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.
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South Africa, Kenya latest to halt arrivals from ‘high-risk’ countries as cases across the continent double over the weekend
Concerns are growing over whether health care systems in some African nations will be able to cope
Masked volunteers provide soap and water for participants to wash their hands against the new coronavirus at a women’s 5km fun run in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday. Photo: AP
Travel bans and school closures were announced in South Africa and Kenya on Sunday, as concerns grew over the capacity of the continent’s fragile health systems to cope with the spread of the deadly new coronavirus, with more than a dozen countries reporting their first cases.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster, banning arrivals by foreign nationals from high-risk countries including Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the United States, Britain and China, effective Wednesday.
“We have cancelled visas to visitors from those countries from today and previously granted visas are hereby revoked,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address on Sunday evening, adding that any foreign national who had visited high-risk countries in the past 20 days would be denied a visa.
South African schools will also be closed from Wednesday until after the Easter weekend. Gatherings of more than 100 people have been banned and mass celebrations for Human Rights Day and other events cancelled. “Never before in the history of our democracy has our country been confronted with such a severe situation,” Ramaphosa said.
In Kenya, where three cases of Covid-19 – the disease caused by the new coronavirus – have now been confirmed, President Uhuru Kenyatta suspended travel from any country with reported infections. Only Kenyan citizens and foreigners with valid residency permits would be allowed entry, provided they proceeded to self-quarantine or a government-designated quarantine facility, he said.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta reports two more cases of coronavirus in the country, bringing its total number of cases to three. Photo: DPA
Kenyatta also suspended learning in all educational institutions with immediate effect. “Some of the measures may cause inconvenience, but I want to assure you they are designed to ensure that we effectively contain the spread of the virus,” he said.
Kenya and South Africa join Ghana, Rwanda and Morocco in implementing travel restrictions or outright bans, while others are closing churches, museums, sporting activities, nightclubs and tourist attractions in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.
The continent was largely spared in the early days of the outbreak but has now recorded more than 300 cases and six deaths. Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia all reported more new cases over the weekend, which saw numbers of new infections across Africa more than double in just two days.
As numbers rise, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there are around a dozen countries on the continent without the capacity to do their own testing.
They will have to send samples to countries like South Africa, which itself is struggling to contain the virus, with confirmed cases doubling to 61 on Sunday, a day after 114 of its citizens were repatriated from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak and the first to be placed in lockdown.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, warned that the risk of other African countries detecting new cases of Covid-19 remained high. “Our strategy is clear: we want to capacitate the member states, so they can quickly detect and mitigate the effects of the disease in Africa, and, if widespread transmission occurs, prevent severe illness and death,” he said.
The World Health Organisation has already warned that critical gaps remain in the capacity of many African nations to trace, detect and treat the disease. On Friday, the WHO Africa office said it was “striving to help member states fill these gaps” but warned of global shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) including gloves, masks and hand sanitiser.
Major coronavirus outbreak in Africa ‘just a matter of time’
13 Mar 2020
WHO said its first blanket distribution of PPEs, to 24 African countries, had been completed and another wave of distributions was planned.
“With Covid-19 officially declared a pandemic, all countries in Africa must act,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “Every country can still change the course of this pandemic by scaling up their emergency preparedness or response.
“Cases may still be low in Africa and we can keep it that way with robust all-of-government actions to fight the new coronavirus.”
The 55 member states of the African Union have suspended meetings until May, while the six countries that make up the East African Community have suspended all planned meetings until further notice.
In Algeria – one of the worst-hit North African countries, with 48 cases and four deaths, as of Monday morning – all schools and universities have been closed, while Senegal, with 24 cases to date, has closed schools and cancelled its Independence Day festivities on April 4, which this year marks 60 years since its independence from France. Cruise ships have also been banned from docking in Senegal.
On Sunday, Rwanda closed all its places of worship and suspended large gatherings such as weddings and sporting activities. Schools and universities in the central African country are also closed. National airline RwandAir has also suspended flights between the capital Kigali and Mumbai until April 30.
