German company TrekStor to the European market via China-Europe freight trains.
Headquartered in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Amer invested 20 billion yuan (around 2.8 billion U.S. dollars) to build an industrial park in Xinjiang in 2018. So far, the industrial park has produced and exported around 1.5 million mobile phones, according to Wang Wenyin, the founder and chairman of Amer International Group.
“We saw Xinjiang’s geographical advantages, so we established the industrial park and cooperated with our counterparts in South and Central Asia in the fields of smartphones and IT high-end manufacturing,” Wang said.
Amer International Group is among a growing number of enterprises that have been attracted by Xinjiang in recent years, as trains and planes have made Xinjiang better connected than ever before.
As China’s key trade gateway to Central and West Asia, the remote region’s position as the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative is unmistakable. In 2013, China proposed the BRI, which opened up new space for the world economy, spurring trade and economic growth and stimulating investment and creating jobs worldwide.
Urumqi Customs saw the number of China-Europe freight trains skyrocket to 5,743 in the first 10 months this year, up 53.68 percent year on year, outnumbering the total of 2018.
To attract more investors, the local government has gone to great lengths creating a more friendly business environment, such as cutting the time required for starting a business and lowering the entry threshold for products.
Up to now, Xinjiang has had more than 1.8 million market entities including 359,000 enterprises, up 18 percent year on year.
Foreign and domestic business giants including German chemical giant BASF and China’s real estate conglomerates Wanda Group have also invested in the region.
Lai Naixiang, head of Kashgar Oumeisheng Energy Technology, a home appliance manufacturer, moved his business from Shenzhen to Kashgar in southern Xinjiang in 2017.
“We chose to settle in Kashgar because of the great market potential in adjacent Central Asian countries as well as Xinjiang’s lower electricity prices and preferential tax policy,” he said.
Last year, the company exported electric kettles worth more than 16 million yuan to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Foreign trade in Xinjiang has seen booming growth. The region recorded around 131.5 billion yuan in imports and exports in the first 10 months of this year, up 28 percent year on year.
In the first 10 months, Kazakhstan topped the list of Xinjiang’s major trade partners, with trade volume between the two growing by 28.2 percent to 60.2 billion yuan.
Xinjiang’s trade with Kyrgyzstan, Australia, Pakistan, Britain, Argentina and Vietnam also showed fast growth, according to the local customs authorities.
“With further Belt and Road construction, Xinjiang will get more impetus in economic and social development. I see great potential in the region,” Wang said.
The president is set to become the first Russian leader to make a state visit to the Philippines for more than 40 years, according to a former envoy
Moscow is aware of China’s entry into the Philippines, and could have its eye on some projects there, while the US is also watching developments
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shake hands during a 2016 meeting in Peru. Photo: EPA
The timing of Moscow’s announcement over the weekend that President Vladimir Putin
has accepted an invitation to visit Manila has raised eyebrows, as it comes on the eve of crucial bilateral talks between the Philippines and China on joint oil exploration in the
In a statement immediately welcomed by the Philippine presidential palace, Igor Khovaev, Russia’s ambassador to the Philippines, on Saturday told reporters Putin had accepted Duterte’s invitation “with gratitude”.
No date has been set for the visit, with Khovaev only saying Moscow would “do our best to arrange this meeting as soon as possible”.
A steering committee with representatives from both Manila and Beijing is set to meet this week to discuss the joint oil exploration deal. China has proposed a 60 per cent-40 per cent split in favour of the Philippines, according to Hermogenes Esperon,
Courting Russia with South China Sea oil is a ‘dangerous gamble’ for Duterte
Neither side has clarified if the split refers to ownership or revenue, and no other details were disclosed.
After an August meeting with Duterte, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the countries could take a “bigger step” in jointly developing oil and gas resources if they could properly handle their sovereignty dispute in the South China Sea.
But defence and security analysts say the Philippine president took a “dangerous gamble” on a visit to Russia last month, when he invited the Russian state oil company Rosneft to explore for oil in Philippine waters – which include parts of the South China Sea claimed by China.
The timing of Moscow’s announcement has not gone unnoticed.
A Chinese deepwater oil rig in the South China Sea. Photo: Weibo
“It’s a welcome and historic development. Some wise guy in the Duterte government thought about timing [the invitation to Putin around the oil talks with Beijing],” said retired Philippine ambassador Lauro Baja, who once served as president of the United Nations Security Council.
Baja told the Post that no Russian president had visited the Philippines during his more than 40 years with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“The Philippines then was almost a nonentity as far as Russia was concerned, [but] maybe now Russia recognises the strategic importance of the Philippines [in terms of] regional politics,” he said.
Baja said Moscow was aware of China’s entry into the Philippines, and could have its eye on some projects there.
“For all their so-called alliance, China and Russia are fierce competitors for influence and other benefits. And I think Russia has some objectives in mind like selling armaments and [forging] technological agreements,” he said, while cautioning that the situation remained “nebulous”.
New Philippines military chief sees no ‘shooting war’ in South China Sea despite disputes
“It’s a fascinating development but things are still early … For now, this is [just] an invitation extended by Duterte and accepted in principle by Putin.”
