30/05/2020
- Chinese groups calling for more ‘fighting spirit’ are getting the upper hand on those who favour calm and cooperation, government adviser says
- From Hong Kong to Covid-19, trade to the South China Sea, Beijing and Washington are clashing on a growing number of fronts and in an increasingly aggressive way
Efforts to promote dialogue and cooperation between the US and China are failing, observers say. Photo: AFP
Moderates who favour dialogue and cooperation as a way to resolve China’s disputes with the
United States are losing ground to hardline groups bent on taking the fight to Washington, according to political insiders and observers.
“There are two camps in China,” said a former state official who now serves as a government adviser and asked not to be named.
“One is stressing the combat spirit, the other is trying to relieve tensions. And the former has the upper hand.”
Relations between China and the US are under intense pressure. After Beijing moved to introduce a national security law for Hong Kong, US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington would begin eliminating the special policy exemptions it grants the city, as it no longer considers it autonomous from mainland China.
Beijing’s decision to enact a national security law for Hong Kong was met with anger from the US and other Western countries. Photo: Sam Tsang
The two nations have also clashed over trade, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the South China Sea, with the US passing several acts denouncing Beijing and sanctioning Chinese officials.
China has also experienced turbulence in its relations with other countries, including Australia and members of the European Union, mostly related to the Covid-19 pandemic
and Beijing’s efforts to position itself as a leader in the fight against the disease with its policy of “mask diplomacy”.
After Canberra appealed for an independent investigation to be carried out to determine the origins of the coronavirus, Beijing responded by imposing tariffs on imports of Australian barley, showing it is prepared to do more than just trade insults and accusations with its adversaries.
Pang Zhongying, a professor of international relations at Ocean University of China in Qingdao, said there was a worrying trend in China’s relations with other nations.
“We need political and diplomatic means to resolve the challenges we are facing, but … diplomatic methods have become undiplomatic,” he said.
“There are some who believe that problems can be solved through tough gestures, but this will never work. Without diplomacy, problems become confrontations.”
said during his annual press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress last weekend that China and the United States must work together to prevent a new Cold War.
His words were echoed by
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who said during a press conference after the closure of the legislative session on Thursday that the many challenges facing the China-US relations could only be resolved through cooperation.
However, the government adviser said there was often quite a chasm between what China’s leaders said and what happened in reality.
“Even though we say we do not want a Cold War, what is happening at the working level seems to be different.” he said. “The implementation of policies is not properly coordinated and often chaotic.”
Tensions between China and the US have been in a poor state since the start of a trade war almost two years ago. After multiple rounds of negotiations, the sides in January signed a phase one deal, but the positivity that created was short-lived.
In February, Beijing expelled three reporters from The Wall Street Journal over an article it deemed racist, while Washington has ramped up its military activity in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, and threatened to revoke the visas of Chinese students studying science and technology in the US over concerns they might be engaged in espionage.
Beijing has also used its state media and army of “
Wolf Warrior” diplomats to promote its narrative, though many Chinese scholars and foreign policy advisers have said the latter’s nationalistic fervour has done more harm than good and appealed to Beijing to adopt a more conciliatory tone.
However, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Chinese tabloid Global Times, said China had no option but to stare down the US, which regarded the world’s most populous nation as its main rival.
“Being contained by the US is too high a price for China to pay,” he said. “I think the best thing people can do is forget the old days of China-US ties”.
Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, wrote in a recent newspaper article that Beijing’s actions – notably enacting a national security law for Hong Kong – showed it was uncompromising and ready to stand its ground against the US.
Wu Xinbo, dean of international studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, agreed, saying relations between the two countries were likely to worsen in the run-up to the US presidential election in November and that Beijing should be prepared for a fight.
But Adam Ni, director of China Policy Centre, a think tank in Canberra, said the issue was not that the moderate camp had been sidelined, but rather Beijing’s perception of the US had changed.
“Beijing has woken up to the idea that America’s tough policy on China will continue and it is expecting an escalation of the tensions,” he said.
“The centre of gravity in terms of Beijing’s perception of the US has shifted, in the same way the US perception of China has shifted towards a more negative image”.