This is in addition to earlier suspensions of its routes with Tel Aviv and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, which remain in place until further notice.
While most African airlines have suspended flights to cities in mainland China, Ethiopian Airlines has continued flying to most of its destinations, describing its China routes as among its most profitable. Nevertheless, chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam last week said coronavirus fears had cut demand by a fifth on most of its routes.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China tentatively plans to hold its delayed annual gathering of parliament in late April or early May, two people involved in preparations told Reuters, as new coronavirus cases in the country drop sharply even as they surge elsewhere.
The annual meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), known as the “two sessions”, were scheduled for early March but were delayed due to the virus outbreak, with no new date announced.
Holding the events, which typically draw a combined 5,000 delegates to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, would be a major indication that the Chinese leadership sees things as returning to normal.
The State Council Information Office and the media department of the Standing Committee of the NPC did not immediately respond to faxed requests for comment on Monday.
The outbreak that originated in the central city of Wuhan has infected more than 80,000 people in the country, killed 3,200 and wreaked economic havoc, causing factory output to plunge at the sharpest pace in three decades.
The NPC’s timing is not finalised, and one of the people said the number of attendees may be reduced, with those visiting from outside Beijing needing to undergo quarantine.
People now arriving in the capital from elsewhere in China must spend two weeks in quarantine.
“We still have to play it by ear, as the coronavirus rapidly spreads across the world,” said the person, declining to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
The NPC, China’s parliament, usually sits for at least 10 days. The CPPCC, a largely ceremonial advisory body, runs in parallel.
During parliament, legislators pass laws and unveil economic targets, defence spending projections and other important policy decisions. It is also an occasion for China’s ruling Communist Party to announce major policy and personnel changes.
This year, the NPC is expected to discuss the recent months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, with China’s economy also expected to be a key item on the agenda.
Image copyright EPAImage caption India has stopped exports of masks to make sure there are ample domestic supplies
A 68-year-old woman from Delhi has been confirmed as the second Indian to die from the coronavirus.
The woman, who had underlying health conditions, is thought to have been infected by her son who travelled to Switzerland and Italy last month.
India’s first fatality from the virus was confirmed on Thursday.
The 76-year-old man, from the southern state of Karnataka, died after returning from a month-long visit to Saudi Arabia on 29 February.
People who came in contact with the man are being traced and quarantined, the state’s health minister said. India has 82 confirmed cases of the virus, the health ministry says.
The Delhi woman’s son was “initially asymptomatic but developed a fever and cough after one day”, a government statement said. The family were then screened and the mother and son admitted to hospital.
The 76-year-old Karnataka man was screened at the airport on his return but showed no symptoms at the time. After he developed difficulties last week, he was taken to hospital. He died on Tuesday but it was not reported until Thursday.
India’s Supreme Court has said it will only hear urgent cases from Monday, and has restricted the number of people who can enter a courtroom.
Karnataka has banned all gatherings including weddings, sports events and conferences for a week as the country attempts to slow the spread of the virus.
Malls, movie theatres, pubs and night clubs have also been shut.
“The government will decide on further action after a week following a review,” the state’s chief minister BS Yediyurappa announced on Friday.
But he said that government offices would continue to function as normal.
India has taken a number of steps to halt the spread of Covid-19:
All visas, barring a select few categories, have been suspended for a month
Visa-free travel afforded to overseas citizens of the country has been suspended until 15 April and even those allowed in could be subject to 14 days of quarantine
Schools, colleges and movie theatres in the capital, Delhi, have been shut until 31 March
The Indian Premier League (IPL), featuring nearly 60 foreign players and scheduled to begin on 29 March, has been postponed to 15 April
Two one-day cricket matches between India and South Africa will be played behind closed doors
India’s health ministry says it was among the first countries in the world to prepare for an outbreak of the respiratory illness, and denied allegations that it was slow in testing suspected cases.
“Our surveillance system is strong and we are able to quickly identify any symptomatic patients,” RR Gangakhedkar from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) told reporters on Thursday.