The United States will also be monitoring developments in the Philippines, according to Greg Poling, director of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
“Russia is eager to boost its influence in the region, and doubtless doing so with a long-standing US ally is seen as a bonus by Moscow,” he said. “There is nothing that prevents the Philippines from engaging in security cooperation with Russia, but the devil will be in the details.”
Poling added that the US would be concerned if Russia-Philippine cooperation involved acquiring military platforms that were incompatible with the shared platforms and doctrines used by Washington and Manila, as well as the latter’s other major security partners, namely Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte inspects firearms donated by Russia in 2017. Photo: Reuters
“The US will also be concerned if any acquisitions or cooperation with Russia might threaten information security or intelligence cooperation between the US and the Philippines,” he said.
“And finally, any major platforms acquired from Russia would likely require the US to impose sanctions on the Philippines unless a waiver is granted, and the US government has been very stingy about awarding those waivers because they undermine the effectiveness of the sanctions regime.”
“Imagine a US stronghold and long-time ally and former colony becoming a manufacturing hub for Russian arms. And it makes it worse if [the Philippine armed forces] buys them too,” he said.
“Weakening the US alliances in Asia will benefit Russia [as it is] one of the US’ competitors in arms sales and geopolitics.”
Russia offers arms technology to the Philippines with ‘no conditions’ as US ties falter
The Philippines, Montero said, would benefit from such an arrangement since it is “a laggard in defence technology”. However, he pointed out that the country’s armed forces continue to buy weapons from the US and receive American arms as grants, potentially limiting the domestic market for Russian arms.
Navy cooperation has also been on the agenda, as Moscow and Manila discussed signing a new naval pact in March, while warships from each country have visited the other this year. Philippine naval vessels made their first-ever visit to Russia in October, while three Russian ships docked in the Philippines for a goodwill visit in January.
Russia is the top supplier of arms to Southeast Asia, and the No 2 global arms supplier, behind the US. Southeast Asia bought US$6.6 billion of Russian arms between 2010 and 2017, or more than 12 per cent of Russia’s sales, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that publishes global arms tracking data.
Chinese geologists think they have formula that could help to increase control of market in the elements hi-tech industries depend upon
Simple combination of clay mined for porcelain production, granite bedrock and acid rain could point to lucrative sources of rare earths
China has 80 per cent of the reserves of rare earth elements the world needs to keep talking on its smartphones, and geologists in Guangzhou think they know why. Photo: EPA
Geologists in southern China say they have isolated a series of critical factors that could make it easier to find rare earth elements used in hi-tech consumer goods such as smartphones.
China has more than 80 per cent of the world’s reserves of heavy rare earths such as terbium, dysprosium and holmium concentrated in a few provinces to the south of the country.
The reason for the concentration is one of the biggest puzzles in geology, but researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry in Guangdong province say the answer may be found in a combination of clay deposits, acid rain and granite that is distinctive to southern China.
Professor He Hongping and his colleagues came to the conclusion by testing the interaction between rare earths and different types of clay. Through their research they found that kaolinite – or china clay – was the best at absorbing rare earths from water.
The clay, named after Gaoling village near Jingdezhen, a centuries-old ceramic production centre in east China’s Jiangxi province, is a raw material for porcelain production.
While kaolinite is found in many countries, those places do not have rare earth deposits – probably because of the lack of acid rain, He said.
“You need the right environment.”
He said that rocks that contained tiny amounts of rare earth elements weathered faster in an acid environment, but the acidity could not be too high or the rare earth might run off before it could be captured by the clay.
Why Beijing cut tax rate on rare earths amid trade war
Rainwater with the right natural acidity often occurred in areas around 20 degrees latitude, such as southern China, he said.
The last step was to locate the source rock. Granite formed in volcanic eruptions between 100 million and 200 million years ago is considered to be the main source of rare earths.
He said that part of the Pacific tectonic plate containing rare elements might have been forced under the Eurasian Plate and was pushed to the surface as magma that formed rocks.
Other countries could learn from the Chinese experience, said He, whose team submitted their findings to the research journalChemical Geology.
Recent discoveries in Vietnam, Australia and North Carolina in the United States conformed to the Guangzhou team’s theory, but there was still more research to do, he said.
“Rare earth deposits are quite unlike minerals such as copper. Sometimes they occur in this mountain but not in another nearby with almost the same geological features. Sometimes they occur in one half of the mountain but not in the other.”
With China and the US engaged in a trade war, and Beijing cutting taxes on mining companies looking for these elements, the pressure was on to unlock the secrets of China’s abundant rare earth deposits, he said.
Does China’s dominance in rare earths hold leverage in trade war?
Dr Huang Fan, associate researcher with the China Geological Survey, said the Guangzhou discovery would help geologists to find more rare earths.
Most rare earth mines were located along the borders between provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangxi, but recently there were discoveries on a plateau in Yunnan province, where few geologists believed rare earths could be found, he said.
“There are many more rare earth deposits out there waiting for us.”
Image copyright AFP
Matthew Smith@mjswhitebread
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 