Beijing was simply responding in kind to the hardline, assertive manner of the US, he said.
Source: SCMP
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18/04/2020
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China ordered on Saturday that anyone in Wuhan working in certain service-related jobs must take a coronavirus test if they want to leave the city.
The order comes after the central city, where the coronavirus emerged late last year, lifted a 70-day lockdown that all but ended the epidemic there.
People in Wuhan work in nursing, education, security and other sectors with high exposure to the public must take a nucleic acid test before leaving, the National Health Commission said in an order.
The government of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital, will pay for the tests, the commission said.
Since the city relaxed its lockdown restrictions people who arrived in there before Chinese New Year, when the virus was peaking in China, are allowed to go back to their homes.
People working in other sectors aiming to leave Wuhan are encouraged to take voluntary tests before going.
Within seven days of arrival at their destinations, people who can present test results showing they do not carry the virus, as well as a clean bill of health on a health app, can go back to work.
Everyone else will have to spend 14 days in quarantine before returning to work.
Authorities have worked with the China’s tech giants to devise a colour-based health code system, retrieved via mobile app, that uses geolocation data and self-reported information to indicate one’s health status.
Wuhan will speed up its efforts to investigate asymptomatic coronavirus cases and confirm the presence of antibodies in people, which might suggest immunity, the commission said.
Wuhan, which accounts for 60% of infections in China and 84% of the death toll as of Saturday, has been testing inhabitants aggressively throughout the virus’ breakout and many companies had already been asking workers from the city to undergo tests before resuming work.
Wuhan revised up its death toll from the coronavirus by 1,290 on Friday, taking the city’s toll to 3,869, because of incorrect reporting, delays and omissions, especially in the chaotic early stages of the outbreak, authorities said.
China national death toll is 4,632 from 82,719 cases.
Source: Reuters
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08/09/2019
- Two people from the circus have been detained after the animal managed to get out of its cage and run towards nearby cornfields on Friday evening
- It was found the next morning and police used a tranquilliser to subdue the tiger but it died on the way to the zoo, which believes it had been hit by a car
Video footage shows circus handlers using sticks to try to coax the tiger back inside the cage after it escaped on Friday night. Photo: Thepaper.cn
A circus tiger that escaped from its cage during a show in central China was captured by police after an overnight search, but died while it was being transported to a nearby zoo, according to media reports.
Two people from the circus where the tiger was raised in the county of Yuanyang, Henan province, have been detained, Beijing Youth Daily reported, without elaborating. It said the tiger escaped during the circus’ first public show, which had not been registered with the local authorities.
The tiger was part of a performance for a local school on Friday evening when it managed to get out of its cage and run towards nearby cornfields.
A video posted by news site Thepaper.cn shows the moment it escaped from the cage, with its handlers using sticks to try to coax the animal back inside. The scene is chaotic, as people scream and run from the venue.
A tranquilliser dart was used to subdue the tiger on Saturday morning and it was transported to a zoo in Xinxiang. Photo: Thepaper.cn
The police were called in, and officers used drones, police dogs and thermal imaging equipment to hunt for the tiger, according to the local government.
The authorities also put out an emergency advisory telling residents to stay indoors and contact police if they had any information on the tiger’s whereabouts.
It was spotted the following morning, and a tranquilliser dart was used to subdue the animal at about 10.30am on Saturday. The tiger was then transported to a zoo in the city of Xinxiang.
According to one of its zookeepers, the animal had already died by the time it was delivered to the zoo, China Youth Daily reported on Sunday.
The \jsq, surnamed Feng, said the tiger was hit by a car after it escaped and may have sustained internal injuries. The zoo is conducting an autopsy.
Chinese circus tiger attacks two children after breaking out of cage in middle of performance
Thousands of social media users expressed their sympathy for the tiger’s plight, saying it must have suffered greatly, with many people calling for animal circuses to be banned in China.
“Tigers don’t belong in cages, they belong in the wilderness,” one person wrote on microblog site Weibo.
Chinese circus defends using rare animals in its acts despite poor crowds at shows and criticism of its methods.
Source: SCMP
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