However, there are concerns about whether the country will be fully equipped to prevent and treat an outbreak.
It would be near impossible for India to force its citizens into mass quarantine and hospitalise people in numbers like China, says the BBC’s Soutik Biswas.
Our correspondent says there are also concerns about the country’s poor healthcare data. India has a shoddy record in even recording deaths and disease – only 77% of deaths are registered, and doctors are more likely to get the cause of death wrong than right, according to a study the Toronto-based Centre for Global Research. There is patchy data for flu-related deaths.
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) — China on Friday issued a report on human rights violations in the United States.
Titled “The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019,” the report said the facts detailed in the document show that “in recent years, especially since 2019, the human rights situation in the United States has been poor and deteriorating.”
The State Council Information Office released the report based on published data, media reports and research findings. It began by citing a quote from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech on April 15, 2019: “We lied, we cheated, we stole … It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
“The remarks of U.S. politicians have completely exposed their hypocrisy of adopting double standards on human rights issues and using them to maintain hegemony,” read the report.
The United States released annual reports to “distort and belittle” human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform to U.S. strategic interests, but turned a blind eye to the “persistent, systematic and large-scale” human rights violations in its own country, the report said.
Consisting of foreword and seven chapters, it detailed facts on human rights violations in the United States relevant to civil and political rights, social and economic rights, discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities, discrimination and violence against women, living conditions of vulnerable groups, and abuses suffered by migrants, as well as U.S. violations of human rights in other countries.
The lack of restraint in the right to hold guns has led to rampant gun violence, posing a serious threat to citizens’ life and property safety in the United States, the report said.
“The United States is a country with the worst gun violence in the world,” read the report. In total, 39,052 people died from gun-related violence in the United States in 2019, and a person is killed with a gun in the United States every 15 minutes, figures showed.
Wealth polarization in the United States hit a 50-year high in 2018, the report said. In 2018, the wealthiest 10 percent held 70 percent of total household wealth. The bottom 50 percent saw essentially zero net gains in wealth over the past 30 years, it noted.
Regarding discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities in the United States, the report said the political structure and ideology of white supremacy in the United States have caused ethnic minorities to suffer all-round discrimination in various fields such as politics, economy, culture and social life.
Since 2016, white supremacy in the United States has shown a resurgence trend, leading to racial opposition and hatred, it noted.
Women in the United States face severe discrimination and violence, according to the report. Women in the United States were 21 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than women in peer nations, it noted, adding that sexual assault cases against women kept increasing.
About the living conditions of vulnerable groups, the report said tens of millions of U.S. children, elderly people, and disabled people live without enough food or clothing, and face threats of violence, bullying, abusing and drugs.
“The U.S. government not only has insufficient political will to improve the conditions for vulnerable groups but also keeps cutting relevant funding projects,” read the report.
While levels of extreme poverty worldwide had dropped dramatically, the poverty ratio of U.S. children was about the same rate as 30 years ago, it said.
The report noted the increasingly strict and inhumane measures taken by the U.S. government against immigrants in recent years, in particular, the “zero-tolerance” policy, which caused the separations of many immigrant families.
Many unaccompanied immigrant children were held in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions, the report said.
It noted grave abuses at detention facilities for immigrants, including injecting them with sedatives, keeping them in handcuffs, and depriving them of clothing and mattresses.
The United States also wantonly trampled on human rights in other countries and was responsible for many humanitarian disasters around the world, according to the report.
The economic embargo against Cuba and the unilateral sanctions against Venezuela imposed by the United States had been a massive and flagrant violation of the human rights of people in these countries, the report said.
The United States withdrew from several multilateral mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Global Compact on Migration, shirking off its international obligations and making troubles to the international governance system, it noted.
In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, China pumped a 4 trillion yuan (US$575 billion) into its economy but it led to a mountain of local government debt
Various early indicators suggest China’s economy will slow in the first quarter of 2020, with some suggestions it will suffer a first contraction since 1976
President Xi Jinping said China must accelerate construction of “new infrastructures such as 5G networks and data centres” on top of speeding up “key projects and major infrastructure construction” in response to the economic impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Xinhua
China should not try to bolster its coronavirus-hit economy by again resorting to a massive debt-fuelled fiscal and monetary stimulus programme, according to a group of government advisers.
Various early indicators suggest China’s economy will slow in the first quarter of 2020, with some even suggesting it will suffer a first contraction since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
This raises the question if China will miss its key 2020 growth target, with voices on both sides of the debate discussing what stimulus policies are needed to offset the deep impact of the coronavirus.
China is already leaning towards some additional stimulus, with Premier Li Keqiang ordering the central bank pump additional money into the banking system, while President Xi Jinping has announced the need for more spending on “new infrastructure”.
Are there other ways out for China except stimulus policies?Liu Shijin
“Are there other ways out for China except stimulus policies?” rhetorically asked Liu Shijin, who previously worked closely with Vice-Premier Liu He, the top economic aide to Xi, at the Development Research Centre, the think tank attached to the State Council.
“If it really works, why can’t Japan and the United States reach a 5 per cent growth rate?”
It is believed China will need to achieve an average 5.6 per cent growth in 2020 to achieve its goal of doubling the size of its economy from 2010, which is a key goal for
China’s economy grew by 6.1 per cent in 2019, and while it was the slowest in 29 years, the US economy only grew 2.3 per cent, with Japan’s estimated to grow by 0.9 per cent.
What is gross domestic product (GDP)?
Liu Shijin, who is now a deputy head of the China Development Research Foundation and a policy adviser to the People’s Bank of China, argued that a growth rate averaging 5 per cent over the next decade is sufficient for China to meet its development goals.
Growth in 2020, though, may well be below 5 per cent given that the impact of the coronavirus is “unprecedented” and larger than both severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003 and the 2008 global financial crisis.
Xi said earlier this month that China must accelerate construction of “new infrastructures such as 5G networks and data centres” on top of speeding up “key projects and major infrastructure construction already included in state plans” like additional high-speed railway lines in response to the economic impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
But as this will mainly rely on corporate and private investment, Liu Shijin feels it will be too small to engineer a major rebound in the growth rate.
When encountering challenges, we should first push forward new reform measures to unleash growth potential. Now is the right timeLiu Shijin
“It’s a different thing compared to real [government-led] economic stabilisation,” Liu Shijin told a web seminar hosted by Peking University’s National School of Development on Wednesday.
“When encountering challenges, we should first push forward new reform measures to unleash growth potential. Now is the right time.”
Instead, to support longer-term growth, China should put its efforts into the development of its “city clusters”, which could lead to higher spending on housing construction, urban infrastructure and manufacturing, added Liu Shijin, which would increase the growth rate by up to an additional percentage point over the next decade.
China has so far refrained from the massive stimulus programme it adopted in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis, which included a 4 trillion yuan (US$575 billion) plan that pumped cheap money into government-backed projects but also created a mountain of local government debt.
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Zhang Bin, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said infrastructure construction will remain an important part of any plan to support growth.
“If the funding [for the 4 trillion yuan stimulus] had come solely from treasury bonds or local government bonds [rather than risky lending], there wouldn’t be so much shadow banking, unmanageable credit expansion, high leverage, implicit liabilities or financial risks,” he said.
“If the balance sheets of corporations, households and local governments can’t be repaired, it might lead to insufficient demand and a decline into a vicious [downward] cycle.”
Zhang, like Liu Shijin, is a key member of the China Finance 40 Forum, a group of state economists who advocate more structural reforms to support the Chinese economy. In particular, Zhang has set sights on reforms that would boost consumption, which accounted for 58 per cent of Chinese growth last year.
“The biggest weak link of the Chinese economy is that 200 to 300 million migrant workers can’t [legally] settle in big cities,” he said. “Only if they are able to settle in the city that China can be called a real well-off society. It will also boost the economy, lift demand for manufactured goods and unleashed consumption potential.”
Currently, most large Chinese cities only provide social services including health care and schooling to residents who have a legal permit, or hukou. Most migrant workers who come to the big cities for jobs are blocked from obtaining a hukou, meaning they have to travel back to their rural hometowns to have access to basic social services, so often do not settle in their adopted city.
In response to this idea, Xu Yuan, a professor at Peking University, called for the government to build 10 million affordable housing units annually to accommodate new urban citizens, which would address short-term economic pain and serve the nation’s long-term development.
China will release its annual growth target as well as other key goals, including the fiscal deficit ratio and local bond quota, at the National People’s Congress, although the annual parliamentary convention, previously scheduled for March 5, has been postponed, with a new date yet to be announced.
BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) — China will take new measures to keep the foreign trade and investment stable, and help the enterprises tide over difficulties to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
Further steps will be taken to smooth the industrial and capital chain, and promote work and production resumption in coordination, according to a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang Tuesday.
Li urged continued efforts to give better play to the role of reloan and rediscount to ensure supply of materials for epidemic prevention and control and support firms in difficulty.
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand will temporarily suspend issuing visas on arrival to visitors from 19 countries and territories, including China, to contain the spread of the coronavirus, its interior minister said on Wednesday.
The suspensions were the latest measures imposed in the tourism-reliant Southeast Asian country, which has reported 59 cases of the virus and one death so far. Globally, over 113,000 people have been infected in over 100 countries.
“People from any country who want to come will need to apply for a visa with our embassies,” Minister of Interior Anupong Paochinda told reporters.
“Thai embassies everywhere will ensure that no sick people will travel to Thailand.”
Visa on Arrival (VoA) will be suspended for nationals of all 19 countries and territories previously eligible, including Bulgaria, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Malta, Mexico, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, and Vanuatu, according to a list provided to reporters by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
However, Russian passport holders will not be affected by the suspension of the visa on arrival from Russia, as they can still travel to Thailand and stay for 30 days under a visa waiver agreement, an official at the ministry told Reuters.
Visa exemptions will be cancelled for South Korea, Italy and Hong Kong, Anupong said.
“These measures will solve the problem of foreigners arriving from risky zones,” he said.
Anupong said he would start the process immediately but it was not immediately clear when they will be effective.
Chatree Atchananant, director-general of the foreign ministry’s Consular Affairs Department, said visa applicants will need to present medical certificates and insurance as part of the screening at Thai embassies.
Last week, Thailand designated South Korea, China, Macao, Hong Kong, Italy and Iran as “dangerous communicable disease areas.”
Thai authorities urged people arriving from the six places to self-quarantine for 14 days.
GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) — China urges relevant parties to immediately lift unilateral sanctions against Iran to prevent further harm to the human rights of the Iranian people, a senior Chinese diplomat has said.
Liu Hua, Special Representative for Human Rights of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told the on-going 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council on Monday that imposing external mechanisms without the consent of the countries concerned is not conducive to dialogue and cooperation, and does not play a role in promoting and protecting human rights.
Liu said that the international community should treat the human rights situation of Iran in an objective and fair manner, understand the challenges Iran faces as a developing country in promoting and protecting human rights, and listen more to the Iranian government and the demands of its people.
The unilateral sanctions imposed by relevant countries on Iran have had a significant negative impact on the human rights of the Iranian people, and have also restricted the United Nations and other organizations from providing humanitarian assistance to Iran, she said.
The Chinese diplomat highlighted that it is crucial time at this moment for the Iranian government and its people to fight the COVID-19 epidemic.
“China is providing support to the Iranian side within its capacity, including providing testing kits and other anti-epidemic materials, and sending a team of volunteer experts to help Iran fight the epidemic. China also calls on all parties to strengthen cooperation with Iran on epidemic prevention,” Liu said.
She also highlighted that China has always advocated that all countries should address human rights issues through constructive dialogue and cooperation, oppose politicization, selectivity, double standards, and confrontational practices, and does not support the practice of “naming and shaming” and publicly pressuring.
BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) — China on Monday unveiled its contingency plan to monitor and control the spread of locusts from home and abroad, in a bid to secure grain production and ecological safety.
Regional governance and scientific prevention and control should be given priority, said the plan jointly issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the General Administration of Customs and the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
The plan clarified the goal of locust control, which is to ensure that desert locusts from abroad will not cause harm and domestic locust outbreaks will not turn into a plague, with no more than 5 percent of crops affected.
Local authorities are urged to prevent the invasion of desert locusts from abroad. The plan requires that monitoring stations be set up in Tibet, Yunnan and Xinjiang on the potential migration routes of the destructive pests.
To control locusts in domestic agricultural areas, chemical control methods will be adopted for areas with a high density of the pests, while medium- or low-density areas will use biological and ecological control methods, the plan noted.
The plan also requires an investigation into the hidden dangers of grasshoppers in major grasslands in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Sichuan, and the strengthening of prevention and control at key points on the border between China and Kazakhstan, and that between China and Mongolia.
The rare desert locust outbreak in East Africa and Southwest Asia has posed a severe threat to local grain and agricultural production, which led to the desert locust plague warning issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Although experts believe it is highly unlikely that desert locusts will invade China, it is still necessary to take precautions, said the plan.
China launches a new satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, March 9, 2020, only one step away from completing the whole global system. The satellite, the 54th of the BeiDou family, was sent into a geostationary orbit as planned by a Long March-3B carrier rocket. The newly launched satellite is the second geostationary earth orbit satellite of the BDS-3 system, and the last one is expected to be launched in May. (Photo by Guo Wenbin/Xinhua)
XICHANG, March 9 (Xinhua) — China launched a new satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province at 7:55 p.m. Monday (Beijing Time), only one step away from completing the whole global system.
The satellite, the 54th of the BeiDou family, was sent into a geostationary orbit as planned by a Long March-3B carrier rocket.
China began to construct its navigation system, named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, in the 1990s and started serving the Asia-Pacific Region in 2012. At present, all the first generation BDS-1 satellites have ended operations, and a total of 54 BDS-2 and BDS-3 satellites have been sent into space.
Compared with other navigation systems in the world, the design of the BDS constellation is unique, including medium earth orbit, inclined geosynchronous earth orbit and geostationary earth orbit satellites.
The BDS-3 system will consist of a total of 30 satellites, including 24 medium earth orbit satellites, three geostationary earth orbit satellites and three inclined geosynchronous earth orbit satellites.
The newly launched satellite is the second geostationary earth orbit satellite of the BDS-3 system, and the last one is expected to be launched in May.
The satellite and the carrier rocket were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, respectively.
Space engineers have overcome difficulties during the novel coronavirus epidemic to ensure the success of the mission.
Monday’s launch was the 327th mission of the Long March rocket series.
The new satellite has the most functions and signals, the largest size and the longest designed life span among all the BDS-3 satellites, said Chen Zhonggui, chief designer of BDS-3 satellites from CAST.
The satellite is based on the Dongfanghong-3B platform, currently one of the largest satellite platforms being used in China, and can carry more fuels to ensure its long life, said Chen.
The satellite has integrated the functions of navigation and communication. The accuracy of dynamic positioning can reach the decimeter level, according to Liu Tianxiong, deputy chief designer of BDS-3 satellites.
It can provide services for the driverless vehicles, accurate berthing of ships, as well as takeoff and landing of airplanes. It will be widely used in the fields of communication, electric power, finance, mapping, transportation, fishery, agriculture and forestry.
The ability of short message communication has been improved 10 times on this satellite. Users can send a message of over 1,000 Chinese characters at one time as well as pictures via the satellite, quite useful in emergencies.
The satellite’s ability to receive signals has also been greatly improved, which could help miniaturize users’ terminals, said Pan Yuqian, one of the satellite’s designers.
China aims to complete the construction of the BDS constellation in May and provide high-precision, reliable positioning, navigation and timing services anywhere in the world.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 